Carl von Ossietzky:A Courageous Pacifist

The Hamburg journalist and publisher of the "Weltbühne" was retrospectively awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1936.

by Moira Lenz, NDR.de

"With his sharp pen he fought against militarism and nationalism. Time demanded more from him than civil courage, it demanded his life." When the then Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971, he used these words to commemorate the former prizewinner Carl von Ossietzky. The Hamburg journalist, who always campaigned unwaveringly for peace, democracy and international understanding, died on May 4, 1938 as a result of his imprisonment in a concentration camp. Even during his lifetime he was a symbol of pacifism.

Carl von Ossietzky's youth in Hamburg

Carl von Ossietzky was born on October 3, 1889 at Grosse Michaelisstrasse 10 in Hamburg. He remains the only child of the couple Carl Ignatius von Ossietzky and Rosalie Marie, née Pratzka. The father, the son of a district official from Upper Silesia, worked as a stenographer in the law firm of Senator and later Hamburg Mayor Max Predöhl after moving to Hamburg. He also runs a restaurant in Neustadt. Even before Carl turns three years old, his father dies unexpectedly. Since the mother now has to look after the restaurant, the boy is mainly brought up by his aunt. With Senator Predöhl's intercession, Carl can attend the renowned Rumbaum school, which is reserved almost exclusively for the sons of wealthy citizens.

Moderate student with great interest in politics

In 1901 the mother married the sculptor and social democrat Gustav Walther and took Carl back with her. Ossietzky came into contact with politics for the first time and attended events with August Bebel, one of the founders of the social-democratic labor movement. He does not pass the secondary school certificate even after two attempts. Moderately gifted in science, he wants to be a writer. But since he was denied an academic career, he applied for a position with the Hamburg judiciary. In 1910 he was transferred to the land registry. At that time he was already leading a kind of double life:during the day he spent the hours in the office, in the evening he attended as many cultural and political events as possible.

On August 19, 1913 von Ossietzky married Maud Hester Lichfield-Woods. The politically committed daughter of a British officer and an Indian princess advocated for equal rights at an early age.

Through the war to become a pacifist

When the First World War broke out, von Ossietzky was 25 years old. He is stationed as an infantryman on the western front. His war experiences in the Battle of Verdun are so vivid that he comes back as a fervent pacifist and in future writes against the progress of the First World War. From 1919 he began as secretary of the German Peace Society in Berlin. The only daughter, Rosalinde, is born on December 21 of the same year.

Criticism of National Socialism and Communism

In 1922 von Ossietzky became foreign policy editor for the "Berliner Volkszeitung" and began to write for the "Weltbühne", a weekly magazine for politics, art and business. Kurt Tucholsky also works for the pacifist magazine founded by Siegfried Jacobsohn. In 1927 von Ossietzky became its publisher. He developed into a major polemicist against the National Socialist threat - above all a critic of pro-Hitler right-wing parties and those forces in the Reichswehr and in the judiciary that favored nationalism. But he also holds the mirror up to the communists:he complains that "the word freedom is not tolerated in Red Russia's vocabulary" and that Moscow wants to recruit "willless cronies and dumb servants" in the European communist parties.

The "World Stage Process"

Ossietzky's indictment in the so-called Weltbühne trial finally drew international public attention. The article that had led to the indictment - "Windy from German Aviation" from 1929 - had exposed the forbidden rearmament of the Reichswehr. At the end of 1931 von Ossietzky was sentenced to 18 months in prison for betraying military secrets. He wrote to his wife from prison:"I walked through the prison gate to cheers. This day, which could have been the saddest, has become the proudest of my life." Although he was granted amnesty in 1932, he was arrested again in 1933 - on the night of the Reichstag fire - and taken to various concentration camps, most recently to the Esterwegen concentration camp in Emsland, where the prisoners had to drain the moors under the most terrible conditions.

Maltreated and ill in detention

Carl von Ossietzky was badly mistreated in concentration camp imprisonment:a "trembling, deathly pale something, a being that seemed to be insensitive, one eye was swollen, teeth apparently chipped in," is how the Swiss diplomat Carl Jacob Burckhardt described him in autumn 1935 manages to meet the prisoners in the Esterwegen concentration camp.

Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein supported von Ossietzky

Meanwhile, his political friends are campaigning for the journalist to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Starting in 1935, they campaigned for support for their proposal from numerous celebrities as part of an international campaign. Albert Einstein, Karl Barth and Thomas Mann are just three of the big names campaigning for the journalist to be honored. But the Nobel Prize Committee is reluctant to award von Ossietzky the prize - the Nazi regime is exerting strong foreign policy pressure on the Norwegian government.

Instead, the committee suspended the award in 1935. It was not until a year later, on November 23, 1936, that Carl von Ossietzky was awarded the award retrospectively for the year 1935. By then the writer was already terminally ill:he contracted pulmonary tuberculosis while he was in concentration camps. He was only officially released from prison on November 6, 1936, a few days before the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded.

Nobel Peace Prize for the Nazi opponent

Against the will of the Nazi regime, Carl von Ossietzky accepted the award - and in doing so openly opposed Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Göring, who had personally urged him to forgo the award.

He courageously explains his decision:"After much deliberation, I have come to the decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize that has been awarded to me. The view put forward to me by the representative of the Secret State Police, that I am thereby excluding myself from the German national community, I cannot accept share. The Nobel Prize for Peace is not a sign of internal political struggle, but of understanding between peoples."

But he is not allowed to go to the award ceremony in Norway. A little later, Adolf Hitler decreed that in future no Reich German would be allowed to accept a Nobel Prize. A few days after receiving the award, von Ossietzky went to the hospital to be treated for tuberculosis. On May 4, 1938 he died as a result of the illness.

"Victory over Barbarism"

• Carl von Ossietzky
• The World Stage
• Human Rights League

Incidentally, Willy Brandt, who recalled Carl von Ossietzky in his speech in 1971, was himself significantly involved in the international campaign for the publicist, which ultimately led to his award - an award that was more than just a symbolic gesture, as Brandt did in his Nobel Prize speech emphasized:"His honor was a moral victory over the forces of barbarism."