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Ferdinand von Bredow

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Major General Ferdinand von Bredow (b. 16 May 1884, d. 30 June 1934) was a German military officer and former leader of the Defence Detachment (military secret service) in the Reich Defence Ministry and deputy defence minister in Kurt von Schleicher's cabinet (December 1932 - January 1933).

Major General von Bredow was, along with von Schleicher, among Adolf Hitler's bitterest adversaries at the time of the Weimar Republic's downfall. Towards the end of this régime, von Bredow, as the leader of von Schleicher's personal "information service" was head of a number of coëxisting secret service organizations, among them even the SS's Sicherheitsdienst, which was under Reinhard Heydrich's leadership.

Von Bredow, along with von Schleicher, was murdered in Berlin-Lichterfelde on 30 June 1934 by SS men from the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler on the Night of the Long Knives, a purge whereby Hitler silenced a great many opponents.