Carl von Ossietzky: the editor convicted for printing a secret, 1929–1938

01Kantstraße, Charlottenburg

A weekly with no pictures printed the air force Germany was forbidden to have

What Die Weltbühne was. A weekly of politics, art and economics, published in Berlin and read far beyond it. Ossietzky began writing its lead articles in 1926 and took over as its editor in May 1927, after the death of its founder. It printed Kurt Tucholsky, Erich Mühsam and Ossietzky himself, and it was the sharpest critical voice of the Weimar Republic. It was banned in 1933.

On 12 March 1929 it carried the article that ended his freedom. Under the name Heinz Jäger, the aviation journalist Walter Kreiser described a secret department of the Reichswehr that was building military aircraft and training pilots abroad — an air force the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany to have. Ossietzky published it and never disputed that he was responsible for it.

Four numbers of one weekly. A small paper of dense type with no pictures, arguing at length, week after week, with the government of the day. One number of it — the eleventh of 1929 — was enough to convict its editor. The following number, printed while the investigation was already running, carried an essay by Ossietzky on the book trade.

The salmon-pink cover of Die Weltbühne, its title in black gothic letters, with a contents list and the publisher's address, Kantstrasse 152, at the foot. — Die Weltbühne, Jahrgang 25, Nummer 11 — the issue of 12 March 1929. Inside, under the name Heinz Jäger, Walter Kreiser described the air force Germany was building in secret. Publishing it cost the editor eighteen months.Photo: (unattributed), 1929. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

A page of Die Weltbühne from 1926, two columns of dense type. — JG. 22 · 1926The paper in the year Ossietzky joined it.Photo: Kurt Tucholsky, 1926. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

The first page of Ossietzky's essay Ketzereien zum Büchertag in Die Weltbühne, dense columns of type. — JG. 25 · NR. 12“Ketzereien zum Büchertag” — “Heresies for Book Day”, his own essay, in the number that followed the one that convicted him.Photo: Carl von Ossietzky, 1929. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

A page of Die Weltbühne with Kurt Tucholsky's short piece Befürchtung. — JG. 25 · NR. 28Kurt Tucholsky's “Befürchtung” — “Misgiving”. This was the company Ossietzky kept in print.Photo: Kurt Tucholsky, 1929. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

A dark bronze plaque on a wall with a German inscription in capitals naming Carl von Ossietzky and the Weltbühne. — KANTSTRASSE 152The plaque at Kantstraße 152, Charlottenburg: “In this house the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Carl von Ossietzky worked from 1927 to 1933 as editor of the Weltbühne, for justice, freedom, peace and understanding among nations.” Photographed 2009.Photo: OTFW, Berlin, 2009. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

02Leipzig, November 1931

Part of the secret had already been laid before the Reichstag. He was convicted anyway

Ossietzky and Kreiser were tried for betraying military secrets, under a law of 3 June 1914 and the treason paragraph of the criminal code. The public was excluded from the courtroom. There was no jury; the senate's judges decided. On 23 November both men were sentenced to eighteen months. Kreiser left for France; Ossietzky stayed.

What he was actually accused of. Not of stealing anything, and not of being wrong. Nobody at the trial argued that the rearmament had not happened. The charge was that putting it in a magazine told a foreign power something the German state wished to keep to itself. Ossietzky's defence was that a citizen cannot commit treason by describing his own government breaking a treaty it had signed. The court did not accept it, and no German court has accepted it since.

What the charge said

That the article betrayed a military secret: paragraph 1, subsection 2 of the Law against the Betrayal of Military Secrets of 3 June 1914, together with the treason paragraph of the criminal code.

What the record showed

That part of it had already been laid before the Reichstag's budget committee at its 312th session, on 3 February 1928, and printed in the proceedings.

How the courts answered it — twice

The Reichsgericht convicted anyway. Sixty-one years later the Bundesgerichtshof was asked again and held that the budget committee's protocol did not cover the particular matters the verdict rested on, and that the article had carried a range of others that were not public. That is why the conviction stands.

The case on a true time scale

The budget committee, the article and the verdict fall inside four years. The courts were next asked about the verdict 61 years after it was handed down.

A typed court document headed Im Namen des Reichs, listing the two defendants, the judges, and the sentence. — The first page of the Reichsgericht’s judgment of 23 November 1931 against Walter Kreiser and Carl von Ossietzky: “one year and six months in prison” each, under the law of 3 June 1914 against the betrayal of military secrets.Photo: Reichsgericht Leipzig, 1931. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

A vast neo-baroque stone court building with a columned centre and a green copper dome, behind a lawn and railings. — The Reichsgericht building in Leipzig, where the Fourth Criminal Senate tried the case in closed session. Photographed 2010.Photo: Andreas Praefcke, 2010. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 3.0.

A long, ornate stone court building with a central portico behind a lawn and trees. — The Kammergericht at Kleistpark, Berlin, which ruled on 11 July 1991 that the case could not be reopened. Photographed 2014.Photo: Ansgar Koreng, 2014. Via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 DE).

A stately palace building behind bare winter shrubs and a security fence. — The Bundesgerichtshof in Karlsruhe, whose Third Criminal Senate upheld the refusal to reopen the case on 3 December 1992. Photographed 2012.Photo: Andreas Praefcke, 2012. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 3.0.

0312 March 1929 – 4 May 1938

From the article to his death, he spent sixty-three days in every hundred in the hands of the state

Between the article and his death — nine years and fifty-three days — Ossietzky was free for two stretches. The calendar below fills in as you read, one row for each year: blue for the sentence a court of the Republic gave him, red for the custody of the Nazi state, which had no charge, no term and no end.

12 Mar 1929 – 4 May 1938One row per year

SentenceHeld without chargeUnder guardFree

12 March 1929

The article

Under the name Heinz Jäger, the aviation journalist Walter Kreiser described a secret department of the Reichswehr that was building military aircraft and training pilots abroad — an air force the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany to have. Ossietzky published it and never disputed that he was responsible for it.

17, 19, 23 November 1931

Closed court in Leipzig

Fourth Criminal Senate of the Reichsgericht, Leipzig

Five men in long overcoats stand in a cobbled forecourt in front of a brick prison gatehouse with an arched entrance; the man in the centre holds his hat. — Outside Tegel prison on the day he reported to serve his sentence: Ossietzky, centre, with Kurt Grossmann and Rudolf Olden (left) and his lawyers Alfred Apfel and Kurt Rosenfeld.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-B0527-0001-861 / Unknown author / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

10 May 1932

He walks into Tegel

He reported to Tegel prison and served 227 days. Friends had urged him to leave the country instead.

Strafanstalt Tegel, Berlin

A pencil portrait of a man with swept-back hair, seated with folded hands, signed Carl v. Ossietzky at the lower right. — Ossietzky in Tegel, drawn by Emil Stumpp on a visit to him in prison in 1932, and signed by the sitter.Photo: Emil Stumpp, 1932. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

22 December 1932

Out after 227 days

After 227 days in Tegel, a Christmas amnesty for political prisoners released him. He did not leave Germany. He had 67 days of freedom left.

Men in overcoats and hats stand on the square in front of the Reichstag, its dome behind bare trees; a lorry drives past on the left. — The Reichstag on the morning after the fire, 28 February 1933. Ossietzky had been taken from his flat a few hours earlier.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1977-148-19A / Unknown author / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

A page of the Reichsgesetzblatt of 1933, headed in gothic type, printing the decree in two columns. — The decree he was held under, as printed.Photo: (unattributed), 1933. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

28 February 1933

Arrested in the night of the Reichstag fire

He was taken from his flat in Wilmersdorf in the small hours, in the mass arrests that followed the Reichstag fire, and held in Spandau prison. There was no charge and no court. He was never released.

Men forking hay onto a stack in a field beside a wooden cart, a uniformed guard standing by. — Prisoners at outdoor work at the Sonnenburg penitentiary in June 1931, two years before Ossietzky was sent to the camp there.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-11850 / Unknown author / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

An avenue of tall trees leading to a row of freestanding rust-brown steel wall panels on a grassy site. — The site of the Esterwegen camp in the Emsland today, the Gedenkstätte Esterwegen. Photographed 2010.Photo: Gerardus, 2010. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

6 April 1933

To the camps

From Spandau to the Sonnenburg camp on 6 April 1933, then to Esterwegen in the Emsland peat bogs. He contracted tuberculosis there.

A thin, close-cropped man in a dark prisoner's jacket with a number patch stands against a wooden wall, facing a uniformed guard seen from behind. — Carl von Ossietzky as a prisoner at Esterwegen, 1934, facing a guard. It was there that he contracted the tuberculosis that killed him.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R70579 / Unknown / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Esterwegen, 1933–36

Prisoner in the Emsland

His second imprisonment had no sentence to serve out. The calendar does not stop filling.

A sepia postcard of a three-storey hospital pavilion with verandas and a tall chimney behind it. — Krankenhaus Westend, Charlottenburg, on a postcard of 1919. He was released into this hospital in November 1936, under police guard.Photo: Unnamed photographer, 1919 (postcard). Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

28 May 1936 – 7 November 1936

From the camp to a hospital bed, still a prisoner

On 28 May 1936 he was moved to the state police hospital in Berlin, still in custody. On 7 November 1936 he was formally released, to Krankenhaus Westend, and kept under police guard. The custody had lasted 1,348 days.

A postage stamp with a portrait drawing of a man with glasses, inscribed Carl von Ossietzky and Deutsche Bundespost. — Carl von Ossietzky on a West German stamp of 1975, in a series honouring Nobel Peace Prize laureates.Photo: Deutsche Bundespost, 1975. Public domain.

An ornate yellow building entrance with an arched doorway, a bronze bust of Alfred Nobel on a plinth in front. — The Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, seat of the committee that awarded him the reserved 1935 prize. Photographed 2008.Photo: L. Shyamal, 2008. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 3.0.

23 November 1936

The Peace Prize, 16 days later

The Committee had reserved the 1935 Peace Prize rather than award it. A year later it gave that reserved prize to Ossietzky, sixteen days after the state let him out of custody. He was not allowed to travel to Oslo; at the ceremony on 10 December 1936 his place was empty.

A black-and-white photograph of people at a long table outdoors; a waiter serves a platter to an elderly man and a woman. — Richard Kuhn (left), awarded the chemistry prize for 1938 and made to refuse it, here in 1958 beside Hermann Staudinger (right); names as the archive lists them.Photo: Willy Pragher, 1958. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.

A black-and-white photograph of a white-haired man in a dark suit seated at a table by a window. — Gerhard Domagk, awarded the medicine prize for 1939 and made to refuse it, photographed in 1951.Photo: Willy Pragher, 1951. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.

30 January 1937

Germany forbids the Nobel Prize

Hitler answered the award by founding a German prize of his own, and in the same decree forbade Germans to accept a Nobel Prize “for all time to come”. The ban held until 1945: Richard Kuhn in 1938 and Gerhard Domagk in 1939 both had to decline.

Looking up into the white ribbed vaults of a grand stone hall, with ornate carved stonework at the edge. — Inside the Kriminalgericht Moabit, the Berlin criminal courts, where he gave evidence against Kurt Wannow on 7 March 1938. Photographed 2013.Photo: dierk schaefer, 2013. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 2.0.

7 March 1938

A witness in Moabit

The prize money was 100,000 Reichsmark. A Berlin lawyer, Kurt Wannow, who held his power of attorney, collected it and kept almost all of it. Ossietzky gave evidence against him in the Moabit courthouse on 7 March 1938, eight weeks before he died. Wannow was convicted and sentenced to two years.

A low brick wall with a bronze inscription plaque, shrubs and a small stone tablet in a planted grave bed. — The honorary grave of Carl and Maud von Ossietzky at the Pankow IV cemetery in Niederschönhausen, on the presumed site of his urn. Photographed 2025.Photo: OTFW, Berlin, 2025. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

4 May 1938

Dead at 48, still under guard

He died of tuberculosis and the effects of his imprisonment, aged 48, still under guard.

Krankenhaus Nordend, Berlin-Niederschönhausen

12 March 1929 – 4 May 1938

The whole record

2,119 of 3,341 days

227 days on a sentence; 1,348 days without charge; 544 days under guard. He had 67 days of freedom between the two imprisonments.

05Oslo and Berlin, 1936–38

The Peace Prize went to a man the state would not let travel. Germany answered by banning the Nobel

The Norwegian Nobel Committee could not agree on a peace laureate for 1935 and reserved the prize. On 23 November 1936 it awarded that reserved 1935 prize to Ossietzky, who was then in a Berlin hospital under police guard. It was a deliberate rebuke to the German government, and the German government read it as one.

He was refused permission to travel. The medal and diploma were presented in Oslo on 10 December 1936 to nobody; his place at the ceremony was empty.

On 30 January 1937 Hitler founded a German National Prize for Art and Science and in the same decree forbade Germans to accept a Nobel Prize “for all time to come”.

Richard Kuhn in 1938 and Gerhard Domagk in 1939 had to refuse theirs. The ban lasted until 1945.

16 days, November–December 1936

November 1936

December 1936

7 Nov 1936Formally released, held under police guard23 Nov 1936Awarded the reserved 1935 Peace Prize10 Dec 1936The ceremony in Oslo: his place empty

06Oldenburg, Berlin and Karlsruhe, 1974–1992

In 1991 Germany gave a university his name. In the same year its courts refused to reopen his case

His daughter applied to have the case reopened. The Berlin court ruled the application inadmissible and the federal court upheld that ruling. Neither reached the question of guilt: reopening needs new facts, and the courts held that nothing produced in 1990 showed that the particular matters the 1931 verdict rested on had been public. The conviction has never been quashed.

His name

His case

1974

The founders of the new university at Oldenburg propose his name. The state government refuses it.

29 May 1991

After seventeen years of argument, the university's council adopts it.

11 Jul 1991

The Kammergericht in Berlin rules that the case may not be reopened.

3 Oct 1991

It becomes the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg.

3 Dec 1992

The Bundesgerichtshof upholds that ruling.

—

Berlin names an honorary grave for him and his wife Maud at the Pankow IV cemetery in Niederschönhausen, on the presumed site of his urn burial.

—

A plaque marks Kantstraße 152 in Charlottenburg, where Die Weltbühne had its editorial office from 1927 until it was closed in 1933.

Why it still stands. Germany quashed whole classes of Nazi judgments after 1945 and again after 1998. Ossietzky's is not among them: it was handed down in 1931, by a court of the Weimar Republic, under a law of 1914. Reopening it needed new facts, and the courts held that the arguments made in 1990 did not supply them. His name is on a university and on a grave of honour. The judgment is still on the record.

A street passing under a modern university building that bridges the road, bare trees and cyclists in the foreground. — The Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, which took his name in 1991 after seventeen years of argument. Photographed 2013.Photo: JoachimKohler-HB, 2013. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Nobody at the trial argued that the rearmament had not happened.

The judgment is still on the record.

Convicted for printing military secrets the Reichstag had partly heard already. The conviction still stands.