Servant of Different Masters
Gustav Hilger: Soviet Union Expert and “Consultant”
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
For George F. Kennan, Gustav Hilger was the “doyen of all Russia experts”. Born in Moscow, this son of a German businessman initially made a name for himself in Berlin and Moscow after the First World War: among Germans through his involvement in the repatriation of prisoners of war, among Bolsheviks through his humanitarian engagement against famine. He joined the German Foreign Office as a lateral entrant, served, as a consultant, both the National Socialists, the United States and the nascent Federal Republic under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. By the time he retired, people like him, those who had gained their qualifications based on their origins and life experience, were being replaced by academically trained Sovietologists.
(Osteuropa 1-2/2017, pp. 143–152)