Carl Jacob Burckhardt (September 10, 1891 – March 3, 1974) was a Swiss diplomat, professor and historian. His career alternated between periods of academic historical research and diplomatic postings; the most prominent of the latter were League of Nations High Commissioner for the Free City of Danzig (1937–39) and President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (1945–48).
While serving as High Commissioner for Danzig, Burckhardt sought to avoid escalation of tensions between Nazi Germany and Poland into open military conflict. Unlike his predecessor, who had been removed as High Commissioner at Germany's insistence because he sought to protect Danzig's Jewish community, Burckhardt tried to cultivate relations with the "moderate" Nazi leaders of Danzig while blaming the Polish government for taking too uncompromising a stand against German demands that Danzig be returned to Germany. Those efforts, which had reflected the attitudes of the League, the United Kingdom and France, failed with Germany's invasion of Poland and seizure of Danzig on 1 September 1939. Burckhardt fled Danzig after being told by the Nazi Gauleiter for Danzig that he would be executed if he did not.
Burckhardt was a Germanophile with a visceral hatred of Bolshevism. Under his leadership following World War II the ICRC provided documents that helped many high-level Nazis, including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele, escape Europe and evade justice for their war crimes.
Life and early career Burckhardt was born in Basel to , a member of the patrician Burckhardt family, and attended gymnasium in Basel and Glarisegg (in Steckborn). He subsequently studied at the University of Basel, the University of Zurich, then at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and finally the University of Göttingen, being particularly influenced by professors Ernst Gagliardi and Heinrich Wölfflin.
He gained his first diplomatic experience in the Swiss legation in Austria from 1918 to 1922, a chaotic period following the collapse of Austria-Hungary. While there, he became acquainted with Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Burckhardt earned his doctorate in 1922, and then accepted an appointment with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which posted him to Asia Minor, where he assisted in the resettlement of Greeks expelled from Turkey following Greece's 1922 defeat.
He subsequently returned to Switzerland to pursue an academic career. In 1926, he married Marie-Elisabeth de Reynold (1906–1989), a daughter of Swiss writer, historian, and right-wing political activist Gonzague de Reynold. One year later he was appointed Privatdozent at the University of Zurich and in 1929 extraordinary professor of contemporary history. From 1932 to 1937, he was ordinary professor at the recently created Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. While there, he published in 1935 the first volume of his comprehensive biography of Cardinal Richelieu, which would eventually be completed by the publication of the 4th volume in 1967.
Last High Commissioner Background to appointment
Burckhardt returned to a diplomatic career in 1937, serving as the final League of Nations High Commissioner for the Free City of Danzig from 1937 to 1939. In that position, he aimed to maintain the international status of Danzig guaranteed by the League of Nations, which brought him into contact with a number of prominent Nazis as he attempted to stave off increasing German demands.
The precise legal status of Danzig in the interwar era was, as the American historian Elizabeth Clark has noted, ambiguous: "...few experts, whether Polish, French or German, agreed on a legal description of the city, whether it was a sovereign state, a state without sovereignty, a Polish protectorate or a League of Nations protectorate". The Free City had some of the markers of sovereignty, such as its own police force, national anthem, flag, currency and stamps, but the Polish government had been granted certain rights in Danzig, such as control of the customs service and the right to represent the Free City of Danzig abroad.
The Treaty of Versailles declared the Free City to be a demilitarized zone, but made an exception by allowing the Polish Army to maintain a Military Transit Depot on the Westerplatte peninsula that faced Danzig harbour. Throughout its entire existence, the Free City of Danzig was a flashpoint in German-Polish tensions and was known as "Europe's most dangerous city" as it was considered to be the place where a German-Polish war was most likely to start.
In 1936, the previous High Commissioner for Danzig, the Irish diplomat Seán Lester, had been sacked at the instigation of Germany which, despite leaving the League of Nations in 1933, had demanded that Lester be fired for his attempts to protect the rights of Danzig's Jewish minority from the Nazi-dominated government of the Free City. Burchkhardt's instructions as the new High Commissioner were to exercise "restraint" in regards to the "Jewish Question" and not to strain relations with the government of the Free City.
The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote about Burchhardt's role as High Commissioner: "He would protect the Danzig opposition parties and the Jewish population as much as possible, but this was done to be with a minimum of friction and publicity". As the High Commissioner, Burckhardt was responsible to the League Council (the executive arm of the League of Nations that played an analogous role to the Security Council of the United Nations), but in practice answered to an informal committee on the League Council that consisted of the British, French and Swedish ambassadors to the League of Nations.
The League Secretary-General Joseph Avenol would have preferred that the League abandon its role in Danzig, but the Poles insisted that a new commissioner be appointed to replace Lester. Burkhardt was regarded as the logical choice to serve as the League High Commissioner as he was an experienced diplomat from a neutral nation whose first language was German.
Burckhardt was a close friend of Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker, the long-time German minister-plenipotentiary to Switzerland who had strongly urged him to take the post. Weizsäcker in his reports to Berlin painted Burckhardt as friendly towards Nazi Germany, writing that Burckhardt was a Germanophile who looked upon the Third Reich as the "bulwark against Bolshevism". Weizsäcker stated like many Swiss from Großbürgertum (upper class) families that Burckhardt felt threatened by the possibility of Communists raising the great masses of unemployed people caused by the Great Depression in a revolution, and strongly approved of the Nazi regime, which banned both the German Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party. Burckhardt was concerned by the prospect of a Marxist revolution in Germany overflowing into Switzerland, and in this way believed that Nazi regime was protecting Switzerland.
Weizsäcker, who had known Burckhardt for years, stated that Burckhardt as the League of Nations high commissioner for Danzig would profess to be neutral, but in practice favor Germany's claims to the Free City. Weizsäcker also noted that Burckhardt viewed Germany as Europe's "indispensable" nation whose success was crucial to the economic success of Europe as a whole, and favored revising the Treaty of Versailles in favor the Reich. Burckhardt was hesitant to take up the post of League of Nations high commissioner as his predecessor Lester had the subject of harassment and threats from the Danzig Nazis, but Weizsäcker assured him that he would not face such difficulties as he was known to be friend of Germany.
As a conservative Swiss from a Großbürgertum family with strong connections to the German elite, Burckhardt was felt to be the ideal man to represent the League in Danzig. The British historian D.C. Watt described Burckhardt as "a conservative, a believer in strong though not authoritarian government, a professional neutral from a country where neutrality is the dominant principle of foreign policy...".
Arrival in Danzig Before leaving to take up his new post as High Commissioner, Burkhardt met with the Secretary-General Joseph Avenol, the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, and the French Foreign Minister Yvon Delbos, who all told him that they did not want a repeat of Lester's conflict with the Danzig Nazis. The Polish Foreign Minister, Colonel Józef Beck—one of the leaders of the triumvirate that ran the Sanation military dictatorship—saw Germany and the Soviet Union as potential threats, but of the two the Soviet Union was considered to be "the enemy" with which no understanding was possible while Nazi Germany was seen as a potential ally against the Soviet Union.
The Polish historian Anita Pražmowaska wrote: "It was unfortunate that the Polish government concluded that the best way forward was to continue building stronger links with Germany while trying to reduce—what Beck considered to be—the League's irksome interference in Danzig". Upon first meeting Colonel Beck, Burchkhardt was informed in no uncertain terms that Poland wanted better relations with Germany as a potential ally against the Soviet Union and that Burckhardt should expect no help from Poland if he should come into conflict with the Danzig Nazis in the same manner that Lester had. Beck made it clear to Burckhardt that he believed he should resolve any problems regarding Danzig on his own via direct negotiations with Berlin.
Upon arriving in the Free City, Burckhardt found himself caught up in the feud between Danzig's two Nazi leaders, Albert Forster, the Gauleiter of Danzig who ruled the Danzig Gau of the NSDAP, and Arthur Greiser, the president of the Danzig Senate (the head of government of the Free City). Weinberg wrote about the relationship between Forster and Greiser: "The two could not abide each other, and the very fact that both were faithful followers of Hitler only made them rivals for the latter's affection and support. What one wanted, the other automatically rejected and vice-versa; only the occasional intervention of Hitler himself could bring them temporarily to the same course-until they parted company again on the next issue". Forster's and Greiser's inability to co-operate made for a highly dysfunctional administration of the Free City, and Burckhardt only found himself caught in the middle.
Of the two feuding Nazi leaders, Burckhardt much preferred Greiser, whom he regarded as the more reasonable of the two. He believed that Greiser privately wanted Danzig to continue as a Free City as his current position as Senate President made him the head of government and if Danzig "went home to the Reich", Gresier's status would be downgraded. Burckhardt described the office of high commissioner in the Free City as "a slowly dying organ of a decadent institution".
Burckhardt accepted that it was inevitable that the Free City of Danzig would "go home to the Reich" sometime in the near future and saw his task as ensuring that Free City would be allowed to rejoin Germany without causing a world war, rather than upholding the constitution of the Free City. Burchkardt believed that another world war would be the end of Western civilization.
First crises Burckhardt's first major crisis occurred with the murder of Hans Wiechmann, the leader of the Danzig Social Democratic Party, by the Nazis. The fact that the trail of evidence for the responsibility for Wiechmann's murder led to Forster made for highly difficult relations as Burckhardt had to find various excuses for not ordering the arrest of Forster, which would have provoked a major incident with Germany.