en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Committee_for_a_Free_Germany
3 corrections found
as the leader of the NKFD
Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach was not the leader or president of the NKFD. Erich Weinert led the NKFD; Seydlitz chaired the separate League/Federation of German Officers.
Full reasoning
This wording misidentifies Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach's role.
Contemporary U.S. diplomatic reporting on the NKFD's founding states that the July 12–13, 1943 convention elected Erich Weinert as president of the Free Germany Committee, with Karl Hetz as first vice president and Heinrich Graf von Einsiedel as second vice president. That directly contradicts calling Seydlitz the NKFD's leader.
A German Resistance Memorial Center biography of Seydlitz says that in September 1943 he chaired the founding meeting of the Federation (League) of German Officers in Lunevo. In other words, Seydlitz led the officers' organization, not the NKFD itself.
So the article should distinguish between:
- Erich Weinert = leader/president of the NKFD
- Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach = leading figure of the League/Federation of German Officers, which worked with the NKFD
2 sources
- Historical Documents - Office of the Historian
This convention decided to form (Free Germany) Committee and elected as President poet Erich Weinert; First Vice President Major Karl Hetz; Second Vice President Lieut. Heinrich Graf von Einsiedel.
- GDW-Berlin: Biographie-Detail
The founding meeting of the Federation of German Officers took place in Lunevo in September 1943, chaired by the artillery general Walther von Seydlitz.
The creation of the organisation formed the Movement for a Free Germany
The broader "Free Germany" movement did not begin with the NKFD in 1943. German anti-Nazi exile groups were already operating under the "Free Germany" name in Mexico in 1941.
Full reasoning
This sentence gets the chronology wrong by implying that the NKFD's creation in July 1943 created the broader Movement for a Free Germany.
The German Resistance Memorial Center notes that Anna Seghers was among the founders of the "Free Germany" movement in Mexico in 1941, two years before the NKFD was founded in the Soviet Union. A second GDW biography says Walter Janka continued his political work in the Bewegung Freies Deutschland (Free Germany Movement) in Mexico after arriving there in summer 1941.
So the NKFD was one important part of the wider Free Germany movement, but it did not create that movement from scratch in 1943, because "Free Germany" organizations already existed earlier in exile.
2 sources
- GDW-Berlin: Biographie
In 1941 she managed to escape to Mexico. There, she was among the founders of the "Free Germany" movement.
- GDW-Berlin: Biographie
In the summer of 1941 ... he was soon able to emigrate to Mexico... In Mexico he ... continued his political work in the Bewegung Freies Deutschland (Free Germany Movement).
The BDO later merged with the NKFD.
The League/Federation of German Officers was affiliated with the NKFD, but it remained a distinct organization rather than simply disappearing into a merger.
Full reasoning
This sentence oversimplifies the relationship between the two bodies.
The Bundesarchiv's description of the NKFD/BDO collection says the Bund Deutscher Offiziere (League/Federation of German Officers) was constituted in September 1943 and attached itself to the NKFD while retaining a certain independent organization. That is different from a straightforward merger.
A U.S. State Department telegram from November 1945 likewise still treats them as two separate organizations when reporting their dissolution: it refers to the National Free Germany Committee and the Union of German Officers and says both resolved to dissolve.
So the historically safer wording is that the BDO joined/aligned with the NKFD, while remaining organizationally distinct, rather than simply "merged" with it.
2 sources
- Sammlung Nationalkomitee "Freies Deutschland" und Bund Deutscher Offiziere (Bestand)
Am 11./12. September 1943 konstituierte sich der Bund Deutscher Offiziere, der sich unter Wahrung Beibehaltung einer gewissen eigenständigen Organisation, sogleich dem NKFD anschloss.
- Historical Documents - Office of the Historian
National Free Germany Committee, and Union of German Officers adhering to it ... resolve to dissolve National Free Germany Committee and Union of German Officers.