Hassell, Ulrich von

(1881-1944)

   diplomat; German ambassador in Copenhagen, Belgrade, and Rome. He was born to a prominent family in the Pomeranian town of Anklam; his character was molded by a strict conservative Lutheran upbringing (his father was a leader in the Young Men's Christian Association). Deciding early on a foreign-service career, he studied law and foreign languages prior to a legal appointment in 1903 with the Prussian civil service.* In 1905 he was assigned to a clerical position at the Chinese Imperial Court in Kiao-Chow. After two years at the Foreign Office he went to Genoa in 1911 as vice-consul, an assignment interrupted by World War I. Although his father-in-law, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz,* recommended that he safely avoid the conflict, Hassell refused to do so. He was commissioned a captain and was severely wounded during the first Battle of the Marne when a bullet lodged next to his heart (he carried the bullet for the remainder of his life). Believing that his wounds had ended his diplomatic career, he reentered the domestic civil service and was assigned in November 1915 to Stettin. Upon Germany's collapse he joined the DNVP and divulged his politics in an article— he wrote regularly for Der Tag—entitled "We Young Conservatives." A cu-rious proclamation for a conservative, the article championed the national state (Volksstaat) while proposing the elimination of classes and authoritarianism.

   Hassell's antipathy to the November Revolution* (he was close to Wolfgang Kapp's* National Union) did not preclude his reentering the foreign service in December 1919 under Hermann Müller,* a socialist Foreign Minister. Assigned to Rome as embassy counselor and charge d'affaires, he was presented the delicate assignment of renewing relations with a long-time ally that had aban-doned Germany during the war. He was appointed consul-general in Barcelona in 1921 and served the four years from 1926 to 1930 as Ambassador in Co-penhagen; after two years as chief envoy in Belgrade, he returned to Rome in 1932 as Ambassador. Throughout, he consistently supported systematic coop-eration with the country to which he was assigned as a means of restoring Germany's great-power status.

   A conservative Prussian, Hassell was also a man of strong Christian principle. Although he joined the NSDAP in 1933, he was repelled by its "vulgarity." When Joachim von Ribbentrop became Foreign Minister in 1938, Hassell was recalled to Berlin.* He was soon involved in the resistance group centered on Ludwig Beck and Carl Goerdeler*; he was arrested in July 1944 and executed in September.

   REFERENCES:Hassell, Hostage; NDB, vol. 8; Schöllgen, Conservative against Hitler; Snyder, Hitler's German Enemies.