The Myth of Nazi Germany's Foreign Ministry
The idea that the German foreign office during the Nazi period was a stronghold of traditional, aristocratic values is no longer tenable according to recent research, as Markus Bauer reports.
The uproar started in May 2003, when an 84-year-old Marga Henseler wrote a letter to Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister and head of the foreign office (Auswärtiges Amt, or AA). In it, she expressed her indignation about an obituary in the AA newsletter InternAA honouring the diplomat Franz Nüsslein. She reminded the foreign minister that Nüsslein had been responsible for many executions by refusing any reprievals following Germany’s annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1938.
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