352 Insignia for Diplomats of the Reichs Foreign Ministry from the Estate of Hans - Otto Meissner
Silver insignia features national eagle and is engraved: "R:A:M: TOKIO / NR. 3". Reverse features undamaged pin and the manufacturer's mark " C. E. JUNCKER BERLIN SW" with silver hallmark "900".
Included is a copy of the book by Hans Otto Meissner: "In Stormy Times. As a Diplomat in London, Tokyo, Moscow, Milan". Bechtle Verlag, Esslingen and Munich, 1990.
Hans-Otto Meissner (4 June 1909 in Strasbourg - 8 September 1992 in Unterwössen) was a German Diplomat and writer. He was the son of the minister of State Otto Meissner.
After completing his studies at the University of Göttingen, Meissner worked for a few months in the Prussian Judicial Service in 1933. In December 1933 he passed the entrance exam for the Foreign Service. On 12 December 1933, he was admitted to the SS (membership number 241,955), namely to the so-called Motor-SS (since 1 May 1940 in the rank of Hauptsturmführer). According to Meissner's own statements in his autobiography, Josias zu Waldeck and Pyrmont suggested this membership to him.
In February 1934, Meissner entered the diplomatic service as a civil servant with the rank of attaché. He initially belonged to Department IV "Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, East Asia". Among the young leaders who came with him into the civil service was Ernst vom Rath.
In 1934, in the barracks of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler in Lichterfelde, the former Main Cadet Academy, to which he had been ordered along with other members of his unit to defend the academy in the event of an SA uprising, Meissner became an eyewitness to executions in the wake of the political purge known as the "Röhm Putsch".
On November 1, 1934, Meissner received his doctorate in law with a dissertation on power of attorney and ratification in international treaties under German law.
From August 1935 to March 1936, Meissner was employed at the German embassy in London. After passing the diplomatic-consular examination on 24 June 1936, he was sent to the German embassy in Tokyo in September of that year. There he worked from December 1936 to December 1938, in the rank of legation secretary - under ambassador Eugen Ott. During this time, Meissner also became a member of the NSDAP (membership number 3,762,629). On 22 September 1937 he married Estelle Dittenberger. The marriage produced a daughter, Andrea Meissner (*1 March 1943). From March 1939 until the declaration of war on 3 September 1939, he was again assigned to the German embassy in London.
From September 1939 to March 1940, he was employed in the Information Department of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin, Division II (military intelligence and propaganda service), and then worked at the German embassy in Moscow from March to July 1940. From August 1940 to January 1941 he served in the Wehrmacht. From January 1941 to March 1941 he worked again at the embassy in Moscow. This was followed, from March to December 1941, by renewed service in the Wehrmacht. He was promoted to Oberleutnant der Reserve (1 November 1941). After being wounded on the Eastern Front in the tank battle of Dubysa, he returned to the diplomatic service.
After he had already received the rank of Envoy in August 1941, Meissner was assigned to head the German Consulate General in Milan in December, which he led until 1945. He also had the function of cultural officer. In this role, he took part in the meeting of the anti-Jewish foreign executive under Horst Wagner at the beginning of April 1944 in Karpacz. According to the minutes of the meeting, Meissner recommended, "to highlight the anti-Jewish activity in Italy and the large Jewish participation in forbidden acts (trafficking, Sabotage, etc.)". Historian Sebastian Weitkamp assesses Meissner's statements documented in the conference minutes as "suggestions for intensifying anti-Semitic Propaganda". On 1 May 1944, Meissner was appointed consul, first class.
In May 1945, two weeks after the end of the war, Meissner and his consular staff were arrested by American troops near Bellagio and interned in prison camp No. 334 near Scandicci. After a few weeks in this camp, he and his fellow prisoners were transferred to a comfortable camp in a hotel complex in the seaside resort of Salsomaggiore. Meissner himself later said that probably a letter of for assistance from him to Pope Pius XII, a close friend of the Meissner family, had led to the improvement in his living conditions.
After the war, Meissner denied the authenticity of the minutes of the Krummhübler meeting of April 1944 and, during an interrogation in allied custody on 29 April 1947, denied that he had made these anti-Semitic proposals. After his release from American internment in October 1947, Meissner worked as a freelance Journalist and writer. Until 1991, he published numerous travelogues, novels, and biographies of the great explorers. In addition, there were autobiographical writings as well as works on recent contemporary history. His books have been translated into many languages, including Bulgarian, Danish, English, Finnish, French, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Slovenian, Spanish and Czech.
In addition, he publicly stepped forward as president of the German Institute for Ways of Life, a post to which he was elected on 28 June 1953 in Bad Pyrmont at the founding congress of the society. His election was justified by his"merits for the revival of cultivated manners." In 1956, Meissner married the writer Marianne Mertens, her second marriage.
Despite isolated criticism for his past as a Nazi Diplomat, Meissner received numerous honors in post-war Germany. In 1986 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the federal order of Merit based on the recommendation of Franz Josef Strauss. In this context, controversy arose because of his participation in the Krummhübler conference, with Meissner claiming to have gone to the conference unknowingly.
Beautifully die struck original example of this rare badge for the diplomatic corps worn by Hans Otto Meissner during his time as a Diplomat in Tokyo.
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