Giselher Wirsing (born Max Emanuel Wirsing; April 15, 1907 – September 23, 1975) was a right-wing German journalist, author, andforeign policy expert who was active duringNazi Germany and theBonn Republic. He was a member of the Nazi party and contributed heavily to the creation and propagation ofNazi propaganda outside Germany.[1]
Max Emanuel Wirsing was the son of wealthy parents Friedrich and Pauline Wirsing. He had one sibling, an older sister. He studied at various universities, including theLudwig Maximilian University of Munich, theUniversity of Konigsberg, theUniversity of Latvia, theHumboldt University of Berlin, and theUniversity of Vienna. During this period, he changed his name to Giselher, and was involved with the right wing student associationDeutsche Gildenschaft.
Beginning in 1928, Wirsing travelled throughCentral andEastern Europe. He wrote about his travels in conservative magazineDie Tat. He became friends with brothersGregor andOtto Strasser, two early members of theNazi Party and began to associate with others in Nazi circles. He also travelled to the United States in 1930 as an associate of theAbraham Lincoln Foundation [de], a secret subsidiary of theRockefeller Foundation.
He eventually completed his studies in economics at theUniversity of Heidelberg in 1929, then obtained his doctorate in political science in 1931.[2]
In 1932, he published his first bookZwischeneuropa und die deutsche Zukunft ("Inter-Europe and the German future"), followed byDeutschland in der Weltpolitik ("Germany in World Politics") in 1933. He continued to write forDie Tat in association with other right-wing figures such asHans Zehrer,Ferdinand Zimmermann, andErnst Wilhelm Eschmann. He was made editor ofDie Tat in 1933. In October 1933, at the suggestion ofHeinrich Himmler, he was appointed Head of Policy at theMünchner Neueste Nachrichten ("Munich's Latest News").
Also in 1934, Wirsing became anAnwärter, or candidate, for theSchutzstaffel (SS), and began working as an informant for the Nazi intelligence agencySicherheitsdienst (SD).
On November 1, 1938, Wirsing was promoted to the rank ofHauptsturmführer of the SS (equivalent tocaptain), and was made chief editor of theMünchner Neuesten Nachrichten in addition to his continuing work as editor ofDie Tat (which began publishing asDas XX in 1939). He travelled to the United States in 1938. He also worked as a consultant for the cultural policy department of theFederal Foreign Office, for which he wrote anti-Bolshevik language regulations until the end ofWorld War II.
Wirsing formally joined theNazi Party in 1940. Wirsing gave a lecture at theFrankfurt opening of theAlfred Rosenberg-ledInstitute for Study of the Jewish Question on March 27, 1941.[3]
He published his view of thegovernment andculture of the United States in his 1942 bookDer maßlose Kontinent (The Excessive Continent). The book contrasted the American system, which he believed was manipulated by Jewish influence, with a proposed "new world order" in the form of a German-dominated Europeanhegemony.[4] The book was favored by Nazi propaganda ministerJoseph Goebbels, who discussed the book in his diary that year.[5]
In 1943 Wirsing became editor ofNazi propaganda magazineSignal, later becoming itseditor-in-chief in 1945. Until 1944, Wirsing wrote for theDeutsche Informationsstelle ("German Office of Information") in Berlin. TheDeutsche Informationsstelle was an SS propaganda institute specializing in translations of propaganda into various European languages.[6]
He occasionally published under thepen name Vindex, as with the 1944French-language propaganda bookletStalinisme: la politique sovietique pendant la deuxieme guerre mondiale ("Stalinism: Soviet politics during the Second World War"). This booklet argued thatSoviet imperialism posed an immediate threat to the nations ofEurope.[7] ASwedish-language edition was also published, titledStalinismen. Sovjetpolitiken under det andra världskriget. During the summer of 1944, the German Information Office inStockholm distributed 7,700 copies of this booklet.[8]
By September 1944, it had become clear to some Nazi officials that both political and military defeat were impending. GeneralWalter Schellenberg commissioned Wirsing to begin preparing reports considering potential outcomes of such a defeat, based on various sources including SD information provided to Office VI of theReich Security Main Office. In order to preserve his anonymity and allow for purportedly-accurate reporting, the reports were signed with the name Egmont and became known as the Egmont reports.[9] Between October 1944 and March 1945, twelve or thirteen Egmont reports were written.[9]
Wirsing was taken prisoner in June 1945 and soon began to work as a source of information for theUnited States Secret Service. He undertook a study trip on its behalf throughAllied-occupied Germany in 1946, although officially he remained interned. In the internment camp, he advocated making the occupied zone into the forty-ninth American state. He was interrogated by German-American lawyerRobert Kempner in December 1947.
In 1948, during thedenazification process, Wirsing was classified as aMitläufer ("follower"); in other words, a person sufficiently involved with the Nazi party that they could not simply be dismissed as uninvolved, but not so involved as to be charged with any of thewar crimes of the Nazi regime. Such persons were typically fined – Wirsing was fined 2000Reichsmarks, which was reduced to 500 on appeal.[10]
Later that year, Wirsing co-founded conservativeEvangelical Christian weeklyChrist und Welt [de],[1] which was an official journal of theEvangelical Church in Germany from 1949, as well as the highest-circulation weekly newspaper in theGerman Federal Republic until 1963. He became its editor-in-chief in 1954; despite protests from theSocial Democratic Party of Germany, including politiciansHerbert Wehner andWilly Brandt, he held that position until 1970.[11]
In 1967, German magazineDer Spiegel reported that Wirsing had demanded the "violent elimination of the Jewish element" in the fourth edition ofDer maßlose Kontinent, printed in 1943, which they argued had contributed to the "expediency of Auschwitz" and therefore implicating Wirsing in Nazi war crimes. Wirsing threatenedDer Spiegel with legal action.[12]
On April 16, 1959, Wirsing published an article inChrist und Welt which described a man he felt was "a secondAlbert Schweitzer" working in a remote area ofGhana, inWest Africa. The man he was describing was actually the Nazi doctor and SS officerHorst Schumann, then a fugitive; he was extradited to Germany in 1966 to be prosecuted for Nazi war crimes.[13]
Giselher Wirsing was married twice. His first wife was Ellen Rösler, with whom he had two daughters, including journalistSibylle Wirsing [de]. His second wife was publicist Gisela Bonn. Bonn and Wirsing wrote several books together.
