German interpreter (1899-1970)
Paul Otto Gustav Schmidt
[1]
[2]
(23 June 1899 ? 21 April 1970)
[3]
was an interpreter in the
German foreign ministry
from 1923 to 1945. During his career, he served as the translator for
Neville Chamberlain
's negotiations with
Adolf Hitler
over the
Munich Agreement
, the British
Declaration of War
and the
surrender of France
.
Early years
[
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]
In 1917 and 1918, Schmidt was a soldier in the
First World War
and was wounded on the Western Front. Later, he studied modern languages in Berlin and worked simultaneously for an American newspaper agency. In 1921, he took courses in the Foreign Office to train conference interpreters. Schmidt distinguished himself there by virtue of his outstanding memory. In July 1923, Schmidt, still preparing for examinations, accepted his first assignment for the translating and interpreting service of the Foreign Office at the
Permanent Court of International Justice
in
the Hague
. He married in 1925 and had a son the following year.
Foreign Office
[
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]
Paul Schmidt (centre left) interpreting between
Philippe Petain
and
Adolf Hitler
, October 1940. The Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop
stands behind to the right.
After studying more languages in Berlin, Schmidt worked briefly in the Reich Foreign Language Office. Starting in 1924, he worked as an interpreter in the Foreign Office. Schmidt interpreted during the
Locarno Treaty
meetings (1925) and participated in many other important international conferences. He served as an interpreter at the
League of Nations
(1926-1933) and the
London Economic Conference
in 1933. Under Reich Chancellor
Gustav Stresemann
, Schmidt became chief interpreter, a position he retained after Hitler came to power in 1933. Schmidt remained chief interpreter until 1945. At the Munich Conference, he interpreted between Hitler and
Neville Chamberlain
and
Edouard Daladier
.
Benito Mussolini
was fluent in French and spoke a fractured, mangled German. Although Mussolini's German wasn't nearly as good as he pretended, he always refused to use a translator at his meetings with Hitler.
During the war years, he served as Hitler's interpreter during his meetings with Marshal
Philippe Petain
and General
Francisco Franco
. On 12 June 1941, Schmidt served as the translator for the summit between Hitler and General
Ion Antonescu
of Romania. Antonescu was fluent in French (interwar Romania was such a Francophile nation that fluency in French was
de rigueur
if one wanted to advance socially), but Hitler spoke no language other than German.
[4]
At the summit, Antonescu spoke in French and had his remarks translated into German by Schmidt, who also translated Hitler's remarks into French (Schmidt knew no Romanian).
During the meeting, Hitler, via Schmidt, informed Antonescu of the planned "war of extermination" that
Operation Barbarossa
was intended to be and asked that Antonescu set up a Romanian equivalent of the
Einsatzgruppen
, a request that Antonescu agreed to.
[4]
The Israeli historian
Jean Ancel
wrote sarcastically about Schmidt's post-1945 claim to be a mere "extra on the stage of history" that Schmidt was surely being too modest here in downplaying his role at the Hitler-Antonescu summit that led to the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews.
[4]
Schmidt fails to mention the genocidal plans discussed in the Hitler-Antonescu meetings but gives the misleading impression that German-Romanian talks during the war were entirely concerned with military and economic matters. After the 1942
Dieppe Raid
resulted in thousands of
Canadian
soldiers captured, Schmidt was in charge of their interrogations. Schmidt joined the
Nazi Party
in 1943.
[3]
Postwar
[
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]
Arrested in May 1945, Schmidt was freed by the Americans in 1948.
After he was captured at Salzburg in May 1945, Schmidt asserted that there was little
anti-Semitism
in Germany until Hitler imported it from
Austria
. He said: "Hitler's biggest mistakes were his campaign against the Jews and his policy of imperialism."
[5]
In 1946, he testified at the
Nuremberg trials
, where psychiatrist
Leon Goldensohn
noted and later published conversations with him. In 1947, he testified for the prosecution against the directors of
IG Farben
. In 1952, he founded the
Sprachen & Dolmetscher Institut
in Munich, a college where students could learn languages and become translators and interpreters. He retired in 1967.
Memoirs
[
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]
Entitled
An Extra on the Diplomatic Stage
, Schmidt's memoirs cover his 21 years as an important eyewitness to European foreign policy. They begin with his frontline experiences during the First World War at the
German spring offensive
of 1918 and continue with his work for the German chancellors before 1933.
The English edition of the book,
Hitler's Interpreter
OCLC
1122735
, skips that material and describes only the Hitler years (1933?1945). The memoirs present an atmospheric but detailed portrait of the highest level of the Third Reich. He has this advice for interpreters in training:
"Over the years I have arrived at the conviction that a good diplomatic interpreter must possess three characteristics: Most important, he must, paradoxically, be able to be silent; he must be expert in the subject he is translating; and only in third place is his mastery of the language he translates".
References
[
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]
- ^
Pyka, Marcus: "Der Dolmetscher als 'Statist'? Paul Otto Schmidt und seine Memoiren." Epilogue in: Paul Schmidt: "Statist auf diplomatischer Buhne". Hamburg, Europaische Verlagsanstalt, 2014. ("Der so Gescholtene war niemand Geringeres als Paul Otto Gustav Schmidt (1899-1870), der auf deutscher Seite wohl wichtigste Dolmetscher im Auswartigen Amt der Zwischenkriegszeit.")
- ^
Questionnaire completed by Schmidt himself in Nuremberg on 18 April 1947: "Paul Otto Gustav Schmidt". In the files of the Nuremberg trials, Schmidt is referred to as "Dr Paul Otto Gustav Schmidt".
- ^
a
b
Zenter, Christian and Bedurftig, Friedemann (1991).
Encyclopedia of the Third Reich
, p. 839. New York: Macmillan.
ISBN
0-02-897502-2
- ^
a
b
c
Ancel, Jean
The History of the Holocaust in Romania
, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011 page 214.
- ^
Campaign Against Jews Was One of Hitler's Biggest Mistakes, Says Nazi Press Chief
,
JTA
, May 13, 1945. (Original in
PDF
,
Book
);
"Nazi Press Head Says Attack On Jews Mistake."
Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 May 1945
.
- The American Israelite
, "Campaign Against Jews Called Mistake." May 24, 1945, 8. Cited in: Domeier, N. (2021). Weltoffentlichkeit und Diktatur.: Die amerikanischen Auslandskorrespondenten im "Dritten Reich". Germany: Wallstein Verlag.
681
. Schmidt in an interview with a
New York Herald Tribune
correspondent. [erklarte der Auslandspressechef des Auswartigen Amts in einem Interview mit dem Korrespondenten der New York Herald Tribune].
Sources
[
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]
- Lehrer, Steven (2006).
The Reich Chancellery and Fuhrerbunker Complex: An Illustrated History of the Seat of the Nazi Regime
. McFarland. p. 214.
ISBN
0-7864-2393-5
.
- Lehrer, Steven (2002).
Hitler Sites: A City-by-city Guidebook (Austria, Germany, France, United States)
. McFarland. p. 224.
ISBN
0-7864-1045-0
.
- Goldensohn, Leon N., and Gellately, Robert (ed.):
The Nuremberg Interviews
, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2004
ISBN
0-375-41469-X
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