Otto von der Gablentz

Nationality

Germany

Date of Birth

1898

Date of Death

1972

Political
Preference

Christian Democrat

Otto Heinrich von der Gablentz was born in Berlin. After graduating from high school in 1915, he was seriously wounded in the First World War. In 1917 Gablentz returned to Berlin and began studying law and political science with a focus on economics. Gablentz was a professor, politician and committed to ecumenism.

In 1920 he completed his studies with a doctorate in economics in Freiburg im Breisgau. From 1925 he found a job in the Statistical Office in Berlin, which brought him in close contact with the Reich Ministry of Economics. He joined the Evangelical Michael Brotherhood and where he met Theodor Steltzer.
After the National Socialists came to power, Gablentz was expelled from his position at the Ministry. He then worked for a chemical industry group, got to know Helmuth James Graf von Moltke and soon became one of the first to intensively participate in the Kreisau Circle’s considerations on the reorganization of Germany and the overthrow of the Hitler regime. He took part in the circle’s initial talks on general questions of political science, especially economic and constitutional questions. Here he advocated a middle ground between economic liberalism and the Marxist planned economy. After the Kreisau’s plot to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944, Gablentz escaped persecution by the Nazi authorities because his name remained undetected during the Gestapo investigations.

Because of his ecumenical contacts, he established the connection to the World Council of Churches in Geneva. Already in 1937, Gablentz, in coordination with Gerstenmaier, was involved in the German preparation for the Life and Work conference in Oxford. In 1945 he was together with Steltzer, van Husen, Lukaschek and other co-founders of the CDU in Berlin. He worked as a political publicist and was a member of the Council of the Evangelical Church. After completing his habilitation at the Free University of Berlin in 1949, he taught as a professor of political science until his retirement in 1966. At times he was dean of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences and director of the institute. In 1960 he complained in his book “The Missed Reform” that he did not see a new beginning of West German politics after the war In 1965 he left the CDU, which he accused of a lack of willingness to reform.