Ivar Lissner
| Ivar Arthur Nicolai Lissner | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 23, 1909 Lievenhof, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | September 4, 1967 (aged 58) Montreux, Switzerland |
| Occupation | Journalist, author |
| Known for | World War II Nazi spy |
| Spouse(s) | Ruth Niehaus |
| Children | Imogen Jochem |
Ivar Arthur Nicolai Lissner (born April 23, 1909 in Lievenhof, d. September 4, 1967 in Chesières sur Ollon at Montreux, Switzerland) was a German journalist and author, and a Nazi spy during World War II.
Born to a German-Jewish father, Robert Lissner, and mother Charlotte Lissner (née Gensz), Lissner was Baltic German of Jewish ancestry. His father was a Kommerzienrat (commerce councilor) and businessman who owned cork factories and other enterprises. Before the First World War the family moved to Moscow. They were exiled in 1917 to the Volga region and returned to Moscow after the war. The political upheavals of the postwar period resulted in the family fleeing to Riga and then to Berlin, where Lissner attended high school. He studied languages, history, anthropology and law at Greifswald, Berlin, Göttingen, Erlangen, Lyon (1931–1932) and at the Sorbonne in Paris. He obtained his PhD in Foreign Trade Law in April 1936 in Erlangen.
On 1 April 1933 Lissner decided to take the bull by the horns and joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Only one year later Lissner claimed party membership since the beginning of 1932 and also pretended to be a member of the SS since the end of 1932. A lie to conceal his Jewish background and to prevent any doubts that he was not an "Aryan".
In 1935 he published his first book (Blick nach Draußen, "Looking Outside") which was commercially unsuccessful but achieved the desired goal: creating a regime loyal façade. By writing this book he was able to style himself as an "ambassador" of German "values". One year later, in 1936, Ivar's father Robert Lissner was able to get hold of a forged Aryan certificate from the St. Peter's Church in Riga. It seems that this led to a more relaxed situation for the Lissner family. Ivar Lissner started a trip around the world on behalf of his publishing house "Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt" and visited the US, Canada, the Far and the Near East. His second (Völker und Kontinente ("Peoples and Continents") and third book (Menschen und Mächte am Pazifik ("People and Powers in the Pacific Region"), published 1936 and 1937, became commercially successful and had the character of travel reports. Unusually for this period they largely abstain from any pro-National Socialist views. Lissner wrote for the Hanseatic Service, the press service of his publisher, and some of his articles were – according to Heinz Höhne – also printed in Der Angriff.
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