WW2 Diplomatenpass
1944 Superb German Diplomatic passport.
When it comes to rarities and exquisite examples relating to travel documents, one cannot get better than this fine specimen here.
For collectors and passionate historians, fine examples as this one here offers us a glimpse into the past and can shed light to historically important events of the time.
We are all familiar with the outbreak of World War Two and the turmoil that followed, lasting for 6 long horrific years, where too much blood has been shed and unspeakable suffering that has never been seen before unleashed by mankind.
The document in this article is a good example of how diplomacy is used during times of conflict and in some ways the absurd way the cover it gave its user and its family in the destination it was being used for at the time. What I mean here, is the cynical means diplomacy then and today can be used or be misused.
German Diplomatic passport (Diplomatischer Paß) number 696 was issued at Berlin on April 14th 1944 to the wife of high ranking official SS-Brigadeführer Edmund Veesenmayer, Mary. Though the example here was not the one used by this politician, the fact that it was used together with her husband’s trips and journeys to and from Hungary during the last stages of the war is an amazing testimony to the events of the time.
By beginning of 1944 the war was taking its toll on the axis and the inevitable ending was not questioned: the allies were now winning the war and it was only a question of time and the price that the losing side will have to pay and endure. Germany’s allies where horrified at their prospects and during that year they would try and find ways out of this unholy marriage they put themselves in.
Hungary’s position was also dire: she was also aware of the disastrous end that would fall upon her so armistice negotiations were carried out with the allies while still fighting the Soviet Union on Germany’s side. Cracks in the Axis alliance where not going to be tolerated, and once Hitler learned about this, he ordered his army to invade the country, known as Operation Margarethe, and this was done on March. Her fate was not the same as Romania’s, who avoided German occupation. The country was liberated from German presence once the Red Army entered.
During the German occupation, the final solution was being implemented to the full. Adolf Eichmann was sent to Hungary to take charge of the deportation of country’s Jewish population and in a period of about 10 weeks 437,000 Jews were sent to their death in Auschwitz.
By 1944 Edmund Veesenmayer has had some experience when it came to “handling” the Jews in areas under German control and under him as well. In early 1941 he was dispatched to the German diplomatic mission in Zagreb, Yugoslavia and contributed to the Ustashe declaration of independence before the German army marched into the city. His role in the persecution of Slovakia’s Jewish communities is also well recorded the following year. It seems that his zeal and passion to his duties and work had no boundaries and would reach their highest peak towards his last and final senior posting abroad, when he was sent to Budapest. By the end of 1943, after research into Hungary’s possibilities in staying close to Germany should events deteriorate, a deep concern that arouse within the military and foreign ministry circles, a report well prepared by him was sent to Berlin about how to achieve the best methods, politically and violently if needed, to make sure that Hungary does not steer away from its joint path with Germany. The report also emphasized that occupation should be timely considered to achieve minimum repercussions for Berlin. This report was a major factor in Hitler’s decision to invade the following year.
Three days after the German takeover of Hungary he was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer and sent as ambassador to Budapest. He is considered as working closely with Adolf Eichmann on Final Solution by giving diplomatic cover to his activities in deporting Hungary’s Jews to their death at Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland. For example, he would send telegrams to Berlin reporting on transports made, such as one on June 13th to the Foreign Office: “transport Jews from Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania space … with a total of 289,357 Jews in 92 complete trains of 45 cars”. And two days later he reported to the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop also in a telegram that about 340,000 Jews had been sent over to Germany.
Some brief points about the diplomat:
· 1932 – Joining the SS;
· 1934 – Getting a position in Hitler’s economic affairs office in Berlin;
· 1938 – Promoted to SS-Standartenführer for his role in the takeover of Austria;
· 1939 – Active in the dismantling of Czechoslovakia and Tiso’s Slovakia close to Berlin;
· 1941 – Diplomatic posting to Zagreb prior to the invasion of Yugoslavia later on;
· 1942 – Active in the prosecution and murder of Croatian & Slovakian Jews;
· 1944 – German ambassador to Budapest up to March of 1945.
· 1949 – War Crimes trial and sentencing to 20 years in prison;
· 1951 – Released after the US high Commission to Germany’s intervention;
· 1952 – Representative in Tehran of the agricultural Toepfer company.
The passport:
The document here was issued as mentioned above on April 14th, 1944 for travelling to Budapest. Mary was intending to join her husband Edward on his latest promotion and posting to beautiful Budapest. This would seem a rather normal event, if the circumstances were different and not as we know them today.
She does not have a title of course, but the first lines inside the passport do indicate the position of the person she is accompanying with on her travels abroad “Gesandten 1 klasse und Bevollmächtigten”, meaning Envoy Grade 1/Class 1 and Representative of Greater Germany in Hungary Dr. Edmund Veesenmayer. The exit visa on the following page, formality for exiting/entering a country back in them days was dated for the previous day, this could either mean the passport was already being prepared before officially handed over on the 14th or just a typo error, still, I find it rather interesting. The following visas were for transit purposes on her way to Budapest. The Hungarian visa No. 640 from the 18th was issued by Berlin Hungarian embassy secretary Rubido-Zichy Iván (1908-1995; arriving in Berlin in 1939 and after the war left for Argentina in 1950), followed by the Slovakian visa issued on the same day, visa no. 1445. Mary left Germany on April 26th and returned back home, for a visit, the next month after obtaining the German consular return visa on May 11th, visa issued by Konsulatssekretär Anton Hellmann. The Slovakian transit visa was obtained 2 days later, and she crossed the German border on the 21st, returning back to her husband 9 days later. She had several more trips until her new return visas was prepared again by the Konsulatssekretär on November 25th, good for the imaginary date of June 30th, 1945, by then there was no such thing as a “Thousand Year Reich”. The Hungarian exit and return visas promptly applied to her passport as well as we can see on the opposite page. I personally find it historically important the visa extensions at the bottom, dating from January 11th, 1945, made out at the new location of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry that has been moved West due to the advance of the Red Army (have also added an image of a document Ausweis issued in 1945 by the Hungarian authorities jointly with the SS (by the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (or VoMi for short) for evacuation of ethnic Germans west). The ministry or part of its still functioning offices were moved to the border city of Szombathely, which is located close to the Austrian border today, with Graz being at a close driving distance relatively. The German diplomatic staff and embassy was evacuated from Budapest as the war worsened for the Axis to their new location of Szombathely (Steinamanger in German) as well around mid-December 1944. Again, on January the 11th the Hungarian official Foreign Ministry visas were extended as well to June 30th by official Róbert Bérczy. As we can see, several border crossings are made and the last one leaving Hungary for good was on March 25th via the border crossing of Rusovce (Oroszvár), southern Bratislava on the Danube river.
On-line records show that they got divorced in the 1950’s and he died safely and peacefully in 1977 at Darmstadt.
On a personal note, this is utterly a disgrace for all sides for not having this individual incarcerated for all his life if not hanged in the first place!
Have added images of this war-related treasure.
Smaller image source: Wikipedia.
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