29 Facts About Otto Abetz

Otto Friedrich Abetz was a German diplomat, a Nazi official and a convicted war criminal during World War II.

Otto Abetz played a significant role in strengthening ties between Nazi Germany and Vichy France during World War II.

Otto Abetz played a significant role in strengthening ties between Nazi Germany and the collaborationist Vichy government.

Otto Abetz played a significant role in facilitating the persecution and deportation of Jews by the Nazi regime from France during the Holocaust.

Otto Abetz was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Otto Abetz was released in 1954 for health reasons and died in a car crash in 1958.

Otto Abetz was the son of an estate manager, who died when he was 13.

Otto Abetz graduated in Karlsruhe, where he became an art teacher at a girls' school.

Otto Abetz joined the Hitler Youth where he became a close friend of Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Otto Abetz was one of the founders of the Reichsbanner, the paramilitary arm of the Social Democrats, and was associated with groups such as the Black Front, a group of dissident National Socialists associated with Otto Strasser.

The group maintained relations with the media through Luchaire's connection to Notre Temps, and Otto Abetz started the Sohlberg Circle.

Otto Abetz married Luchaire's French secretary, Susanne de Bruyker, in 1932.

Otto Abetz's politics were leftist, and he was known as a pacifist who bridged differences with fascists.

Otto Abetz "pledged his support" for the NSDAP in 1931 and formally joined in 1937, the year he applied for the German Foreign Service.

Otto Abetz was expelled from France in June 1939 following allegations he had bribed two French newspaper editors to write pro-German articles; his expulsion created a scandal in France when it emerged that the wife of the French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet was a close friend of the two editors, which led to much lurid speculation in the French press that Bonnet had received bribes from Abetz, though no firm evidence has ever emerged to support the rumours.

Otto Abetz was present in Adolf Hitler's entourage at the fall of Warsaw, and served as a translator for the German Fuhrer.

Otto Abetz returned to France in June 1940 following the German occupation and was assigned by Joachim von Ribbentrop to the embassy in Paris.

Otto Abetz was head of the French fifth columnists through Ribbentrop's special unit within the Foreign Service.

Otto Abetz advised the German military administration in Paris and was responsible for dealing with the Vichy Government.

Otto Abetz assumed a prominent role in the deportation process, targeting both foreign Jewish refugees and French-born Jews, particularly after the occupation of southern France by Germany.

On July 2,1942, Otto Abetz advocated for the deportation of 40,000 Jews from France to Auschwitz in a telegram, emphasising the need for comprehensive measures within both the occupied and unoccupied zones.

Otto Abetz played a pivotal role in the appointment of Pierre Drieu la Rochelle as director of La Nouvelle Revue francaise, which allowed him to exert direct influence in shaping French literature.

Otto Abetz often entertained guests in both these places, living and working like a self-styled autocrat.

Otto Abetz left France in September 1944 as the German armies withdrew, this despite claiming to Swedish consul-general Raoul Nordling on the seventh of the previous month that the Germans had neither killed political prisoners nor were making any plans to leave Paris.

Otto Abetz was arrested by Allied authorities in the Schwarzwald in October 1945.

Otto Abetz was released from Loos prison on 17 April 1954.

Otto Abetz died on May 5,1958, on the Cologne-Ruhr autobahn after being burned to death in an accident, involving his speeding car near Langenfeld.

One of Eric's brothers, another great-nephew, the Reverend Peter Otto Abetz, was a member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly, representing the Liberal Party.

Eric Otto Abetz has publicly distanced himself from his Nazi relative.