Friedrich Olbricht

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Friedrich Olbrich (1939)

Friedrich Olbricht (born October 4, 1888 in Leisnig , Saxony , † July 21, 1944 in Berlin ) was a German infantry general . He was involved in the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler .

Life

After high school in 1907 at the Municipal School Bautzen , today's Philipp-Melanchthon-Gymnasium Bautzen , joined Olbricht as a cadet in the Infantry Regiment "King George" (7th Royal Saxon) no. 106 in Leipzig one. He took part in the First World War from 1914 to 1918 and entered Leipzig in 1918 with the soldiers' councils. In 1919 he was taken over as a captain in the Reichswehr, which was downsized according to the provisions of the Versailles Treaty . From 1926 he was in the Foreign Armies of the Defense Ministry operates. In 1933 he became Chief of Staff of the 4th Division in Dresden . In 1935 he was appointed Chief of Staff of the IV Army Corps in Dresden, and in 1938 he took over the leadership of the 24th Infantry Division .

Friedrich Olbricht's birthplace in Leisnig

At the beginning of the Second World War , Olbricht took part in the attack on Poland as commander of the 24th Infantry Division in 1939 and was then awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . On February 15, 1940 he was appointed head of the General Army Office in the Army High Command and, in 1943, he was also appointed head of the Wehrmacht Substitute Office in the Wehrmacht High Command . On June 1, 1940, he was promoted to General of the Infantry with effect and seniority from February 15, 1940 .

Memorial stone in the old St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof at the short-term grave of Olbricht and other victims of July 20 (2009)

In connection with the resistance circles around Colonel General Ludwig Beck , Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and Major General Henning von Tresckow, he participated in the plans for the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. In 1943 he called on Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg , the later assassin of July 20, 1944, for his office. On the day of the coup attempt, he and Colonel Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim triggered the "Valkyrie" plan to mobilize the replacement army, which had been prepared in the event of internal unrest . After the failure, on the night of July 20 to 21, 1944, at the instigation of Colonel General Friedrich Fromm , who tried to disguise his own complicity, he was shot dead in the courtyard of the Bendler block in Berlin together with von Quirnheim, von Stauffenberg and von Haeften .

Olbricht's body was buried, along with other victims of July 20, in the Old St. Matthew Cemetery in Berlin-Schöneberg . A little later, the dead were exhumed by the SS , burned in the Wedding crematorium and the ashes scattered on sewage fields .

In his speech on the 70th anniversary of the assassination attempt on July 20, 2014, Federal President Joachim Gauck also remembered Olbricht's widow, who in 1952 laid the foundation stone for the memorial in the courtyard of the Bendler block “Young man with tied hands” by Richard Scheibe : “We also have a choice between remembering and forgetting. Therefore I would like to remind you today that it was a courageous individual - Eva Olbricht, the widow of the general who was shot here - who laid the foundation stone for the memorial in this courtyard in 1952. "

Since October 2008, a “ stumbling block ” by Cologne artist Gunter Demnig , placed at his last residence at Wielandstrasse 6 in the Chemnitz district of Kaßberg, has been reminding of Olbricht.

Friedrich Olbricht had been with Eva Emma Therese, born in 1918. Koeppel (1895–1991) married. The couple had two children, their son Klaus died in 1941, their daughter Rosemarie, who died in 1988, married the Luftwaffe major Friedrich Georgi.

The art patron Thomas Olbricht is his great-nephew.

Promotions

Awards and honors

General Olbricht barracks in Leipzig
  • In the courtyard of the Bendler Block in Berlin, a memorial plaque has been commemorating Friedrich Olbricht and his three fellow officers who were shot there with him on the evening of July 20, 1944, since 1962.
  • In the immediate vicinity of the Plötzensee memorial in Berlin-Charlottenburg-Nord , the Friedrich-Olbricht-Damm was named after him in 1971.
  • In his hometown Leisnig, a square not far from the house where he was born is named after him.
  • The General-Olbricht-Kaserne exist in Leipzig and since 1947 the Olbrichtstraße.
  • In Dresden's Albertstadt , where there is also a memorial in the north cemetery , there is also an Olbrichtplatz.
  • In Freiberg , Friedrich-Olbricht-Strasse was named after him in the post-war years.
  • A street in Bautzen was also named after him in 1996.
  • In honor of Olbricht, the officer courses of the 78th year of the German Army’s  officer candidates bear his name.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Olbricht  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c City of Leisnig: Friedrich Olbricht (1888–1944). Leading head of July 20, 1944.
  2. ↑ Report of Olbricht's superior, Chief of Staff Felix Reichardt, artist friend Willi Münch-Khe , available here (PDF)
  3. ^ Website of the Federal President: Commemoration of the 70th anniversary of July 20, 1944. Speech by Joachim Gauck on July 20, 2014.
  4. ↑ German Resistance Memorial Center: The Bendler Block 1945 to the present day.
  5. ↑ A big family: Friedrich Olbricht, ♂, resistance fighters against National Socialism.
  6. ^ Karl Otmar von Aretin:  Olbricht, Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 501 f. ( Digitized version ).
  7. ↑ a b c d Ranking list of the German Imperial Army , Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin, p. 122.
  8. ^ A b Veit Scherzer : Die Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 , Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 161.
  9. ^ Friedrich-Olbricht-Damm. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
personal data
SURNAME Olbricht, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German infantry general in World War II and in the resistance
DATE OF BIRTH October 4, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Quietly
DATE OF DEATH July 21, 1944
Place of death Berlin