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He served as a volunteer in the ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' during the [[Second World War]], was promoted to officer and got wounded. Recovering in a hospital in [[Poland]], he witnessed the execution of a group of [[Jewish people]], an event which turned his opinion against the [[Nazis]]<ref>[http://www.br-online.de/content/cms/Universalseite/2008/05/08/cumulus/BR-online-Publikation--125452-20080508105743.pdf Interview with Felix Heidenberger] (in German) [[Bayerischer Rundfunk]], published: [[8 May]] [[2008]], accessed: [[26 June]] [[2008]]</ref>.
He served as a volunteer in the ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' during the [[Second World War]], was promoted to officer and got wounded. Recovering in a hospital in [[Poland]], he witnessed the execution of a group of [[Jewish people]], an event which turned his opinion against the [[Nazis]]<ref>[http://www.br-online.de/content/cms/Universalseite/2008/05/08/cumulus/BR-online-Publikation--125452-20080508105743.pdf Interview with Felix Heidenberger] (in German) [[Bayerischer Rundfunk]], published: [[8 May]] [[2008]], accessed: [[26 June]] [[2008]]</ref>.


Upon his return he was put in charge of an interpreter company in the [[Bavaria]]n capital. Within this unit he found a group of people who were unconvinced of the Nazi ideals and ideas and he managed to arm his officially unarmed company<ref name="historyplace1">[http://www.historyplace.com/pointsofview/white-rose4.htm Memories of the White Rose] accessed: [[26 June]] [[2008]]</ref>. From [[1942]], this company formed the heart of the ''Freiheitsaktion Bayern'', but it also involved a number of civilians. All up, the resistance movement had a strength of about 400 people<ref name="musin1">[http://www.lsg.musin.de/homepage/mordan.html Der Mord an Pfarrer Grimm - Die Freiheitsaktion Bayern] (in German) accessed: [[27 June]] [[2008]]</ref>. [[Jürgen Wittenstein]], a friend of the members of the [[Weiße Rose]], collected weapons for the movement from wounded soldiers at the [[Italy|Italian]] front, where had volunteered to serve in order to escape the [[Gestapo]]<ref name="historyplace1"/>.
Upon his return he was put in charge of an interpreter company in the [[Bavaria]]n capital. Within this unit he found a group of people who were unconvinced of the Nazi ideals and ideas and he managed to arm his officially unarmed company<ref name="historyplace1">[http://www.historyplace.com/pointsofview/white-rose4.htm Memories of the White Rose] accessed: [[26 June]] [[2008]]</ref>. From [[1942]], this company formed the heart of the ''Freiheitsaktion Bayern'', but it also involved a number of civilians. All up, the resistance movement had a strength of about 400 people<ref name="musin1">[http://www.lsg.musin.de/homepage/mordan.html Der Mord an Pfarrer Grimm - Die Freiheitsaktion Bayern] (in German) accessed: [[27 June]] [[2008]]</ref>. [[Jürgen Wittenstein]], a friend of the members of the [[Weiße Rose]], collected weapons for the movement from wounded soldiers at the [[Italy|Italian]] front, where he had volunteered to serve in order to escape the [[Gestapo]]<ref name="historyplace1"/>.


During the war, he managed to complete his law degree at the [[University of Erlangen]] in 1942<ref name="datenmatrix1"/>.
During the war, he managed to complete his law degree at the [[University of Erlangen]] in 1942<ref name="datenmatrix1"/>.

Revision as of 14:58, 30 June 2008

Rupprecht Gerngroß
Rupprecht Gerngroß
Born
Rupprecht Gerngroß

(1915-06-21)June 21, 1915
Shanghai, China
DiedFebruary 25, 1996(1996-02-25) (aged 80)
Munich, Germany
NationalityGerman
EmployerWehrmacht Heer
Known forFreiheitsaktion Bayern leader
TitleHauptmann

Rupprecht Gerngroß (21 June 1915 in Shanghai — 25 February 1996 in Deisenhofen)[1] was a German lawyer and leader of the Freiheitsaktion Bayern, the FAB, (English:Bavarian freedom initiative), a group involved in an attempt to overthrow the Nazis in Munich in April 1945.

Life

Rupprecht Gerngroß was born in Shanghai in 1915, to German parents who both originated from Munich. He returned with his family to Germany after the First World War and was educated in Munich.

He served as a volunteer in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War, was promoted to officer and got wounded. Recovering in a hospital in Poland, he witnessed the execution of a group of Jewish people, an event which turned his opinion against the Nazis[2].

Upon his return he was put in charge of an interpreter company in the Bavarian capital. Within this unit he found a group of people who were unconvinced of the Nazi ideals and ideas and he managed to arm his officially unarmed company[3]. From 1942, this company formed the heart of the Freiheitsaktion Bayern, but it also involved a number of civilians. All up, the resistance movement had a strength of about 400 people[4]. Jürgen Wittenstein, a friend of the members of the Weiße Rose, collected weapons for the movement from wounded soldiers at the Italian front, where he had volunteered to serve in order to escape the Gestapo[3].

During the war, he managed to complete his law degree at the University of Erlangen in 1942[1].

In the final days of the war, when the order was issued to defend Munich to the last man by blowing up all bridges and using the Munich trams to form barricades, he decided to resist this order to prevent a complete destruction of the infrastructure of the city.

Freiheitsaktion Bayern

In the final days of the Second World War, Gerngroß was serving as a Captain in interpreter company in Munich. On the morning of 28 April 1945, he ordered the occupation of the radio transmitters in Freimann and Erding and he broadcast messages in multiple languages, encouraging soldiers to resist the Nazi regime. He proclaimed a hunt for the golden pheasants (German:Jagd auf die Goldfasane), ironically reflecting the fact that Nazi officials wore a multitude of medals, and encouraged people to display white flags from their homes as a sign of surrender. His group also occupied the Munich city hall and the headquarters of the Völkischer Beobachter and Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten, two newspapers vital to the Nazi propaganda. The claim that the Freiheitsaktion had taken control over Munich was however premature and led to other uprisings against the Nazis in the region, which were often brutally suppressed by the SS[4].

Gerngroß's attempt to stop further bloodshed was quickly crushed by the Nazi and SS units still loyal to the collapsing regime. Paul Giesler, Gauleiter of the Gau Munich-Upper Bavaria was personally involved in putting it down. While Gerngroß escaped into the mountains, many others of his movement did not and more than forty were executed hours before the liberation of the city[5].

While unsuccessful in liberating Munich that day, Gerngroß did save a number of lives through his action. The prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp were supposed to be sent on a death march south with their SS guards to be used as laborers in the Alpenfestung. His broadcast triggered an uprising in Dachau and the SS left in panic, abandoning the inmates who were liberated by the arriving US forces soon thereafter[6]. He is also credited with saving the city of Munich from further destruction by this and therefore considered to be the leader of the only successful putsch against Hitler[7]. His announcement of the end of the Nazis in Munich led many German soldiers to desert the lost cause and the US forces arriving in Munich on the 30 April experienced virtually no resistance when taking the city[4].

Franz Ritter von Epp, Reichskommissar of Bavaria, refused his support to the movement, contributing to its failure to succeed completely[8]. Gerngroß had counted on his support[5].

After the war

In 1962, Gerngroß ordered a Chinese Junk in Hong Kong. He took it across the Indian Ocean, sailing to the Mediteranean Sea, where it supposedly was the only one of its kind traveling the Adriatic Sea. He named the boat Mau Yee (German:Münchner Freiheit). Gerngroß sailed through the Adriatic for another twenty years before eventually returning to Munich, dying there in 1996.

Legacy

Gerngroß remains almost forgotten within the small German resistance movement. In 1946, the Feilitzschplatz in the Munich suburb of Schwabing was renamed Münchner Freiheit (Munich liberty) to commemorate the courageous attempt to free Munich from the Nazis in the last days of the Second World War[9].

While the Freiheitsaktion Bayern was a failure from a military point of view, it did prevent the further destruction of Munich and sped up the collapse of the Nazi regime in the city. The US occupation authorities acknowledged this fact by recognising the FAB and asking the surviving members to support the Counterintelligence Corps - CIC but the group declined[10].

Upon her death in 2001, his widow left a substantial amount of documents about the FAB, collected by Gerngroß, to the Bavarian state archives[11].

Assassination attempts on Hitler

On two occasions, Gerngroß apparently tried to assassinate Hitler[12].

Further reading

  • So war das damals 1945 mit der Freiheits Aktion Bayern, FAB (in German) by Rupprecht Gerngross, 1970

Sources

References

  1. ^ a b Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte - Rupprecht Gerngroß (in German) accessed: 27 June 2008
  2. ^ Interview with Felix Heidenberger (in German) Bayerischer Rundfunk, published: 8 May 2008, accessed: 26 June 2008
  3. ^ a b Memories of the White Rose accessed: 26 June 2008
  4. ^ a b c Der Mord an Pfarrer Grimm - Die Freiheitsaktion Bayern (in German) accessed: 27 June 2008
  5. ^ a b " Kein weiteres sinnloses Blutvergießen" Versuche, den Krieg abzukürzen (in German) accessed: 27 June 2008
  6. ^ Prisoners and Dachau citizens revolting against the SS accessed: 26 June 2008
  7. ^ "The White Rose:" Student Resistance in Germany During WWII publisher: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, author:John Ginder, published: September 2001, accessed: 26 June 2008
  8. ^ Universitätsbibliothek Regensburg - Bosls bayrische Biographie - Franz Ritter von Epp (in German), author: Karl Bosl, publisher: Pustet, page 179-180
  9. ^ BR-Online - Der Aufstand der "Freiheitsaktion Bayern" (in German) published: 17 February 2005, accessed: 27 June 2008
  10. ^ Stunde Null at the Ground Level: Munich Page 122 onwards, Paper on Germany in 1945, accessed: 27 June 2008
  11. ^ Jüngste Nachlasserwerbungen des Bayerischen Hauptstaatsarchivs (in German), Munich, December 2001, accessed: 27 June 2008
  12. ^ George J. Wittenstein - Lecture Series University of California, Santa Barbara, accessed: 26 June 2008

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