Carl von Ossietzky, Nobel Peace Prize, 1935

Carl von Ossietzky (3 October 1889 – 4 May 1938) was a German pacifist and the recipient of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in exposing the clandestine German re-armament.] He was convicted of high treason and espionage in 1931 after publishing details of Germany's violation of the Treaty of Versailles by rebuilding an air force, the predecessor of the Luftwaffe, and training pilots in the Soviet Union. In 1990 his daughter, Rosalinde von Ossietzky-Palm, called for a resumption of proceedings, but the verdict was upheld by the Federal Court of Justice in 1992.

Early life

Ossietzky was born in Hamburg, the son of Carl Ignatius von Ossietzky (1848–1891), a Protestant from Upper Silesia, and Rosalie (née Pratzka), a devout Catholic who wished for Carl to become a monk. His father worked as a stenographer in the office of a lawyer and senator, but died when Carl was two years old. Ossietzky was baptized in the Catholic Church Kleine Michel in Hamburg on 10 November 1889, and confirmed in the Lutheran Hauptkirche St. Michaelis on 23 March 1904.[ There are some sources that state that Ossietzky was Jewish. This was also mentioned in an exhibition in the German archives in 1998.

The "von" in Ossietzky's name, which would generally suggest noble ancestry, is of unknown origin. Ossietzky himself explained, perhaps half in jest, that it derived from an ancestor's service in a Polish lancer cavalry regiment; the Elector of Brandenburg was unable to pay his two regiments of lancers at one point due to an empty war chest so he instead conferred nobility upon the entirety of the two regiments.

Despite his failure to finish Realschule (a form of German secondary school), Ossietzky succeeded in embarking on a career in journalism, with the topics of his articles ranging from theatre criticism to feminism and the problems of early motorization. He later said that his opposition to German militarism during the final years of the German Empire under Wilhelm II led him, as early as 1913, to become a pacifist. That year, he married Maud Lichfield-Wood, a Mancunian suffragette, born a British colonial officer's daughter and the great granddaughter of an Indian princess in Hyderabad. They had one daughter, Rosalinde. During World War I, Ossietzky was drafted much against his will into the Army, and his experiences during the war where he was appalled by the carnage of the war confirmed him in his pacifism. During the years of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933), his political commentaries gained him a reputation as a fervent supporter of democracy and a pluralistic society.

1935 Nobel Peace Prize

Ossietzky's international rise to fame began in 1936 when, already suffering from serious tuberculosis, he was awarded the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize. The government had been unable to prevent this, but they now refused to release him so that he could travel to Oslo to receive the prize. In an act of civil disobedience, after Hermann Göring prompted him to decline the prize, Ossietzky issued a note from the hospital saying that he disagreed with the authorities who had stated that by accepting the prize he would cast himself outside the deutsche Volksgemeinschaft (community of German people):

After much consideration, I have made the decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize which has fallen to me. I cannot share the view put forward to me by the representatives of the Secret State Police that in doing so I exclude myself from German society. The Nobel Peace Prize is not a sign of an internal political struggle, but of understanding between peoples. As a recipient of the prize, I will do my best to encourage this understanding and as a German I will always bear in mind Germany's justifiable interests in Europe.

The award was extremely controversial, prompting two members of the prize committee to resign because they held or had held positions in the Norwegian government. King Haakon VII of Norway, who had been present at other award ceremonies, stayed away from the ceremony. The award divided public opinion, and was generally condemned by conservative forces. The leading conservative Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten argued in an editorial that Ossietzky was a criminal who had attacked his country "with the use of methods that violated the law long before Hitler came into power" and that "lasting peace between peoples and nations can only be achieved by respecting the existing laws".

Ossietzky's Nobel Prize was not allowed to be mentioned in the German press, and a government decree forbade German citizens from accepting future Nobel Prizes.

Death

In May 1936 he was sent to the Westend hospital in Berlin-Charlottenburg because of his tuberculosis, but under Gestapo surveillance. He died in the Nordend hospital in Berlin-Pankow, still in police custody, on 4 May 1938,[2] of tuberculosis and from the after-effects of the abuse he suffered in the concentration camps.

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Sep 11 2018, 0:07:41 UTC