Albrecht Haushofer

Albrecht Georg Haushofer (7 January 1903 – 23 April 1945) was a German geographer, diplomat, author and member of the German Resistance to Nazism.

Haushofer was born in Munich, the son of the retired World War I general and geographer Karl Haushofer (1869–1946) and his wife Martha, née Mayer-Doss (1877–1946). Albrecht had one brother, Heinz. He studied geography and history at Munich University. In 1924 he graduated with his thesis "Paß- Staaten in den Alpen", Erich von Drygalski (1865–1949) was his supervisor. Haushofer then worked as an assistant for Albrecht Penck.

A fellow student in geopolitics was Rudolf Hess, a very early follower of Adolf Hitler and close friend of his father. Karl Haushofer was a frequent visitor to Landsberg Prison, where Hitler and Hess were jailed after the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch and Mein Kampf was written. Later, under the Nuremberg Laws, Haushofer was categorized as a Mischling, however Hess, Deputy Führer since 1933, succeeded in having him issued a German Blood Certificate.

Albrecht Haushofer was made secretary general of the Gesellschaft für Erdkunde geographical society in Berlin and the editor of its periodical. He held this position from 1928 to 1938. Haushofer traveled the world in his official capacity, lecturing and gaining a wide experience of international affairs.

He started teaching geopolitics at the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik (German Academy for Politics) in 1933, which had lost many of its teachers with the Nazi ascent to power. When the Academy was incorporated into the University of Berlin in 1940, he was made a professor at the Faculty for Foreign Studies (Auslandswissenschaftliche Fakultät). He also served as an advisor at the Dienststelle Ribbentrop of the Nazi Party from 1934 until 1938, when the bureau was disbanded upon the appointment of Joachim von Ribbentrop as Foreign Minister. Haushofer then until 1941 sometimes worked at the propaganda department of the German Foreign Office (Informationsabteilung des Auswärtigen Amtes).

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