Friedrich Olbricht
Friedrich Olbricht (born 4 October 1888 in Leisnig, Saxony; died 21 July 1944 in Berlin) was a German general and one of the plotters involved in the attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia on 20 July 1944.
Life
Friedrich Olbricht was the son of the mathematics professor Richard Olbricht.
After his Abitur in 1907, Olbricht joined Infantry Regiment 106 in Leipzig as an ensign. He then fought in the First World War from 1914 to 1918, and afterwards, as a captain, was taken into the Reichswehr, which had been reduced in size under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
Olbricht was married to Eva Koeppel. The couple would have a son and a daughter.
Olbricht's mistrust of the Nazis became apparent early on, particularly after the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, when he stood together with Hans Oster, Erwin von Witzleben and Georg Thomas, who all distanced themselves from the growing rightwing movement, worried as they were at the allure that the Nazis seemed to have for a lot of military men.
In 1926, Olbricht was called into the Reich Defence Ministry as leader of the "Foreign Armies Bureau". In 1933, he became chief of staff of the Dresden Division.
In 1934, Olbricht managed to save several men from being shot in the wake of the Röhm affair by having them assigned to military-political duties under army protection. They had already been arrested, and would have been put to death in fairly short order.
In 1935 came his appointment as chief of staff of the Fourth Army Corps stationed in Dresden. In 1938, he took over leadership of the 24th Infantry Division. That same year, he unsuccessfully advocated the rehabilitation of Werner von Fritsch, who had been disgraced as a result of an accusation of homosexuality (see Blomberg-Fritsch Affair).
When the Second World War broke out in 1939, he took part in the Invasion of Poland, which ended with his being awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. On 15 February 1940, Olbricht was promoted to General of the Infantry. He was assigned the leadership of the General Army Office (Allgemeines Heeresamt) in the Army Leadership High Command (Oberkommando der Heeresleitung). He was furthermore made leader of the Recruiting Office (Wehrersatzamt) at the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht.
Olbricht took part in the planning for the attempt on Hitler's life together with the resistance circles around Colonel General Ludwig Beck, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and Major General Henning von Tresckow. In 1943, he asked that Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, who would later be the key man in the assassination attempt with the job of actually planting the bomb near Hitler, come to work at his office.
On the day of the attempted coup d'état, 20 July 1944, Olbricht and Colonel Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim initiated Operation Valkyrie – originally conceived as a plan to deal with an uprising within Germany – thereby mobilizing the Reserve Army (Ersatzheer). It soon became known, however, that Stauffenberg's briefcase bomb had failed to kill the Führer. The consequences were dire.
After a hastily arranged court martial on the night of 20-21 July led by Colonel General Friedrich Fromm, Friedrich Olbricht, Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, Werner von Haeften, and Claus von Stauffenberg were all led out into the courtyard of the Bendlerblock where they were shot by firing squad.
Literature
- Friedrich Georgi, Soldat im Widerstand. General der Infanterie Friedrich Olbricht; 2. Aufl., Berlin u. Hamburg 1989 (ISBN 3-489-50134-9)
- Helena P. Page, General Friedrich Olbricht. Ein Mann des 20. Juli; 2. Aufl., Bonn u. Berlin 1994 (ISBN 3-416-02514-8)
- Report from Olbricht's son-in-law Friedrich Georgi about the talk on 20 July, in which Olbricht explained his motivations, just before he was arrested.
See also: List of members of the July 20 plot, Widerstand