Otto Abetz

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Otto Abetz bigraphy, stories - German ambassador to Vichy France

Otto Abetz : biography

26 May 1903 – 5 May 1958

Heinrich Otto Abetz (26 March 1903 – 5 May 1958) was the German ambassador to Vichy France during World War II.

Nazi period

Abetz did not join the Nazi Party until 1937, the year he applied for the German Foreign Service. From 1938, he was representing Germany in Paris. There, he joined masonic lodge Goethe in 1939.Jean-André Faucher, Histoire de la Grande Loge de France, Albatros ed, 1981

Abetz attended the Munich Conference in 1938. He was deported from France in June 1939 following allegations he had bribed two French newspaper editors to write pro-German articles; his expulsion created a scandal in France when it emerged that the wife of the French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet was a close friend of the two editors, which led to much lurid speculation in the French press that Bonnet had received bribes from Abetz, though no firm evidence has ever emerged to support the rumors.Adamthwaite, Anthony France and the Coming of the Second World War, London: Frank Cass, 1977 pages 332

He was present in Adolf Hitler’s entourage at the fall of Warsaw, and served as a translator for the German Führer., Thomas Johnston Laub. Oxford University Press US, 2010. ISBN 0-19-953932-4, ISBN 978-0-19-953932-1. p. 52-54 He returned to France in June 1940 following the German occupation and was assigned by Joachim von Ribbentrop to the embassy in Paris.

Following Hitler’s June 30 directive, Abetz was assigned by Ribbentrop the project of "safeguarding" all objects of art, public, private, and especially Jewish-owned. Abetz embarked on the job with enthusiasm and announced to the Wehrmacht that the embassy had been "charged with the seizure of French works of art… and with the listing and seizure of works owned by Jews."Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape of Europa, Vintage Books, 1995, p.120 On 17 September 1940 Hitler allowed Einsatzstab Rosenberg into the game too and soon pushed Abetz out of the confiscation business. The Pétain government protested Abetz’s undertakings in late October, but nothing could stop the German agencies. By the end of October so much material had accumulated at the Louvre that it was decided more space was needed.

Vichy France

In November 1940 Abetz was appointed to the German Embassy in Paris, in occupied France, at the age of 37 – a post he held until July 1944. He was also head of the French fifth columnists through Ribbentrop’s special unit within the Foreign Service.The Central European observer, Volume 23. Orbis Pub. Co., 1946. p. 8 Abetz was never accredited as Ambassador to France as there was never a peace treaty between Germany and France, but he acted with the full powers of an ambassador.

He advised the German military administration in Paris and was responsible for dealings with Vichy France. In May 1941, he negotiated the Paris Protocols to expand German access to French military facilities.

Otto Abetz was one of the few German functionaries who admired and respected von Ribbentrop. His primary objective was to secure complete collaboration from the French, through negotiations with Laval and Admiral Darlan. Abetz’s function eventually evolved into becoming the catalyst for society, the arts, industry, education, and above all, propaganda. He assembled a team of journalists and academics. In addition to running the German embassy in Paris, Abetz seized the Château de Chantilly in the countryside. he often entertained guests in both these places, living and working like a self-styled autocrat. One of the guests, the French fascist Louis-Ferdinand Céline, referred to him as "King Otto I", and France as "the Kingdom of Otto".Spotts, Frederic (2008). The shameful peace: how French artists and intellectuals survived the Nazi occupation, p. 36. Yale University Press.

The Embassy was theoretically responsible for all political questions in occupied France, which included SD operations, and for advising the German police and military. Abetz advised the military, the Gestapo and the SD, who nevertheless did not heed his advice. As the official representative of the German Government with the honorary rank of SS-Standartenführer (Colonel), he sought to seize the initiative as much as possible. In 1940 he created the German Institute, to be headed by Karl Epting, which was intended to improve French-German relations by offering a taste of German culture to the French people. Thirty thousand people signed up for the Institute’s German language courses, but far more popular were the concerts which featured Germany’s best musicians, including Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.Philippe Burrin, France Under the Germans (NY:New Press, 1996) 296-303