As editor-in-chief of the magazineDie Weltbühne, Ossietzky published a series of exposés in the late 1920s, detailing Germany's violation of theTreaty of Versailles by rebuilding an air force (the predecessor of theLuftwaffe) and training pilots in theSoviet Union. He was convicted of treason and espionage in 1931 and sentenced to eighteen months in prison but was granted amnesty in December 1932.
Ossietzky continued to be a vocal critic against German militarism after theNazis' rise to power. Following the 1933Reichstag fire, Ossietzky was again arrested and sent to theEsterwegen concentration camp nearOldenburg. His brutal torture after his arrest was attested byInternational Red Cross. In 1936, he was awarded the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize, but was forbidden from travelling to Norway to accept the prize. After enduring years of mistreatment inNazi concentration camps, Ossietzky died oftuberculosis in 1938 in a Berlin hospital after more than five years of imprisonment.
Ossietzky was born inHamburg, the son of Carl Ignatius von Ossietzky (1848–1891), a Protestant fromUpper Silesia, and Rosalie (née Pratzka), a devout Catholic who wanted her son to enterHoly Orders and become a priest ormonk. His father worked as astenographer in the office of a lawyer, and of senatorMax Predöhl, but died when Ossietzky was two years old. Ossietzky was baptized as a Roman Catholic in Hamburg on 10 November 1889 andconfirmed in the LutheranHauptkirche St Michaelis on 23 March 1904.[2]
Thevon in Ossietzky's name, which would generally suggest noble ancestry, is of unknown origin. Ossietzky himself explained, perhaps half in jest, that it derived from an ancestor's service in a Polish lancer cavalry regiment as theElector of Brandenburg was unable to pay his two regiments of lancers at one point due to an empty war chest, so he instead conferred nobility upon the entirety of the two regiments.[3]
Despite his failure to finishRealschule (a form of German secondary school), Ossietzky succeeded in embarking on a career in journalism, with the topics of his articles ranging from theatre criticism tofeminism and the problems of earlymotorisation. He later said that his opposition to Germanmilitarism during the final years of theGerman Empire underWilhelm II led him as early as 1913 to become apacifist.[citation needed]
That year, he marriedMaud Lichfield-Woods, aMancuniansuffragette, born to British colonial officer and the great-granddaughter of an Indian princess inHyderabad. They had one daughter,Rosalinda. DuringWorld War I, Ossietzky was drafted much against his will into the Army and his experiences during the war – where he was appalled by the carnage – confirmed him in his pacifism. During theWeimar Republic (1919–1933), his political commentaries gained him a reputation as a fervent supporter of democracy and apluralistic society.[4]
In 1921, the German military founded theArbeitskommandos (work squads) built up by MajorBruno Ernst Buchrucker. Officially labour groups intended to assist with civilian projects, in reality the members were soldiers secretly trained by theReichswehr in order to exceed the limits on troop strength set by theTreaty of Versailles.[4]
TheBlack Reichswehr took its orders from a group in the German Army led byFedor von Bock,Kurt von Schleicher,Eugen Ott andKurt von Hammerstein-Equord. The Black Reichswehr became infamous for usingFeme murders to punish "traitors" who, for example, revealed the locations of weapons' stockpiles or names of members. Secret "trials" were conducted of which the victims were unaware, and after finding the accused guilty they would send out a man to execute the "court's" sentence of death. During the trials of some of those charged with the murders, prosecutors alleged that the killings were ordered by the officers from Bock's group. Regarding theFeme murders, Ossietzky wrote:[4]
Lieutenant Schulz (charged with the murder of informers against the Black Reichswehr) did nothing but carry out the orders given him, and that certainly Colonel von Bock, and probably Colonel von Schleicher andGeneral Seeckt, should be sitting in the dock beside him.
Reflecting his pacifism, Ossietzky became secretary of theGerman Peace Society (German:Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft) in 1919.[5]
In the 1920s, Ossietzky became one of the leaders of the "homeless left", centered on the newspaperDie Weltbühne which rejected Communism, but found theSocial Democrats too inclined to compromise with the old order.[6]
Ossietzky often complained that the men who staffed the bureaucracy, the judiciary and the military under the Kaiser were the same men serving the Weimar Republic, something that was a major concern for him as he frequently warned that these men had no commitment to democracy, and would turn against the republic at the first chance.[6]
In this regard, Ossietzky atDie Weltbühne helped to publish a statistical study in 1923, showing that German judges were inclined to impose extremely harsh sentences on those who broke laws in the name of the left while imposing very lenient sentences on those who committed much violence in the name of the right. He often drew a contrast between the fate of Social DemocratFelix Fechenbach who was imprisoned after a questionable trial for publishing secret documents showing that the German Empire was responsible for World War I and that of the Navy captainHermann Ehrhardt of theFreikorps whose men occupied Berlin during theKapp Putsch, killed several hundred civilians and was never tried for his actions. At the same time, Ossietzky was often critical of those republicans who claimed to believe in democracy without actually knowing what democracy meant.[7]
Ossietzky was especially critical of theReichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold (Reich Banner Black-Red-Gold), the paramilitary group set up by the Social Democrats to defend democracy. Ossietzky wrote in 1924:
Whoever has learned from the events of the past five years knows that it is not the nationalists, the monarchists who represent the real danger, but the absence of substantive content and ideas in the concept of the German republic and that no-one will succeed in vitalizing that concept. Defence of the republic is good. It is better to go beyond that to an understanding of what in the republic is worth defending and what should not be retained. This question escapes theReichsbanner; more precisely, it has probably not yet recognized that such a question even exists.
Our republic is not yet an object of mass consciousness but a constitutional document and a governmental administration. When people want to see the republic, they are shown the Wilhelmstrasse. And then one wonders why they return home somewhat shamed. Nothing is there to make the heart beat faster. Around this state, lacking any ideas and with an eternally guilty conscience, there are grouped a couple of so-called constitutional parties, likewise lacking an idea and with no better conscience, which are not led, but administered. Administered by a bureaucratic caste that is responsible for the misery of recent years in domestic and foreign affairs and that smothers all signs of fresh life with a cold hand. If theReichsbanner does not find within itself the idea, the inspiring idea, and the youth does not finally storm the gates, then it will not become the avant-garde of the republic, but the cudgel-guard of the partycrats, and their interests will be defended foremost, not the republic...
And the effect? TheReichsbanner honours the constitution with festivals; theReichsbanner goose-steps; theReichsbanner drapes Potsdam in black-red-gold; theReichsbanner scraps with the Communists andFechenbach sits in the penitentiary. That is the joke of it. But if theReichsbanner had as many determined fellows among its members asCaptain Ehrhardt, then Fechenbach would no longer be sitting in the penitentiary today. French democrats rescued their Spanish brothers in the cause, whom they did not even know by sight, from the claws of a dictator. The thought of an injustice committed somewhere in the world kept them from sleeping. The German democrats and socialists are more solidly organized. It is not at all true that they are as weak-kneed as is always believed; it is just that they have terribly thick skin. Besides, they are faithful to the law and to the constitution. To rescue someone from prison-that would mean acting against the law! God forbid! And Fechenbach sits in the penitentiary.[7]
On 12 March 1929Die Weltbühne published an article byWalter Kreiser, one of its writers: an exposé of the training of a special air unit of theReichswehr, referred to asAbteilung M (Section M), which wassecretly training in Germany and inSoviet Russia, in violation of Germany's agreements under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. Kreiser and Ossietzky, the paper's editor, were questioned by a magistrate of theSupreme Court about the article later that year and were finally indicted in early 1931 for "treason and espionage", the assertion being that they had drawn international attention to state affairs which the state had purposefully attempted to keep secret. The arrests were widely seen[citation needed] at the time as an effort to silenceDie Weltbühne, which had been a vocal critic of theReichswehr's policies and secret expansion.[9][need quotation to verify][10]
Counsel for the defendants pointed out that the information they had published was true, and – more to the point – that the budgeting forAbteilung M had actually been cited in reports by theReichstag's budgeting commission. The prosecution successfully countered that Kreiser (and Ossietzky as his editor) should have known that the reorganization was a state secret when he questioned the Ministry of Defense on the subject of Abteilung M and the ministry refused to comment on it. Kreiser and Ossietzky were convicted and sentenced by theReichsgericht on 23 November 1931 to eighteen months in prison.[11]Kreiser fled Germany, but Ossietzky remained and was imprisoned, being released at the end of 1932 on the occasion of theChristmas amnesty.[12]
Ossietzky continued to be a constant warning voice against militarism and Nazism. In 1932, he published an article in which he stated:[13]
Anti-Semitism is akin to nationalism and its best ally. They are of a kind because a nation that, without territory or state power, has wandered through two thousand years of world history is a living refutation of the whole nationalist ideology that derives the concept of a nation exclusively from factors of power politics. Anti-Semitism has never had roots among workers. It has always been a middle-class and small-peasant affair. Today, when these classes face their greatest crisis, it has become to them a kind of religion or at least a substitute for religion. Nationalism and anti-Semitism dominate the German domestic political picture. They are the barrel organs of fascism, whose pseudo-revolutionary shrieks drown out the softer tremolo of social reaction.
In the same essay, Ossietzky wrote:
Intellectual anti-Semitism was the special prerogative ofHouston Stewart Chamberlain, who, in The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, concretized the fantasies of CountArthur de Gobineau, which had penetrated to Bayreuth. He translated them from the language of harmless snobbery into that of a modernized, seductive mysticism... Contemporary anti-Semitic literature, insofar as it is not simple, crude Jew-baiting, in so far as it claims intellectual consideration, is satisfied to postulate an imposing Teutonism which, examined critically dissolves into thin air like a beautiful Epicurean god. The word blood plays a large part in its phraseology. Blood, the immutable substance, determines the fate of nations and men. Because of the secret laws of blood, Germans and Jews will never be able to mix, must be mutually antagonistic until doomsday. This is romantic but hardly deep. No real science of nationalities can be based on such flimsy premises. For German and Jewish are not fixed categories established once and for all in some mystic prehistoric age, but rather flexible concepts which change their content with spiritual and economic changes dependent on the general dynamics of history.[13]
Finally, Ossietzky warned: "Today there is a strong smell of blood in the air. Literary anti-Semitism forges the moral weapon for murder. Sturdy and honest lads will take care of the rest".[14]
Adolf Hitler was appointedChancellor in January 1933, theNazi dictatorship began soon after in late March with theEnabling Act of 1933, but even then Ossietzky was one of a very small group of public figures who continued to speak out against theNazi Party. On 28 February 1933, after theReichstag fire, he was arrested and held in so-calledprotective custody inSpandau prison. Wilhelm von Sternburg, one of Ossietzky's biographers, surmises that if Ossietzky had had a few more days, he would surely have joined the vast majority of writers who fled the country. In short, Ossietzky underestimated the speed with which the Nazis would go about ridding the country of unwanted political opponents. He was detained afterwards at theEsterwegen concentration camp nearOldenburg, among other camps. Throughout his time in the concentration camps, Ossietzky was mercilessly mistreated by the guards while being deprived of food. In November 1935, when a representative of the International Red Cross visited Ossietzky, he reported that he saw "a trembling, deadly pale something, a creature that appeared to be without feeling, one eye swollen, teeth knocked out, dragging a broken, badly healed leg . . . a human being who had reached the uttermost limits of what could be borne".[15]
Carl von Ossietzky Memorial in the Berlin districtPankow
Ossietzky's international rise to fame began in 1936 when, already suffering from serioustuberculosis, he was awarded the 1935Nobel Peace Prize. The government had been unable to prevent this but refused to release him to travel toOslo to receive the prize. In an act ofcivil disobedience, afterHermann Göring prompted him to decline the prize, Ossietzky issued a note from the hospital saying that he disagreed with the authorities who had stated that by accepting the prize he would cast himself outside thedeutsche Volksgemeinschaft (community of German people):
After much consideration, I have made the decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize which has fallen to me. I cannot share the view put forward to me by the representatives of theSecret State Police that in doing so I exclude myself from German society. The Nobel Peace Prize is not a sign of an internal political struggle, but of understanding between peoples. As a recipient of the prize, I will do my best to encourage this understanding and as a German I will always bear in mind Germany's justifiable interests in Europe.
The award of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize to Ossietzky was so controversial that KingHaakon VII of Norway stayed away from the ceremony
The award was extremely controversial, prompting two members of the prize committee to resign because they held or had held positions in the Norwegian government.[16] KingHaakon VII of Norway, who had been present at other award ceremonies, stayed away from the ceremony.[17]
The award divided public opinion and was generally condemned by conservative forces. The leading conservative Norwegian newspaperAftenposten argued in an editorial that Ossietzky was a criminal who had attacked his country "with the use of methods that violated the law long before Hitler came into power" and that "lasting peace between peoples and nations can only be achieved by respecting the existing laws".[citation needed]
Ossietzky's Nobel Prize was not allowed to be mentioned in the German press and a government decree forbade German citizens from accepting future Nobel Prizes.[8][18]
In May 1936, Ossietzky was sent to the Westend hospital inBerlin-Charlottenburg because of his tuberculosis, but under Gestapo surveillance. On 4 May 1938, he died in the Nordend hospital inBerlin-Pankow, still in police custody,[2] of tuberculosis and from the after-effects of the abuse he suffered in the concentration camps.[citation needed]
Supporters of convicted Nobel Prize-winning Chinese dissidentLiu Xiaobo compared him to Ossietzky, both being prevented by the authorities from accepting their awards and both having died while in custody.[19][20] TheInternational League for Human Rights (Berlin) awards an annual Carl von Ossietzky Medal "to honor citizens or initiatives that promote basic human rights".[21]
In 1963, East German television produced the filmCarl von Ossietzky about Ossietzky's life, starringHans-Peter Minetti in the title role.[22]
In 1992, Ossietzky's 1931 conviction was upheld by Germany'sBundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice), applying the law as it stood in 1931.
According to the case law of theReichsgericht, the illegality of covertly conducted actions did not cancel out the principle of secrecy. According to the opinion of theReichsgericht, every citizen owes his Fatherland a duty of allegiance regarding information, and endeavours towards the enforcement of existing laws may be implemented only through the utilization of responsible domestic state organs, and never by appealing to foreign governments.[23]
^ab"Coming to Terms with Democracy", pp. 86–87 fromKaes, Anton; Jay, Martin; Dimendberg, Edward, eds. (1994).The Weimar Republic Sourcebook. Los Angeles: University of California Press.ISBN0-520-06775-4.
Ossietzky, Carl von (1988). Stefan Berkholz (ed.).227 Tage im Gefängnis. Briefe, Texte, Dokumente (in German). Darmstadt: Luchterhand Literatur Verlag.
Carl von Ossietzky, Peter Jörg Becker; Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg. 1975Die theologischen Handschriften der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg: Die Foliohandschriften, Volume 1. Dr. Ernst Hauswedell & Co. (in German).
Maud von Ossietzky:Maud von Ossietzky erzählt: Ein Lebensbild. Berlin 1966 (in German).
Boldt, Werner:Carl von Ossietzky: Vorkämpfer der Demokratie. Berlin 2013,ISBN978-3-944545-00-4.
Kurt Buck:Carl von Ossietzky im Konzentrationslager. In:DIZ-Nachrichten. Aktionskomitee für ein Dokumentations- und Informationszentrum Emslandlager e.V., Papenburg 2009, Nr. 29, S. 21–27 : Ill (in German).
Gerhard Kraiker, Dirk Grathoff, eds:Carl von Ossietzky und die politische Kultur der Weimarer Republik. Symposium zum 100. Geburtstag. Schriftenreihe des Fritz Küster-Archivs. Oldenburg 1991 (in German).
Helmut Reinhardt (Hrsg.):Nachdenken über Ossietzky. Aufsätze und Graphik. Verlag der Weltbühne von Ossietzky, Berlin 1989,ISBN3-86020-011-9 (in German).
Christoph Schottes:Die Friedensnobelpreiskampagne für Carl von Ossietzky in Schweden. Oldenburg 1997,ISBN3-8142-0587-1 (in German).Buch als PDF
Richard von Soldenhoff, ed:Carl von Ossietzky 1889–1938. Ein Lebensbild. (Bildbiografie). Weinheim 1988,ISBN3-88679-173-4 (in German).
Wilhelm von Sternburg:"Es ist eine unheimliche Stimmung in Deutschland": Carl von Ossietzky und seine Zeit. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1996,ISBN3-351-02451-7 (in German).
Elke Suhr:Zwei Wege, ein Ziel – Tucholsky, Ossietzky und Die Weltbühne. Weisman, München 1986,ISBN3-88897-026-1 (in German).
Elke Suhr:Carl von Ossietzky. Eine Biographie. Kiepenheuer und Witsch, Köln 1988,ISBN3-462-01885-X (in German).
Frithjof Trapp, Knut Bergmann, Bettina Herre:Carl von Ossietzky und das politische Exil. Die Arbeit des „Freundeskreises Carl von Ossietzky" in den Jahren 1933–1936. Hamburg 1988 (in German).
Berndt W. Wessling:Carl von Ossietzky, Märtyrer für den Frieden. München 1989,ISBN3-926901-17-9 (in German).
