Cécil Karl-August Timon Ernst Anton von Renthe-Fink (1885 Breslau,

Silesia Province The Province of Silesia (; ; ) was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1919. The Silesia region was part of the Prussian realm since 1742 and established as an official province in 1815, then became part of the German Empire in 1871. In 1919, as ...

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

–1964

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

) was a German

diplomat A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...

. He was

Plenipotentiary A ''plenipotentiary'' (from the Latin ''plenus'' "full" and ''potens'' "powerful") is a diplomat who has full powers—authorization to sign a treaty or convention on behalf of a sovereign. When used as a noun more generally, the word can als ...

of Denmark from 9 April 1940 until 1942. In 1926, Cécil von Renthe-Fink was posted to Dresden as Joint Secretary of the International Elbe Commission. This Commission had been set up by the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

to ensure that the

Elbe The Elbe ( ; ; or ''Elv''; Upper Sorbian, Upper and , ) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Republic), then Ge ...

was kept as a free outlet to the North Sea for shipping from Czechoslovakia. He was appointed envoy to Denmark in 1936. In 1939 he became a member of the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

. After the

occupation of Denmark At the outset of World War II in September 1939, Denmark declared itself Neutral countries in World War II, neutral, but that neutrality did not prevent Nazi Germany from Military occupation, occupying the country soon after the outbreak of ...

he became Plenipotentiary (''Reichsbevollmächtigter''). In 1942, he was replaced by Dr. Werner Best after the Telegram Crisis. Berlin was hoping for a harder line. In 1943, Renthe-Fink was posted to

Vichy France Vichy France (; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was a French rump state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II, established as a result of the French capitulation after the Battle of France, ...

. In that year, the German ministers

Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich-Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German Nazi politician and diplomat who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs (Germany), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. ...

and Renthe-Fink proposed the creation of a European Confederation, which would have had a single currency, a central bank in Berlin, a regional principle, a labour policy, and economic and trading agreements. He was married to Countess Christa Vitzthum von Eckstädt, daughter of Count Christoph Vitzthum von Eckstädt, who had been the Chief Minister of the

Kingdom of Saxony The Kingdom of Saxony () was a German monarchy in Central Europe between 1806 and 1918, the successor of the Electorate of Saxony. It joined the Confederation of the Rhine after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, later joining the German ...

.H. F. von Ehrenkrook, Otto Reichert, F. W. Euler, ''Genealogisches Handbuch der Adeligen Häuser B (Briefadel)'', Vol. IV, Vol. 20 of the ''

Almanach de Gotha The ''Almanach de Gotha'' () is a directory of Europe's royalty and higher nobility, also including the major governmental, military and diplomatic corps, as well as statistical data by country. First published in 1763 by C. W. Ettinger in ...

'' (Glücksburg/Ostsee: Deutsches Adelsarchiv, C. A. Starke, 1959), p. 401

Notes

References

1885 births 1964 deaths Ambassadors of Germany to Denmark {{Germany-diplomat-stub Diplomats in the Nazi Party