Hans-Heinrich Herwarth von Bittenfeld (14 July 1904 – 21 August 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 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

Biography

Herwarth was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

. His paternal grandmother, Julia von Herwarth (née Haber), was Jewish. He graduated from high school in Berlin. He studied law and economics in Berlin, Breslau and

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

. In 1927 he entered the German Foreign Office (''Auswaertiges Amt'') and was first stationed in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. He was stationed in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

1931–1939, where he met

George F. Kennan George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was an American diplomat and historian. He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War. He lectured widely and wrote scholarly hist ...

, Charles W. Thayer and

Charles E. Bohlen Charles "Chip" Eustis Bohlen (August 30, 1904 – January 1, 1974) was an American diplomat, ambassador, and expert on the Soviet Union. He helped shape US foreign policy during World War II and the Cold War and helped develop the Marshall Pla ...

. Fitzroy Maclean, then a young diplomat in the British Embassy, states in his memoir ''

Eastern Approaches ''Eastern Approaches'' (1949) is a memoir of the early career of Fitzroy Maclean. It is divided into three parts: his life as a junior diplomat in Moscow and his travels in the Soviet Union, especially the forbidden zones of Central Asia; his e ...

'' that Herwarth condemned the appeasement of the

Munich Agreement The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Germany ...

, predicted a Soviet–German commitment to non-aggression (which came to pass as the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those powers to partition Poland between them. The pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ri ...

), and saw ahead to what he called "the destruction of Germany". After 1939, he worked at the German Army Headquarters (''OKW''), in the ''Abwehr'' department. From 1945 onward, Herwarth worked for the new German government, first in Munich, then in

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

. In 1955, he became the first post-war German ambassador in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. In 1961, he was head of ''Bundespräsidialamt'' (the office of the Federal President); later he became ambassador to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. From 1971–1977 he was president of the Goethe-Institut, responsible for cultural relations. Herwarth, who by marriage was a cousin of

Claus von Stauffenberg Colonel Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (; 15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German army officer best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair. Despite ...

, belonged to the aristocratic opposition against the Nazi regime. Maclean, who thought of him as an old friend, assessed him as "a patriotic German ... strongly and genuinely anti-Nazi".

Herwarth and his contacts

In his memoirs (''Witness to History'', 1973), former U.S. ambassador to Germany

reveals how, on the morning of 24 August 1939, he visited Herwarth at the German embassy and received the full content of the secret protocol to the

, signed the day before. The secret protocol contained an understanding between

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

and

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

on how to split

Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the a ...

, the Baltic states and

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

between the two powers. President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

was urgently informed, but the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

did not pass this information to any concerned governments in Europe. A week later the plan was realised with the

German invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week afte ...

and the Second World War began. According to the website of the German embassy in London, Herwarth and his superior, Ambassador von der Schulenburg, had already been trying since before the

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 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 Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...

in 1941, and to have given some of the earliest accounts of atrocities against Jews and other civilians behind the Eastern Front and in

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. It's not known how much his Soviet counterparts were informed. Herwath was one of the leading players in the Konigswinter conference that was organised by

Lilo Milchsack Lisalotte Milchsack (née Duden; 27 May 1905 – 7 August 1992) was a German promoter of post-war German-British relations. Lilo founded an association which created an annual conference of British and German decision makers. She is said to be one ...

that healed the bad memories after the end of the

. He worked with the ex soldier Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin, future German President Richard von Weizsäcker and other leading German decision makers as well as leading British politicians like Denis Healey,

Richard Crossman Richard Howard Stafford Crossman (15 December 1907 – 5 April 1974) was a British Labour Party politician. A university classics lecturer by profession, he was elected a Member of Parliament in 1945 and became a significant figure among the ...

and the journalist

Robin Day Sir Robin Day (24 October 1923 – 6 August 2000) was an English political journalist and television and radio broadcaster. Day's obituary in ''The Guardian'' by Dick Taverne stated that he was "the most outstanding television journalist of ...

.Long Life: Presiding Genius

Nigel Nicolson Nigel Nicolson (19 January 1917 – 23 September 2004) was an English writer, publisher and politician. Early life and education Nicolson was the second son of writers Sir Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West; he had an elder brother Ben ...

, 15 August 1992, ''The Spectator'', Retrieved 28 November 2015 ] 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 The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

to publicly confirm the authenticity of the secret protocols to the German-Soviet pact of 1939 dividing

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

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 Stephen Frederick Starr (born March 24, 1940) is an American expert on Russian and Eurasian affairs, a musician, and a former president of Oberlin College. Founder and chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, he is fluent in Russian a ...

: ''Against Two Evils: Memoirs of a Diplomat-Soldier during the Third Reich''. London: Collins, 1981 and New York: Rawson, Wade, 1981 ; his autobiography * Vulfsons, Mavriks: ''Baltic Fates: With a View on WW2. 100 Days That Destroyed the Peace'', Riga-Hamburg-Rostock-London: SIA BOTA, 2002.

References

External links

Imperial War Museum Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herwarth, Hans Von 1904 births 1999 deaths German untitled nobility German military personnel of World War II Diplomats from Berlin People from the Province of Brandenburg Humboldt University of Berlin alumni University of Breslau alumni German people of Jewish descent Ambassadors of Germany to the United Kingdom Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Grand Crosses with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany German diplomats