Johannes Kriege

Johannes Kriege (22 July 1859 - 28 May 1937) was a German jurist (lawyer), diplomat and politician.

Early years

Johannes Daniel Jakob Kriege was born in Lüdinghausen, a midsized town then in Prussia's Province of Westphalia, located between Münster to its northeast and Dortmund to its south. Starting in 1877 he studied jurisprudence at Göttingen and Strasburg, passing his stage one state law exams and obtaining a post in the Prussian legal service as a court clerk in 1880, and receiving his doctorate of law in 1881. 1881 was also the year in which he passed his second level state law exams. He entered the Prussian diplomatic service in 1886.

Diplomat

In 1887 he received his first diplomatic posting, appointed German acting Vice-consul in Amsterdam, which may have been when he first got to know Pieter Cort van der Linden. Van der Linden later became the wartime Dutch prime minister, at which point Kriege would describe him as a personal friend of long standing. Kriege's next appointment, between 1889 and 1894, was as consul in Asunción, where his son Walter was born. He returned to Europe in 1896, taking up the same function in Sarajevo. During the years that followed he held an increasingly senior succession of legal posts in the foreign ministry. In 1900 he was appointed to the Privy Legation Council (Legationsrat).

During the early years of the twentieth century Kriege participated in several of the important conferences that reflected growing international tensions across Europe. He attended the Second Hague Peace Conference, and was a permanent member of the Hague court between 1906 and his death. In 1908/09 he represented Germany at the London Law of the Sea conference.

Between September 1911 and November 1918 Johannes Kriege served as head undersecretary (Ministerialdirektor) at the legal department of the foreign ministry. In 1916 he joined the privy council. On 31 January 1917 he held a secret meeting in Amsterdam with his old friend Pieter Cort van der Linden, by now the Dutch prime minister, in which he explained the background to the - at this stage still secret - decision by the German government to resume its controversial submarine campaign against the British and their allies. The Dutch government were assured that the German side continued to value good commercial relations with the Netherlands, but they were also warned of the dire consequences, were they to succumb to Anglo-American pressure to enter the war against Germany. The Dutch remained neutral in the war, even after February 1917 when diplomatic relations reached a new low point after German submarines sank seven Dutch ships (presumably engaged in commerce involving British ports). The Dutch delayed handing over two German submarines that had been badly damaged, but not sunk, in Dutch waters. Diplomatic waters were calmed by a further meeting between Kriege and van der Linden.

Before and during the First World War he continued to be a member of German delegations at international conferences, notably in 1918 when he was the senior German government mandate holder in the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which formally excluded Russia from participation in the alliance against Germany. War ended in defeat for Germany which was followed by a year of revolution. Kriege went into temporary retirement. He was formally retired from the diplomatic service only in 1924, however.

One result of military defeat and the ensuring revolution was that the German Emperor (Kaiser) was abdicated and sent into exile at Doorn, a short drive to the west of Utrecht. During this period Kriege made frequent visits to Doorn where he served as legal advisor to the ex-emperor.

Parliamentarian

In republican Germany, between 1921 and 1932 Johannes Kriege sat as a member of the Prussian regional legislature (Landtag), where he represented the conservative National People's Party ("Deutschnationale Volkspartei" / DNVP).

Johannes Kriege came from a large well connected family. His eldest son, Walter Kriege (1891-1952), also became a top government lawyer who played a political role during the early years of the German Federal Republic. As a result of Walter's marriage, Johannes Kriege became the brother-in-law of the architect Richard Saran and the grandfather of the political journalist Mary Saran. He was also a nephew to the high profile theologian-pastor Otto Funcke (de) (1836-1910) and a grandson to the Bremen city mayor, Johann Daniel Meier (de) (1804-1871). A cousin was the early socialist Hermann Kriege (de) (1820-1850).