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Assigning Thomas de Maiziere to be the head of the office of the new German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, commanded merely the superficial attention of the press and, therefore, remained practically unnoticed by the majority of the inhabitants of Germany. However this ascension of a representative of the de Maiziere family to the top of the German pyramid of power is really an historical event…
The Exiles
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| General Ulrich de Maiziere |
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Today only a few know that the surname de Maiziere is one of the most ancient and well known surnames of the nobility on the European continent, in the history of which it has played a significant role. The knight Phillip de Maiziere was mentioned by French chronologists of the 14th century as the military adviser of King Charles V, the Wise (1364-1380), who successfully fought the British.
Three hundred years later, at the end of the 17th century, Thomas de Maiziere's family lived in the city of Metz, the Lothringen area in the northeastern part of modern France. The majority of his male ancestors were doctors or lawyers. The family belonged to the Huguenot community – to the French Protestants. After 1685, following religious prosecution by the Catholics, the de Maiziere family abandoned France and moved to the Mark Brandenburg area in northeastern Germany on the border with Poland. The French emigrants accustomed quickly to their new native land. However, until 1914 they continued attending the French Huguenot church in Berlin and sent their children to the French grammar school in the capital.
Hitler's Officer, Who Created the Bundeswehr
Ulrich de Maiziere, the father of the new chief of the federal office, Thomas de Maiziere, was born on February 24, 1912 in the city of Stade in Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen). Within two years, Ulrich’s father, a lawyer, was drafted as a reservist in WWI and killed in action. Ulrich and three other children in the family were brought up by their mother, and the economic situation in the family was harsh. Probably for this reason, despite his musical talent, Ulrich did not choose a career as a musician, but a military one. In the conditions of the economic crisis, which struck Germany at the end of the Twenties and beginning of the Thirties, the Officer's School (Offiziersschule) was a paradise-like place where youngsters were educated and fed free-of-charge.
The personal talents of Ulrich de Maiziere quickly made him one of the best pupils of the school. The Nazi's coming to power in 1933 was perceived by him in a positive light as Hitler and his party spoke about restoration of the dignity of the German nation. Subsequently, already being quite elderly, Ulrich declared that the banishment of Jewish students from the school had made a negative impression on him.
Maybe it was true, however, that during this period Ulrich de Maiziere did not show any discontent with the actions of the Nazis. On the contrary, upon graduation from the Officer's School he made a brilliant military career and did not take part in the well-known plot of the officers on July 20, 1944 after which his commander, Paul von Hase, was subjected to reprisals.
At the end of the war, after being on several staff posts and receiving a wound at the Eastern front, the 33 year old de Maiziere served as Lieutenant Colonel (Oberstleutnant) in the Operations section of the German Joint Staff, and took part in meetings in Hitler’s bunker. He also was one of the first who learned about Hitler's suicide. In the beginning of May 1945 he was sent from Flensburg to Berlin to negotiate with the Soviet command on the capitulation of the Wehrmacht.
In 1945-47 Ulrich de Maiziere was in a British camp for German POWs. In 1951, together with Graf Kielmansegg and Graf Baudissin, he started working on creation of a new army for Western Germany, the Bundeswehr. In 1956 he was given the rank of Brigadier-General. Ten years later, after several supervising posts in the Bundeswehr's command, Ulrich de Maiziere was appointed as the general inspector of the German army, attaining the rank of General. After leaving on pension in 1972, at the age of 60, General Ulrich de Maiziere did not lose his connections with the military and took active participation in its further construction within the framework of the "de Maiziere Commission" ("De-Maiziere-Kommission") of the German Ministry of Defense. In 2002, answering the question of a German journalist on his attitude towards the soldiers of Wehrmacht, de Maiziere said: "They were the soldiers serving Germany, but the times were absolutely different".
The Man Who Buried Communist Germany
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| Lothar de Maiziere, a musician |
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It is a paradox, but the outstanding career of Ulrich de Maiziere in the military establishment of Nazi Germany and post-war Western Germany, has not prevented his two close relatives, brother Clement and nephew Lothar from also pursuing outstanding careers in the political leadership of Communist East Germany. Clement de Maiziere for many years was one of the leaders of the Christian Democrat Union of the GDR (CDU DDR). Lothar de Maiziere, a member of the same party, became the last Prime Minister in the communist government. On October 3, 1990, together with the federal Chancellor at that time, Helmut Kohl, he lowered forever the black – red - gold flag with its hammer and compasses in front of the Reichstag. And in his office the present Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, started her political career as a press secretary. Before finally leaving the Prime Minister's office, Lothar took care of the future of the 36-year old Angela, having placed her among Kohl's coterie. Thus, due to the de Maiziere family, Merkel's ascension to the top of the German political Olympus became possible. Lothar de Maiziere, musician and lawyer by education, left big politics and started a private practice as a lawyer in Berlin.
After becoming Chancellor, in December 2005, Merkel repaid Lothar de Maiziere's favor, appointing him to the post of co-chairman of the German -Russian political "Petersburger Dialogs" forum. Established by the previous chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, the forum has already existed for 5 years. Michail Gorbachev, the last President of the Soviet Union, is its chairman on the Russian side. The next session of the forum is scheduled to take place in October, 2006 in Dresden - the city, from which in December, 2005, Thomas de Maiziere arrived in Berlin.
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