Metalitta Wiedemann – Wikipedia

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Melitta Wiedemann (Born April 2, 1900 in Saint Petersburg, † September 13, 1980 in Munich [first] ) was a German journalist and journalist.

Announcement of the exclusion of Wiedemann and other members of the attack editorial team from the NSDAP in April 1931 by Joseph Goebbels, published in the Völkisches Observer of 5/6/7. April 1931 (Karwohne edition).

Wiedemann was born as the daughter of German parents in Saint Petersburg. Her father was a lawyer and director of the Russian State Bank in Persia, as well as habilitated orientalist. It grew up in Petersburg and later in Tehran. In the monastery school of St. Nina in Baku, she was given a humanistic education, where she graduated from high school in 1917. [2]

In 1921/22 she fled to Berlin and began studying the economy. She worked as editor at various magazines and published some books on women and youth issues. [2]

Around 1928 Wiedemann entered the editorial team of the National Socialist newspaper The attack One for which she worked until the beginning of 1931, initially as a secretary, from 1929 as an editor. [3] In 1930 she became a member of the NSDAP. [4] Until their distance from the editorial office of the Attack In the wake of the Stennes revolt from 1931, Wiedemann worked closely with Joseph Goebbels in press questions as the editor of the newspaper. During her collaboration, Goebbels recognized the manual skills of Wiedemann, which he ironically as “the only man’s picture” in the editorial office of the Attack described, [5] But later his positive assessment revised to her. He became increasingly suspicious of her because she seemed to keep stennes. In March 1931, Goebbels wrote in his diary that Wiedemann was “the evil spirit” of the editorial team and stated: “A woman will always abuse power.” [6]

According to his own statements, Wiedemann housed Adolf Hitler for three days in 1931 when he was threatened by the SA and was released from the party at the beginning of the same year [7] [8] According to other sources, Wiedemann was excluded from the party in the course of the Stennes revolts, although she was not involved and was outside of Germany at the time. [3] The exclusion from the NSDAP was “because of the fight against the party leader”. [9]

Nazi era [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

From June 1935 to May 1936, Wiedemann was the editor of the Sonntag sheet magazine Gospel in the Third Reich (EvDR), an organ of German Christians (DC) [ten] , as well as from 1935 editor of the weekly newspaper Positive Christianity , a fighter and driver’s leaf of the DC Reich Manager.

During the Second World War, Wiedemann maintained close contact with leading SS officials, including Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich. [11] She also worked with the Reich Ministry for People’s Enlightenment and Propaganda.

From April 1936 to August 1939 Wiedemann was the head of the magazine founded by Eberhard Taubert Counter-komintern , who understood itself as the “combat body of the antiboles of the world movement” and wrote contributions in cooperation with the “Institute for Research on the Jewish question”. In August 1939 the magazine was in The action. Fighting sheet against plutocracy and sedition (at times also with the subtitle Fighting sheet for the new Europe ), renamed. From September 1939 to 1944, Wiedemann was the head of the magazine and editor of the magazine, who was primarily noticed by her rabid anti -Semitism. [twelfth] Despite the racist views she represented-according to the emphasis on the high value of the Germanic-German blood-Wiedemann turned against the classification of the residents of Russia as “subhumans” during the Second World War, which she was among other things in her correspondence with Heinrich Himmler tried to prove the reference to the courage and combat power of the Red Armymists in the war. Instead, she pleaded for the development of the Wlassow Army and the end of the shoulder with the peoples of the Soviet Union against “Bolshevism”. The magazine was published by the “Nibelungen-Verlag” Berlin, for which Wiedemann worked as an editor and editor from 1937 to April 1945. At the same time also editor of the magazine “Folk and Faith”. [2]

According to Hans Mommsen, the ministerial director in the Reich Chancellery (and later participants of the Wannsee Conference) Wilhelm Kritzinger learned in 1939 by Wiedemann from the mass murder of Jews in Poland, whereupon he tried to find out more information about this topic. [13]

In a letter to Heinrich Himmler of May 26, 1943, Wiedemann advocated a fundamental change in the course of German politics towards the peoples of the eastern areas occupied by Germany: Instead of systematically suppressing and destroying them, the German Reich should be exhausted in the occupied areas Find allies: Instead of the German armies in the fight against potentially as an ally, the peoples, according to the model of British colonial policy, were to be captured for their own cause: the British would not combat the peoples of their colonies (and their own Surve in losses), but they would manipulate them to fight for their goals. The result is that the British could keep their own losses small in the wars they run, since it was above all the auxiliary peoples and not the British themselves, “who would carry their blood victims” in these wars. It should also keep Germany. Because, the goal set for the time after the war to settle in the east and “to create a farmer’s floor for German blood” would be due to the huge “blood loss” that the German people suffer in war, if one continued in the previous way, with “with” Absolute security “made impossible. The alternative plan developed by Wiedemann to Himmler to the war strategy, which was then pursued by the Reich leadership, provided with the help of the parts of the eastern population obtained for the German cause, a “political and administrative basic building” was to be created, which “like no other German leadership” would. This building would “of course inevitably” be dominated by “the racial and mental movement element of a leadership selection, the SS”. An “further mixture of racial” would be prevented by the production of “national cultural autonomies”. The “nationally structured peoples” of Europe under German leadership would then carry out “the selection that could produce an ever increasing Nordic-Germanic-determined leadership in decades and centuries. In the course of the organization of these autonomous peoples, the German language must of course be established as a language of communication of all of these ethnic groups in order to combine racial selection into a real unit. [14]

During the SS leadership, Wiedemann aroused unwillingness with her attempts to bring her political visions: the SS Hauptsturmführer August mine from the personal staff of Heinrich Himmler classified Wiedemann as a person because of her attempts to influence political leadership, “the” tries to interfere in political questions in an inappropriate manner. ” In November 1944, Wiedemann was then taken care of by Gestapo for a few days for interference in German Eastern Policy and the suspicion of Sabotage. Mine asked all SS leaders who knew that they were connected to Wiedemann (including Gunter d’Alquen) to solve their relationships with her. [15] After a short stay in a concentration camp, Wiedemann was released by imparting political friends. In July 1945, she fled from Berlin to Munich in front of the approaching Russian army and came into custody by US military authorities. [2]

post war period [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

After the Second World War, Wiedemann continued to work as a publicist and a translator. From 1948 she worked at the Munich Dom-Verlag. From 1955 to 1965 she worked as a secretary at the cooperative of German stage members in the DGB. [2] She wrote among others in the trade union issues.

With a letter campaign in March 1977, Wiedemann appeared publicly and was therefore involved in a controversy around the Reichstag fire in March 1933. The so -called Luxembourg Committee (which the National Socialists considered the responsible for the fire of the Reichstag building in February 1933 stood here) and the group around the constitutional protector Fritz Tobias (who considered a single offender of the Dutch Marinus van der Lubbe as proven). The letter campaign included numerous copies of a “open letter” addressed to Walther Hofer to various newspaper editors and outstanding personalities of public life (including Willy Brandt). Fritz Tobias had also written a similar letting letter to the Russian journalist Lew Besymenski. They criticized Hofer, especially Edouard Calic. They had the “unexplored intention of arranging Calic for a lawsuit against their criticism”. Calic did not go into it. [16] Wiedemann had previously filed a complaint at the Free University and the Berlin public prosecutor in 1976 with the aim of disclosing Calic’s doctorate. However, she failed with her project. [17]

Wiedemann was also involved against atomic threat and for more environmental awareness [2] And from 1979 it worked politically among the Greens. [16]

Writings:

  • The new housekeeping professions , 1928.
  • Woman, economy and culture , 1929.
  • Sin against life. Art exposes Bolshevism , in: The action from February 1944, pp. 97-105

Translations:

  • Norman O. Brown: Future in the sign of the eros , Pfullingen 1962.
  • W.I. Male: War and coexistence in the Soviet perspective , Pfullingen 1969.

Magazine attachments:

  1. ↑ Werner Renz (ed.): “Leave from God and the world”. Fritz Bauer’s letters to Thomas Harlan. With introductions and comments by Werner Renz and Jean-Pierre Stephan, Campus, Frankfurt a. M. 2015, ISBN 978-3-593-50468-1, p. 245, note 248; Dterer Register of the City of Munich: Sterber Register No. 1980/1945.
  2. ↑ a b c d It is f Brief biography Melitta Wiedemann (note 77); In text excerpts from: Helmut Schumacher / Klaus J. Dorsch: A. Paul Weber: Life and work in texts and pictures , Can be viewed online in the Paul Weber Museum
  3. ↑ a b Russel Lemmons, Goebbels and the attack , Lexington 1994, S. 29
  4. ↑ Kurz biography in: Lena Foljanty, David Johst, Fritz Bauer (1921-1961 Volume 1, 1962-1969 Volume 2): Small fonts , Campus publisher 2018, p. 863
  5. ↑ Elke Fröhlich (ed.): Goebbelser diaries, Vol. 2/I, p. 288 (entry of November 21, 1930).
  6. ↑ Elke Fröhlich (ed.): Goebbelser diaries, Vol. 2/I, pp. 359f. (Entries dated March 9 and 10, 1931).
  7. ↑ Ronen Steinke, Fritz Bauer: or Auschwitz in court , Piper publisher, 2013, S. 199, ISBN 978-3-492-9662-5
  8. ↑ For example, Wiedemann stated in an interview on June 23, 1971: “[I] had left the party 31 in March”. (see. Witness Setting Wiedemann, Melitta, Bl. 1. (PDF) Institute for Contemporary History, accessed on September 7th, 2020 . Available under Witness Scripture Wiedemann, Melitta. Accessed on September 7th, 2020 . )
  9. ↑ Sigmund Graff, By S. M. zu N. S.: Memories e. Stage author (1900-1945) , Verlag Welsermühl 1963, p. 327
  10. ↑ Rainer Hering, The faith movement of German Christians and their periodics , In: Michel Grunewald, Uwe Puschner, Hans Manfred Bock, The Protestant intellectual milieu in Germany, its press and its networks: 1871-1963 , Verlag Peter Lang 2008, p. 450
  11. ↑ David Banker, Questions about the Holocaust: interviews with prominent researchers and thinkers. Göttingen, Wallstein Verlag 2006, ISBN 978-3-8353-0095-8, (Interview with Hans Mommsen) p. 278
  12. ↑ Wolfgang Benz, Brigitte Mihok, Handbook of anti -Semitism Band 5, Walter of Gruyter 2012, Seen 29F
  13. ↑ David Bankier (ed.): Holocaust. Interviews with prominent researchers and thinkers , 2006, here: Interview with Hans Mommsen, pp. 255–282, here. S 278.
  14. ↑ Mario tock: The black corps. History and shape of the organ of the Reich leadership SS , (= Media in research + lessons, ser. A, vol. 51) Tübingen 2002, p. 60.
  15. ↑ Mario tock: The black corps. History and shape of the organ of the Reich leadership SS , (= Media in research + lessons, ser. A, vol. 51) Tübingen 2002, p. 60.
  16. ↑ a b Karl-Heinz Janßen: “History from the Dark Chamber” in: The period of September 14, 1979 .
  17. ↑ Alexander Bahar, Wilfried Kugel: The Reichstag fire. How history is made . edition q, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-86124-513-2, S. 812.