Johannes von Welczeck

Aristocrat

Welczeck was born into an aristocratic family in Laband (modern Łabędy, Poland) in the Upper Silesia province of the Kingdom of Prussia, his parents being Count Bernhard von Welczeck (1844–1917) and Countess Louise von Hatzfeldt zu Trachenberg (1852–1909). Welczeck studied at the University of Bonn in Bonn and in 1897 joined the exclusive Corps Borussia Bonn student club, which was reserved for royalty and nobility at the time.

Diplomat

In 1904, he joined the highly elitist Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office), one of the most prestigious branches of the state under the German Empire. Welczeck began his career as the German consul-general in New Delhi. In 1908, he became the first secretary to Hans von und zu Bodman, the German ambassador to Chile. On 20 November 1910, he married Luisa Balmaceda y Fontecilla (1886–1973) in Santiago, by whom he had four children. Welczeck's wife was a member of the powerful Balmaceda family, one of the richest and most influential families in Chile. Most of his duties in Chile concerned lobbying for arms contracts for German firms, most notably the firm of Krupp AG, the largest corporation in Europe and one of the world's biggest manufacturers of weapons. The Chilean Army had been trained by a German military mission, and German influence was strong in Chile. In 1915, he became the Prussian chargé d'affairs in Dresden, Saxony. In January 1917, upon the death of his father, he inherited the title of count, and was henceforward known as Count von Welczeck.

From 1923 to 1925, he was the German minister in Budapest. From 1925 to 1936, he was the German ambassador in Madrid. In January 1926 he was involved in efforts to circumvent the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles by having the Deutsche Bank make a five million reichsmark loan via the Banco Alemán Transatlantico (which it owned) to the Spanish industrialist Horacio Echevarrieta, in exchange for which Echevarrieta opened up a torpedo factory for the Reichsmarine in Bilbao.

From 9 May 1932 to 15 July 1932, he headed the German delegation at the World Disarmament Conference in Geneva. As someone from Upper Silesia, which had been violently partitioned between Germany and Poland in 1921, Welczeck was well known for his ferocious hatred of Poles, and spent much of his time in Geneva clashing with the Polish foreign minister, August Zaleski, who headed the Polish delegation. The American historian Carole Fink described Welczeck as a "notorious Polonophobe" whose constant Polish-bashing did much to annoy the other delegates at the League of Nations. When the Sanation regime introduced a land reform law in the Polish Corridor to seize the land holdings of the Junker estates, Welczeck represented Germany at the League of Nations Human Rights Committee, where he argued that the land reform in the Polish Corridor was targeting farms owned by Germans to "Polonise" the Corridor, thereby violating the Minorities Treaty, leading to a notable clash with Zaleski. Fink noted that through Welczeck had a strong case in that the land reform had largely exempted the estates owned by the szlachta, he weakened it by his strident and shill manner while Zaleski made a better impression by being calm and conciliatory.

Ambassador in Paris

The Front populaire era and the Spanish Civil War

In April 1936, Welczeck arrived in Paris as the new German ambassador. The French historian Lucas Delattre described Welczeck as a "diplomat of the old school", being well known in Paris for his courtly, suave manners (albeit with an irascible streak); elegant clothing; and his fluent French, which he spoke with a strong upper-class accent. Welczeck had familial connections with the French aristocracy via his step-aunt, the Comtesse Jean de Castelane. Welczeck was the only German ambassador in Paris during the interwar era to be admitted to the Union, one of the most exclusive social clubs in Paris that only accepted the creme-de-creme of the French elite. However, Welczeck was not favored with close friendships with the French cabinet ministers in the same way that his Anglo-American counterparts, namely Sir Eric Phipps and William Christian Bullitt Jr. were. Both Bullitt and Phipps were more popular socially with the French elite than Welczeck, who was somewhat disliked on the account of the regime he loyally served. Hitler's tendency to recall Welczeck back to Germany during moments of crisis as he did in September 1938, March–April 1939 and August 1939 limited his effectiveness as an ambassador with Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker, the State Secretary of the Auswärtiges Amt, complaining that when Germany needed Welczeck the most in Paris he was absent.

Shortly after he arrived in Paris, the Front populaire won the French National Assembly election of 3 May 1936, leading to a coalition government headed by the Socialist leader Leon Blum coming to power. Through Blum was a Socialist and a Jew, Welczeck's relations with him were cordial enough. Blum found Welczeck together with the Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht to be the more reasonable sort of Nazis, stating he considered both Welczeck and Schacht to be "rational, civilized Europeans" whom it was possible for him to negotiate with. Notably, Hitler refused to meet Blum under any conditions, and as such Welczeck became Blum's main conduit with the German government. Blum and his cabinet made a point of visiting Welczeck at the German embassy to tell him that France wanted good relations with Germany and hoped for a return to the Locarno era.

As the former ambassador to Spain, Welczeck played a major role as an adviser on Spanish affairs following the appeal for aid from the Spanish Nationalists in July 1936. Right from the start, Welczeck favored aid to Franco over General Emilio Mola, the other leader of the junta that had launched the botched coup d'état of 17 July 1936 that caused the civil war. He was opposed to two messengers from Mola in Paris going on to Berlin in order to favor Franco, successfully arguing for the Reich to deny permission for Mola's representatives to enter Berlin. Welczeck initially advocated caution in Spain, believing that the junta of rebellious generals who just failed to overthrow the Second Spanish Republic would lose the civil war. More importantly, the new Popular Front government in Paris led by Premier Leon Blum had decided to aid the Spanish Republicans with military aid, which led him to fear that the civil war in Spain could cause a Franco-German war "prematurely" before German rearmament was completed. The news that Hitler had decided on 24 July 1936 to intervene in Spain caused him much worry. The fact that the Blum government under strong pressure from Britain agreed to a policy of non-intervention in Spain was a source of much relief for Welczeck, who became more supportive of German intervention in Spain once it was clear that there was no danger of French intervention. However, even after the intervention occurred he cabled Berlin urging the government to limit the scale of the intervention and warning that the German Condor Legion air raids on Spain were causing the French Left to become more supportive of further intervention on behalf of the Republicans.

The Sudetenland crisis

During the Sudetenland crisis of 1938, Welczeck did not see the French Foreign Minister, Georges Bonnet, between 30 April-25 May 1938, but met the Premier Édouard Daladier several times. Welczeck reported to Berlin statements from Daladier and especially Bonnet that seemed to suggest that France would not to go to war if Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. Welczeck reported to Berlin on 25 May 1938 that Bonnet had told him that France "recognised the effort" made by German to prevent the May crisis from turning into a war. Bonnet's account of the meeting recorded him as saying: "I pointed out to Count Welczeck that if I had not asked him officially to come earlier it was because I feared that in this period of tension it might have been considered that I was making a comminatory démarche".

On 9 August 1938, Welczeck reported that Bonnet had told him: "we [the French] would have to go to the extreme limits of compromise in the Sudeten German question, even though this did not suit the Czechs". On 2 September 1938, Bonnet told Welczeck that "France was definitely going to stand by its commitments". However, Welczeck also reported that Bonnet had told him: "after a repetition of the general peace talk, which I have often heard from him, he added that...he himself, Daladier and other members of the cabinet were sincere admirers of the Führer...he, Bonnet, wished for nothing more ardently than to see the Führer in Paris as the guest of the French government...In the present situation, he wanted to leave no room for doubt that France and Britain at her side, were firmly resolved to hasten to the assistance of the Czechs if they were attacked by German troops...In France and Britain, however, nothing was so ardently desired as peace...we could depend upon it, that the Czechoslovak government would be forced to accept Runciman's verdict, which in all probability would mean the fulfilment of 70, 80 or 90 percent of the Sudeten German demands". Welczeck consistently portrayed Bonnet in his reports as a man who did not want to honor France's alliances with Czechoslovakia in 1938 and Poland in 1939. In September 1938, Welczeck reported that if Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, then France would almost certainly declare war on the Reich. Hitler dismissed out of hand Welczeck's warning that France would go to war for Czechoslovakia.

On 31 October 1938, Bonnet told Welczeck that he wanted a German draft of the Declaration of Franco-German Friendship finished as he wanted to sign the declaration the end of the year. Bonnet warned Welczeck that French people had welcomed the Munich Agreement, which prevented a world war in 1938-but that public opinion was now turning against the Munich Agreement with the feeling being that France had sacrificed too much for nothing in return. Bonnet also expressed concern about an upcoming visit by Neville Chamberlain to Paris on 24 November 1938 as he stated he wanted to avoid the impression that "the agreement had been made under British tutelage". On 8 November 1938, Welczeck told Bonnet that Ribbentrop did not share his concerns about Chamberlain's visit and that signing the declaration was not considered an urgent matter in Berlin.

Assassination of Ernst vom Rath

On 7 November 1938, when going out for his morning walk on the streets of Paris, Welczeck by-passed Herschel Grynszpan on his way into the German embassy at 78 rue de Lille. Grynszpan, speaking to Welczeck in German said he needed to talk to "his excellency, the ambassador" about an urgent matter. Grynszpan had decided to assassinate the German ambassador to France, a task somewhat complicated by the fact that he did not know his name or what he looked like. Welczeck wore a swastika label pin on his coat, showing that he was a NSDAP party member and Grynszpan, who had grown up Jewish in the Third Reich, recognized that he must be someone connected with the embassy. The distance between the worlds of Welczeck, an aristocrat dressed in an expensive suit with a silver handle walking cane who spoke his German with an upper-class accent vs. Grynszpan, a stateless illegal immigrant living on the margins of French society dressed in cheap second-hand clothes who spoke his German with a working class accent could not have been greater. The fact that Grynszpan did not know the name of the ambassador or recognize that he was speaking to the ambassador, instead speaking only of "his excellency, the ambassador" led Welczeck to conclude that he was someone unimportant. Furthermore, spies do not normally tell strangers on the street that they are spies, which led Welczeck to doubt Grynszpan's claims to be a spy with a "most important document" he could only show to the ambassador.

Unwilling to end his walk to talk to a teenager dressed in shabby clothes with an unlikely story about being a spy, Welczeck pointed to the embassy and said the ambassador was there; unknown to him, Grynszpan had a gun and was planning to assassinate him to protest Nazi Germany's antisemitic policies. Welczeck later snobbishly told the French police that he felt that Grynszpan was someone who was beneath him to speak to and he lied about not being the ambassador just to end the conversation. Grynszpan went into the embassy to ask to see the ambassador (whom he was unaware that he had just spoken to), claiming to be some sort of spy who had a secret document he could only show to the ambassador. Growing increasingly agitated when he learned that Welczeck was out for a walk, Grynszpan was ushered into the office of the third secretary Ernst vom Rath to show him his "most important document"; Rath would then decide whether the document was important for him to show to Welczeck when he returned. Grynszpan, who had no documents instead pulled out his handgun and assassinated Rath, shooting him in his office. Grynszpan later told the French police that had he known that the man with the swastika label pin whom he spoke with in front of the embassy was the ambassador, he would have killed him instead of Rath. The assassination was used by the Nazis as a pretext for the Kristallnacht pogrom.

The Danzig crisis

The Kristallnacht pogrom damaged the image of Germany and afterwards, Ribbentrop became keen to visit Paris to sign the Declaration of Franco-German Friendship to show that the Reich was not isolated. On 23 November 1938, Bonnet told Welczeck that he wanted Ribbentrop to come to Paris on 29 November to sign the declaration. Ribbentrop told Welczeck to say that he could not visit Paris as long as there was a wave of general strikes organised by the French Communist Party against the deflationary degrees passed by the Finance Minister Paul Reynaud on 14 November 1938. On 29 November 1938, Bonnet met with Welczeck to tell Ribbentrop to come to Paris as soon as possible, saying "the longer it [Ribbentrop's visit] was postponed the more ominous might be the effect of the intrigues of all the opponents of a Franco-German rapprochement". Welczeck himself urged Ribbentrop to visit Paris in December to sign the declaration as he maintained postponement "would be a more difficult test case for the cabinet and might lead to its fall". On 6 December 1938, Ribbentrop visited Paris to make the first official visit by a German Foreign Minister since 1933. Welczeck was present at a meeting at the Quai d'Orsay attended by Ribbentrop, Bonnet and Alexis St.Léger, the secretary-general of the Quai d'Orsay where the declaration was signed. At a reception attended by the elite of French society to celebrate the signing of the declaration, Welczeck asked Bonnet that "non-Aryan" cabinet ministers be excluded, by which he meant Jean Zay and Georges Mandel, both of whom were Jewish. Bonnet obligated Welczeck, though neither Mandel and Zay had actually wanted to attend the reception as both maintained Ribbentrop was an appalling man whose company they did not wish to share. The only French politicians who attended the reception were Daladier, Bonnet, Camille Chautemps, Jean Mistler and Henri Bérenger.

On 24 January 1939, Bonnet told Welczeck that a statement that he was going to make before the Assemblée nationale affirming France's willingness to stand by its alliances in Eastern Europe "had been framed for domestic consumption". Bonnet read to Welczeck several excerpts from the speech he was going to give and then asked to tell Ribbentrop not to take his speech seriously. Despite Bonnet's efforts, Ribbentrop was furious when he read the excerpts and ordered Welczeck to express Germany's "astonishment" that Bonnet had spoken of "fostering and extending French friendships in eastern and central Europe". On 11 February 1939, Welczeck met with Bonnet. The French and German records of the meeting gave contradict each other. In the French version of the meeting, Bonnet defended the speech he gave before the Chamber of Deputies on 26 January 1939 while the German version of the meeting Bonnet apologized for the speech, saying that it did not reflect his foreign policy. Welczeck had Bonnet saying: "Things were often said during a foreign affairs debate, which were obviously designed for domestic consumption...If a French foreign minister, against the storm and wave of opposition, substantiated our claims to the Sudeten German territory...and then drew his own conclusions privately from the changed situation in Central Europe, he could not be expected to withdraw all along the line when facing the Chamber.".

Later life

In August 1940, Welczeck returned to France to handle relations with the new Vichy regime established after the fall of the Third Republic, but was overshadowed by Abetz who replaced him as ambassador in November 1940. At the show trial planned for Grynszpan in 1942, Welczeck was to serve as one of the star witnesses for the prosecution. Welczeck was to testify that Grynszpan was the "Jewish Gavrilo Princip" and that the assassination of Rath was to the origins of World War II the same as the popular image of the impact of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was on the origins of World War I. The purpose of the Grynszpan trial was to place the blame for the outbreak of war as a result of a Jewish conspiracy against Germany, and Welczeck was to testify that Rath's assassination had set off a chain of events that led inevitably to war in 1939. The implication of the trial, though not stated explicitly, was that the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" was only a defensive reaction to the war that the Jews were alleged to have started in 1939. Grynszpan sabotaged the trial by claiming he had been engaged in a homosexual relationship with Rath and murdered him as a result of a lovers' quarrel, a defense that was considered so humiliating that the trial never took place. In 1943, Welczeck retired from the Auswärtiges Amt. He died in his retirement in Marbella.