Alfred Kranzfelder

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Kranzfelder was arrested on July 24, 1944 and sentenced to death by Roland Freisler on August 10, 1944 before the People's Court for high treason and treason .

Alfred Kranzfelder (* 10. February 1908 in Kempten , † 10. August 1944 in Berlin ) was lieutenant commander in the High Command of the Navy and became a resistance fighter of 20 July 1944 murdered.

Life

Childhood and school

Alfred Kranzfelder was born as the third son of District Court Director Alfred Kranzfelder and his wife Marie in Kempten (Allgäu). His three siblings were named Helene, Richard and Heinrich. From 1919 he attended the Humanist Gymnasium in Kempten (today Carl-von-Linde-Gymnasium Kempten ), where he passed his matriculation examination in 1927. Before that he was at a grammar school in Regensburg for a year. In his graduation certificate from March 1927, his religious examination, as well as the “substantial German essay, which testified to a clear understanding and linguistic fluency” were particularly emphasized. His preferences and interests were in mathematics and science, as well as English and sports.

Naval officer

Although he would have been more inclined to study, he applied for admission to the Reichsmarine in November 1926 in order to pursue a career as an officer. After consulting his school director, the application was accepted. His training began on April 5, 1927. On 11 October the same year he became a midshipman appointed, almost exactly one and a half years later Midshipman . He was the best in his class at the Naval School in Flensburg - Mürwik and thus became the oldest crew member of " Crew 27". In 1928 he made several long-distance journeys on ships of the Reichsmarine, including a training voyage in the Pacific Ocean and China. In 1931 he was promoted to lieutenant at sea , and in 1933 to first lieutenant at sea . Soon after completing his training - in the early 30s - he became a teacher at the artillery school in Kiel. In 1936 he was appointed lieutenant captain and received the fourth class service award. In 1937 he was on board the ironclad Admiral Scheer off the Spanish Mediterranean coast. In 1939 he met his future fiancée Ruth, with whom he had a relationship until his death. In 1940 he was transferred to Berlin for health reasons - after an illness there was a risk of tuberculosis - where from then on he worked as a consultant in the operations department of the naval command at the High Command of the Navy and dealt with international law and political issues. In 1941 he was promoted to corvette captain. He received several awards, including the War Merit Cross 2nd and 1st Class with Swords and the Third Class Service Award.

Personaly thinking

Some people thought he was a withdrawn, poor-contact loner, others value him as an extremely comradely, ambitious, fearless and very personable diplomat. His fiancée describes him as a “pure, clear artistic nature” with a balanced, happy atmosphere. Doctor Raab, his former headmaster, summed up his “uninhibited, modest and quick-witted nature” under the term “pleasant student appearance” . Kranzfelder was a philosopher. He asked himself questions about the reason for human existence, the meaning and goal of life. In addition, he was apparently very hopeful: "Let's make plans, because hope is the inexhaustible strength from which we can and should draw" (Kranzfelder in the summer of 1943 in a letter to his fiancée).

Participation in the attack

Kranzfelder was involved in the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 . Due to his position as liaison officer of the naval war command in Berlin to the Foreign Office , Kranzfelder had a good overview of the actual war conditions - he saw how everything turned for the worse and that for Germany under an ongoing National Socialist government it "never became even remotely bearable Peace ” would come. He became more and more desperate and decided in 1943 - also through contact with Berthold and Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg - to resist. His task was to identify and address possible other resistance fighters in the Navy. After the assassination, Kranzfelder was supposed to get the naval telecommunications network under his control or to prevent its use, and later to observe the reactions of Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz and Admiral Wilhelm Meisel , his superiors in the Navy, to the orders of General Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben , who was in charge of the entire Wehrmacht was intended. In addition to Kranzfelder and Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg as naval chief judge in the naval high command, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was a member of the navy who was active in the resistance. Kranzfelder was the bearer of the news that the rumor was circulating in Berlin that “the Führer headquarters will be blown up in the next week” . Based on the information provided by Kranzfelder, Stauffenberg is said to have decided to act quickly and decisively on July 20, 1944.

Kranzfelder was arrested on July 24, 1944 and sentenced to death by Roland Freisler on August 10, 1944 before the People's Court for high treason and treason . In the process, death sentences were also pronounced against the officers Georg Alexander Hansen , Erich Fellgiebel , Fritz-Dietlof Graf von der Schulenburg and Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg , some of whom were hanged on the same day in Plötzensee .

Memory and honor

See also

literature

  • KH Peter (Ed.): Mirror image of a conspiracy. The Kaltenbrunner reports to Bormann and Hitler about the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944. Stuttgart 1961.
  • Peter Steinbach / Johannes Tuchel : Lexicon of Resistance 1933-1945. Publishing house CHBeck . Munich. 1994, p. 112
  • Helmut Moll (Ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference): Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century . Paderborn u. a. 1999. 7th revised and updated edition 2019. ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 . Vol. I, pp. 79-82.
  • Jörg Hillmann : July 20th and the Navy . A contribution to the event and reception. Publishing house Dr. Dieter Winkler. Bochum. 2004. ISBN 978-3-89911-044-9
  • Ralf Lienert: Kempten resistance fighter. Kempten 2008.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.gedenkstaette-ploetzensee.de/12_dt.html
  2. ↑ “We don't want to suppress our past”. In: www.marine.de. Federal Ministry of Defense , head of the press and information staff, July 21, 2016, accessed on July 25, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Stefan Beuke: Flensburg-Mürwik: clearing up with the past. In: Flensburger Tageblatt . May 27, 2016. Retrieved July 25, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Homepage of Alfred Kranzfelder , Homepage: Field and Marine Lodge "Alfred Kranzfelder" (accessed December 24, 2018)
personal data
SURNAME Kranzfelder, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Kempten
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 1944
Place of death Berlin