"Die deutsche Judenpolitik entfremdet uns innerlich dem finnischen Volk." - Wipert von Blücher, die NS-Judenpolitik und Finnland im Zweiten Weltkrieg

Abstract

The article deals with the attempts of the German minister to Helsinki, the old-school diplomat Wipert von Blücher, to prevent the National Socialist “measures” against the Jews of Europe from being applied to Finland, Germany’s co-belligerent in the offensive against the Soviet Union. Despite of sharing many of the common assumptions of traditional Wilhelminian anti-Semitism, Blücher did not endorse the radical anti-Jewish policies of the National Socialist regime and – very cautiously but nonetheless repeatedly – tried to discourage potential moves by Berlin to include the Jewish population of Finland in the “final solution”. His political behaviour can be seen as close to exemplary for the reservations with which a number of national-conservative diplomats within the “Auswärtiges Amt” responded to the extermination of the European Jews. These reservations did nonetheless not forestall their involvement into the administrative execution of the Holocaust.