Carl von Ossietzky Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Carl von Ossietzky (October 3, 1889 – May 4, 1938) was a radical German pacifist and the recipient of the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize. He was convicted of high treason and espionage in 1931 after publishing details of Germany's alleged violation of the Treaty of Versailles by rebuilding an Air force, the predecessor of the Luftwaffe and training pilots in the Soviet Union. In 1990 his daughter, Rosalinde von Ossietzky-Palm, called for a resumption of proceedings, but the verdict was upheld by the German Supreme Court in 1992.

Ossietzky was born in Hamburg. Despite his failure to finish the Realschule, a German secondary school, Ossietzky succeeded in embarking on a career in journalism, with the topics of his articles ranging from theatre criticism to feminism and the problems of early motorization. He later said that his opposition to German militarism during the final years of the German Empire under William II led him, as early as 1913, to become a pacifist. That year he married Maud Lichfield-Wood, a Mancunian suffragette, born as a British colonial officer's daughter and great grand-daughter of an Indian princess in Hyderabad. They had one daughter, Rosalinde. During the years of the Weimar Republic (1918 – 1933), his political commentaries gained him a reputation as a fervent supporter of democracy and a pluralistic society. Also, he became secretary of the German Peace Society (Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft). In 1927 he became the successor to Kurt Tucholsky as editor-in-chief of the periodical Die Weltbühne. In 1932 he supported Ernst Thälmann's candidacy for the German presidency, still a critic of the actual policy of the German Communist Party and the Soviet Union.

Ossietzky had been a constant warning voice for many years when, in January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Reichskanzler and the Nazi dictatorship began. Even then, Ossietzky was one of a very small group of public figures who continued to speak out against the Nazi Party. On 28 February ...

Ossietzky's candidacy for the Peace Prize was first suggested in 1934. Berthold Jacob, a companion in many a cause, may have been the first to formulate an actual plan to secure the nomination. The idea was taken up by his colleagues in the German League for Human Rights, by Hellmut von Gerlach, a former associate on Die Weltbühne who undertook a letterwriting campaign from Paris, by organizations and famous people in many parts of the world. The nomination for 1934 arrived too late; the prize for 1935 was reserved in that year but in 1936 was voted to Ossietzky.