Fritz Grobba

Fritz Konrad Ferdinand Grobba (18 July 1886 – 2 September 1973) was a German diplomat during the interwar period and World War II.

He was born in Gartz on the Oder in the Province of Brandenburg, Germany. His parents were Rudolf Grobba, a nurseryman, and Elise Grobba, born Weyer. He attended elementary and high school in Gartz. Grobba studied law, economics and Oriental languages at the University of Berlin. In 1913, he received his doctorate of law. Grobba worked briefly in the German consulate in Jerusalem, Palestine. Palestine was then part of the Ottoman Empire.

During World War I, Leutnant Grobba fought for the Central Powers, as an officer of the Prussian Army. Grobba fought in France and with the Asia Corps on the Middle Eastern Front.

In September 1922, Grobba joined the legal affairs department of the German Foreign Ministry of the Weimar Republic. In January 1923, he was transferred to Department 3 (Abteilung III), the department responsible for the Middle East. In October 1923, when postwar diplomatic relations were established between Weimar Germany and the Emirate of Afghanistan, Grobba was named Germany's representative in Kabul, with the rank of consul. In 1925, when the government of Emir Amanullah Khan accused him of attempting to help a visiting German geographer escape from Afghanistan shortly after the geographer shot and killed an Afghan citizen near Kabul, Grobba denied the charge. There was a diplomatic crisis between Germany and Afghanistan over the role of Grobba.

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