Dr Fritz Kraemer's Trail and Spirit in Rome

Home
Dr Fritz Kraemer's Trail and Spirit in Rome

Dr Fritz Kraemer's Trail and Spirit in Rome

Posted in Other | 04-Apr-13 | Source: World Security Network Foundation

After 74 years the spirit of legendary Pentagon geostrategist Dr. Fritz Kraemer (see www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/fritzkraemer) is back in the city he loved most: Rome. "In Italy my more stiff Prussian spirit was mellowed by the Italian way of living, thinking, emotions. When I came with my young Swedish wife Britta to the city at the Tiber river, we appreciated the friendly simple Italian people, who taught her cooking and supported us.", he told me. Visiting the cinema together with his blond wife, Italian men were whistling after the beauty who looked like Ingrid Bergmann.

Hubertus Hoffmann described how Kraemer, in the summer of 1934, was vacationing in the Gulf of Sorrento with the Imperial flag on his small kayak boat. The Nazi naval attaché, also present, protested formally in the Italian foreign office against this "assault", since the Nazis had their own flag and rejected any symbol of the Kaiserreich. Kraemer was ordered to take the flag down. He refused and even went to court arguing he was permitted to have his private flag—and won. Kraemer's case received wide publicity and the whole of Italy chuckled over the Nazi attaché.

Dinner to honor and remember Dr Fritz Kraemer in Rome by invitation of the book author Dr Hubertus Hoffmann (left) and the Italian ambassador Umberto Vattani (2nd from left) at the Circolo del Ministero degli Affari Esteri.

Kraemer made his second doctorate in Political Science at the university of Rome. As Senior Legal Advisor to the League of Nations he wrote - in his own words - "the most boring books" comparing civil law at the League's legal institute during most of the 1930's. This institute still exists at Villa Aldobrandini in Via Panisperma 28, Rome, as International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT)

In 1939 - last minute - he escaped via London to the US, while his wife Britta was trapped in Diethart, a small village in the Taunus near the Rhine river. She had returned from Sweden against the will of Fritz, to visit her mother-in-law.

The details of the private story you may find in a book by Hubertus Hoffmann, "True Keeper of the Holy Flame - The Legacy of Pentagon Strategist and Mentor Dr Fritz Kraemer" which was now presented in the Club of the Foreign Ministry in Rome.

Former Director General of the Foreign Ministry and Italian Ambassador to Germany and Club President Umberto Vattani and Dr. Hoffmann assembled a group of Italian diplomats, younger editors of the World Security Network (founded by Dr Hoffmann in 2001 inspired by Dr Kraemer) and representative of NATOs Defense College like Norwegian Commodore and Director of Management Harald Hakonsen and Senior Fellow Dr. Daria Daniels Skodnik together with the German military attache Oberst Benedict von Andrian-Werburg to remember Kraemer and his ideas.

Hubertus Hoffmann told the dinner guests about the history of Old Fritz in Rome and his influence in the Pentagon and about his mentees Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig.

The military representatives and the diplomats discussed the importance of values and what they mean for NATO and foreign affairs today. Fritz Kraemer was missing with his sound voice and excellent speaking abilities, but most could feel his spirit of "an officer fighting for the values of free people and against the daemons of dictators".

Prof. AntonGiulio de' Robertis, member of the World Security International Advisory Board and founder of the De Gasperi Foundation, demanded not to forget the spirit of De Gasperi and the founders of the European Union.

"Hubertus, you kept him and his philosophy alive in this book", praised Umberto Vattani, who now serves as the President of the Venice International University.

Dr Fritz Kraemer's Trail and Spirit in Rome

Sign In

What's Hot