Wilhelm Grewe

Wilhelm Grewe combined a career in international law with diplomacy. He studied law, history, and sociology, received his doctorate in Hamburg, and completed his habilitation in Königsberg. He joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and published on foreign affairs during the dictatorship. Munzinger records his expulsion from the party in 1943 after he refused to separate from his wife, who was affected by the Nuremberg racial laws. ^{1, 2, 3}

After the war, Grewe advised Konrad Adenauer and joined the Foreign Office. As ambassador in Washington during the Berlin crisis, he pressed for a common Western position while defending the Allied presence and access rights. In a December 1958 conversation, he opposed replacing Allied troops with West German forces and questioned proposals to put Berlin’s communications under international control. He later served in Japan and continued writing on the history of international law. ^{1, 2, 3}