Otto Meissner
German politician (1880-1953)
Otto Lebrecht Eduard Daniel Meissner (13 March 1880 – 27 May 1953) was head of the Office of the President of Germany from 1920 to 1945 during nearly the entire period of the Weimar Republic under Friedrich Ebert and Paul von Hindenburg and, finally, under the Nazi government under Adolf Hitler.
Life
The son of a postal official, Meissner studied law in Straßburg from 1898 to 1903, where he also became a member of the Straßburg Student Youth Fraternity (Burschenschaft) Germania. Later, he also studied in Berlin and earned his Doctor of Laws in 1908, at the age of 28, in Erlangen, Bavaria. Afterward, he became a bureaucrat for the national railroad, the Reichsbahn, in Straßburg. Between 1915 and 1917, he participated in the First World War in the 136th infantry regiment. Until 1919 he was more active behind the front as a military railroad official, first in Bucharest, then in Kyiv. He was then accepted into the diplomatic service and from 1918 acted as a German chargé d'affaires to the very shortlived Ukrainian government in Kiev.
Ebert presidency (1920-1925)
Thanks to his good contacts, in 1919, Meissner became Acting Advisor in the "Bureau of the Reichspräsident", who was then the Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert, and by 1 April 1920, Meissner had risen to Ministerial Director and Leader of the Bureau. Ebert raised Meissner to the rank of State Secretary (Staatssekretär) in November 1923.
Hindenburg presidency (1925-1934)
Meissner continued in the post of State Secretary when Paul von Hindenburg was elected as Ebert's successor in 1925.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Otto Meissner” as german politician (1880-1953). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as german politician (1880-1953). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q62087. VIAF identifies the subject as 69725518. The Library of Congress control number is no96058670. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1880, 1953, 1920 and 1945.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Otto Meissner”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Otto Meissner primary sources, Otto Meissner archive and Otto research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Otto Meissner”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Otto Meissner” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.