Herbert Blankenhorn

Herbert Blankenhorn (* December 15, 1904 in Mulhouse, † 10 August 1991, Badenweiler ) was a German diplomat. He was from 1929 a member of the Foreign Office, since 1938 member of the NSDAP (member number 6977147 ), initiated in 1943, the Economic Section of the German legation in Bern and was Head of the Foreign Office. After the Second World War, he became one of the most influential professional diplomats of the Federal Republic of Germany. With his name the first beginnings of German foreign policy in the postwar period are connected.

Life

Herbert Blankenhorn was the son of a professional officer Erich Blankenhorn. In the era of National Socialism, he most recently served as counselor of legation, First Class and came on April 2, 1945 in U.S. custody. He was questioned as Embassy attaché in Washington, the Secret Service Office of Strategic Services by insider knowledge from his time from 1935 to 1939. During interrogations, he was able to "put into the light of resistance and to derive the right to work under anticommunist sign at the future of Germany " - although he was not himself a resistance fighter and U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius as " active Nazi and aggressive him propagandists " einschätzte. Blankenhorn ( 1946 CDU member ) was from 1946 to 1949, first elected Secretary of the Zone Advisory Board for the British Zone of Occupation and became after entering the service of the first government Adenauer 1949 Personal Assistant to the Chancellor. In 1951 he became head of the Political Department of the Foreign Office and prevented in this function under the then Foreign Minister Adenauer ( of this office next to his chancellorship held ) the reinstatement of Fritz Kolbe.

After Germany's accession to NATO, the federal government sent Herbert Blankenhorn in 1955 as its first representative there. From 1960 to 1963 Blankenhorn represented the Federal Republic of Germany as ambassador in Paris, from 1965 to 1970 as ambassador to London.

Blankenhorn was a member ( inner circle ) the delegation of Konrad Adenauer, who traveled in September 1955, after Moscow and there reached the return of the last imprisoned in the Soviet Union soldiers and civilian deportees.

1958 were allegations that he had passed the denunciations against a ministry without verifying the allegations without hesitation by the Landgericht Bonn. 1970 elected the General Conference of UNESCO Blankenhorn in their Executive Council; 1974-1976 he was Deputy. Chairman of this Executive Council.

Honors

Works

• Herbert Blankenhorn: understanding and agreement: Leaves of a political diary 1949-1979 Propylaea Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-549-07396-8.