Ernst von Weizsaecker

Ernst von Weizsaecker (1882 – 1951) was a career German diplomat under the Weimar Republic and the Nazi Party, joining the foreign service in 1920. He rose to the rank of State Secretary of the Reich Foreign Office, serving from 1938 to 1943, at which time he transferred from the role of professional head of the ministry to become Reich Ambassador to the Holy See.

He held the Allegemeine SS rank of Brigadefuehrer.

WWII

He was aware fof the Czech crisis in May 1938, writing that the Western press had humiliated Adolf Hitler in suggesting that he had called off his invasion of Czechoslovakia: "Hiler had embarked on no military enterprise, and thus could not withdraw from one. But unfortunate provocation from the foreign press really set Hitler going. From then on, he was emphatically in favor of settling the Czech question by force of arms."

Postwar

Convicted of war crimes in the Ministries Case (NMT), he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, but his sentence was commuted after 18 months. He claimed, in his defense, to be a member of the German Resistance; this is controversial.

Family

His son, Richard, became postwar President of Germany.