UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

Dirksen - Moscow, Tokyo, London

In 1949 the former German ambassador Dr. Herbert von Dirksen donated his private library to the UCL Cologne.
The library contains over 1.500 volumes, most of them dealing with history, literary history and commercial law. Some books on the history of diplomacy emerge from this, as well as works on political and historical geography, which refer in particular to the East Asian region. In addition to biographies of well-known personalities and literature on the history of the 20th century, the library contains brochures and pamphlets on current political events. The literature originates mainly from the early 20th century.
The library can be found under the shelfmark DIRK.

Herbert von Dirksen (1882-1955)

Herbert von Dirksen (*1882) was born in Berlin.
After completing his studies in Heidelberg and Berlin, the doctor of law had been working in the Foreign Office since 1918. In 1928 he was appointed ambassador to Moscow. In 1933 he was transferred to Tokyo. As the last pre-war ambassador, he was finally ordered to London in 1938 and temporarily retired there in 1940. Von Dirksen returned to Germany and dedicated himself to his journalistic activities on his estate Gröditzberg in Silesia. After the end of the war and the loss of his property, von Dirksen settled in Bergen in Upper Bavaria. He died in Munich on 19 December 1955.

Biographical notes on Herbert von Dirksen

Herbert von Dirksen came from a Mennonite family originally from the Netherlands, who had been in Prussian service for many generations. The lawyer Heinrich Eduard Dirksen (1790-1868), who taught at the Universities of Königsberg and Berlin, is best known among his ancestors. When Herbert's father Willibald Dirksen (1852-1928) entered the Prussian aristocracy, the family was awarded the noble title "von". In addition to the civil service, the von Dirksens administered their land holdings, including the manor Jessen in the district of Spremberg and the castle Gröditzberg. It is shown on the ex-libris of Herbert von Dirksen. Dirksen was one of the top diplomats of the Weimar Republic criticizing the National Socialist movement. However, he did not resign from office after Hitler seized power.

The Career Diplomat 1918 to 1940

Willibald Dirksen had already been in charge of the international law department at the Federal Foreign Office for many years. During the First World War, Herbert von Dirksen worked in the German administration in Belgium and in the legation in Den Haag. After the war he joined the Foreign Office in 1918 and was mainly involved in Eastern European affairs (including Kiev and Warsaw) from the outset until he was appointed Ambassador to Moscow in 1928, an important diplomatic task and remarkable as the first ambassador position. He tried to change the German-Soviet relations into an unproblematic and friendly one in vain. In 1933 he was transferred in the same position to Tokyo. His mission was to consolidate German-Japanese relations and develop them as a counterweight to the Soviet Union. During his term of office, he concluded the Anti-Comintern Pact (1936), but Joachim von Ribbentrop negotiated it without him and the Foreign Office. For health reasons, Dirksen asked to be dismissed from Japan. On his way home he was informed of his appointment as ambassador in London. He was involved in the negotiations during the decisive weeks of 1939, which ultimately could not prevent the war between Germany and England. Dirksen was in Germany at the time of the declaration of war and was forced into retirement. In the following years he gave several lectures to soldiers, mostly on the subject of Silesia, in which he advocated Hitler's war aims. When Soviet troops occupied large parts of Silesia in 1944, he was horrified by Wehrmacht soldiers on the orders of the Foreign Minister. Ribbentrop wanted to prevent the former diplomat from falling into Soviet captivity. Dirksen arrived in Bavaria via Prague, where he lived for the rest of his life. After his denazification he tried to contribute as a publicist to a peaceful solution of the German question.

Library Transfer Ireland - Cologne

Dirksen's library had remained in England after his dismissal from London. In 1939 the mutual exchange of private property of the German and English ambassadors was agreed between the foreign ministries. Dirksen's library was taken to an Irish port and a ship, chartered by the Swiss government, would bring it to Germany. The transaction was prevented by the incipient war and Dirksen's books were stored in Ireland until 1949.
In December 1948 Herbert von Dirksen had contacted the general director of the Cologne museums in order to make his book collection available to the scientific community. He consulted Prof. Dr. Peter Rassow, historian at the University of Cologne, who unfortunately could not store the collection due to lack of space and therefore referred Dirksen to the then Ltd. director of the USB, Prof. Dr. Hermann Corsten. Thereupon an extensive correspondence began between Dirksen and Corsten. Although Dirksen travelled to Ireland at the beginning of 1949 and personally took care of the transport of his books, they finally could arrive in Cologne in August. The UCL thus received about 1.000 titles with 1.598 volumes.

The Dirksen Library has not been created from a scientific point of view, but shows a spectrum influenced by the owner's professional and private interests. Nevertheless, it is still an interesting enrichment of the UCL Cologne collections.

Selected Literature (German)

• Schmitz, Wolfgang: Herbert von Dirksen (1882-1955), in: Kölner Sammler und ihre Bücherkollektionen in der Universitäts- und Stadtbibliothek, Köln, 2003 Mund, Gerald: Herbert von Dirksen (1882-1955)., Signatur: 31A9592
• Ein deutscher Diplomat in Kaiserreich, Weimarer Republik und Drittem Reich. Berlin, 2003 Conze, Eckart [u.a.]: Das Amt und die Vergangenheit. Deutsche Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik. 3. Aufl., München, 2010, Signatur: 38A8358
• Herbert von Dirksen im Pressearchiv "Pressemappe 20. Jahrhundert" der ZBW Leibniz Informationszentrum Wirtschaft

Special features of digitisation

Extent: 1350 objects
Status: completed Resolution: 300 dpi
Creation of scans: Project-related digitization of the UCL Cologne
Quality control and web presentation: Collection management of the UCL Cologne

For copyright reasons, some objects in the collection cannot be made available as digitised documents.

This collection is marked with Open Access.

Open Access refers to the worldwide free access to scientific publications on the Internet, subject to copyright protection. No legal or financial barriers should stand in the way of the reader worldwide.

Open Access at the University and City Library of Cologne

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