Hans von Herwarth

Hans Heinrich Herwarth von Bittenfeld (Berlin July 14, 1904 - "Küps" August 21, 1999), also known as Johnnie or Johann von Herwarth, was a German diplomat who provided the Allies with information prior to and during the Second World War.

Biography

Herwarth finished high school in Berlin. He studied law and economics in Berlin, Breslau and Munich.

1927 he entered German Foreign Office ("Auswaertiges Amt") and was first stationed in Paris. He was stationed in Moscow 1931–1939, where he met George F. Kennan, "Charles Thayer" and Charles E. Bohlen.

From 1939 he worked for German Army Headquarter ("OKW"), in the "Abwehr" department.

From 1945 on he worked for the new German government, first in Munich, then in Bonn. 1955 he became the first German ambassador in London after the war, 1961 he was head of "Bundespräsidialamt" (the office of the Federal President), the he became ambassador in Rome. 1971-1977 he was president of the "Goethe-Institut", responsible for cultural relations.

Von Herwarth, who by marriage was a cousin of Claus von Stauffenberg, belonged to the aristocratic opposition against the Nazi regime.

Herwarth and his contacts

In the later U.S. ambassador's memoirs, "Witness to History", 1973, Charles E. Bohlen reveals how he on the morning of August 24, 1939, visited von Herwarth on the German embassy and received the full content of the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed the day before. The secret protocol contained an understanding between Hitler and Stalin in how to split Central Europe, the Baltic region and Finland between their powers. President Roosevelt was urgently informed. The United States did not conduct this information to any concerned governments in Europe. A week later the plan was realized with the German invasion of Poland, and World War II was commenced.

According to the German London-embassy's website [http://www.german-embassy.org.uk/diplomats_and_martyrs.html] , von Herwarth and his superior, ambassador von der Schulenburg, had tried already before the Munich Agreement to persuade Britain, France and the United States not to give in to Hitler's territorial demands.

Hans von Herwarth was the chief contact from the German embassy in Moscow to those of the western powers. Through him, the British were continuously informed on the progress of Soviet-German contacts during 1939. von Herwarth is also held to be one of the German officials who informed the Allies on the decision to launch Operation Barbarossa in 1941, and to have given some of the earliest accounts of atrocities against Jews [http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/history/faculty/hoffmann/rolle.htm] and other civilians behind the Eastern Front and in the Holocaust. It's not known how much his Soviet counterparts were informed.In June 1989, Hans von Herwarth met the Latvian historian and member of the Soviet parliament, Mavriks Vulfsons, during the latter's visit to West Germany. Vulfsons was the first person in the USSR to publicly confirm the authenticity of the secret protocols to the German-Soviet pact of 1939 dividing Eastern Europe into "spheres of influence", a copy of which he obtained in the archives of the German Foreign Office.

Bibliography

* Johnnie Herwarth von Bittenfeld and S. Frederick Starr. "Against two evils". London: Collins, 1981 and New York: Rawson, Wade, 1981

* Vulfsons, Mavriks: Baltic Fates: With a View on WW2. 100 Days That Destroyed the Peace, Riga-Hamburg-Rostock-London: SIA BOTA, 2002.