Bodo from Harbou

Bodo von Harbou (born December 12, 1880 in Stollhamm near Nordenham ; † December 22, 1943 in Berlin ) was a German officer and belonged to the group of military resistance against National Socialism , which led to the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 was executed. Mogens von Harbou was his son.

Empire

During the First World War , Harbou achieved a certain fame right from the start: as a captain , he and Max Bauer excelled in the successful conquest of Liège in August 1914 and received "the first iron cross from the hand of the emperor", as the press said reported.

From 1917 to 1919 Harbou was a major in the operations department of the Chief of the Army General Staff, and in 1918 also a member of the Peace Commission. At the beginning of September 1918, he was now active as an economic expert for the OHL, participated in discussions between Reich President von Hindenburg , the Social Democrats represented by Friedrich Ebert , Colonel Max Bauer and other representatives of the Reichswehr as well as representatives of the Krupp, Stinnes and Ballin companies on the question of one Change of government under the leadership of the Social Democrats. He was also involved in the talks and negotiations at the main headquarters in Spa , which ultimately led to the disempowerment of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the armistice.

In the transition period between the German Empire and the Weimar Republic, the Supreme Army Command wanted to end the revolutionary unrest in Berlin in the first half of December 1918 by means of the so-called Lequis General Command . To this end, it relied on cooperation with the “majority socialists” dominated by the Social Democrats. As a middleman for the chief of the Supreme Army Command Wilhelm Groener , Harbou sought out Ebert, at that time still "Chairman of the Council of People's Representatives". Harbou managed to get Ebert to agree to the "entry" of the Reichswehr in Berlin. According to Harbou's plans as Lequis's chief of staff, nine field divisions marched towards Berlin from different directions in mid-December 1918. The operation failed because soldiers refused to obey. A few days later, during the Christmas battles, Harbou mediated between the OHL and the Social Democrats.

Weimar Republic

After the First World War, Harbou resigned from the military and worked, among other things, as managing director of the German nitrogen syndicate. The nitrogen syndicate GmbH was founded in 1919 and from 1925 was one of the four IG Farben sales groups . The aim of the syndicate was the independent supply of the German Reich with preliminary products for the production of explosives and mineral fertilizers . It thus had strategic importance for Germany's ability to go to war. With the International Nitrogen Convention of 1930, other states were included in the market agreements . From 1931, the syndicate, together with other interest groups, increasingly became part of the Central European Business Day . When the Franz von Papen government, after its overthrow on September 12, 1932, discussed the financing of the upcoming Reichstag election campaign , Harbou was recommended as a donation organizer.

Nazi era

In 1939, when he was reactivated as a major , Harbou was appointed chief of the command staff at Alexander von Falkenhausen , the military commander for Belgium and northern France, in Brussels , where he became Colonel i. G. promoted.

Harbou was friends with General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel and also knew his colleague Caesar von Hofacker well, who acted as a contact for Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg in Paris as part of the military resistance against Hitler . Harbou also met repeatedly with Helmuth James Graf von Moltke , whereby he was also connected to the Kreisau Circle , and with Ulrich von Hassell . Bodo von Harbou informed his son Mogens, at least on the occasion of his visit in August 1943, about views and plans of the resistance.

In 1943 the "Harbou case" came about: Investigations started against Bodo von Harbou and his superior von Falkenhausen on the basis of accusations by Alfred Naujocks , then an informer of the security service , on suspicion of embezzlement, black market transactions and foreign exchange offenses. In reality, the matter was probably part of the long-standing power struggle between von Falkenhausen as a representative of the politically neutral and conservative military on the one hand and representatives of the new National Socialist power elites such as Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Heinrich Himmler , who preferred more politically controllable civil administrations for the occupied states. Included was a princess Ruspoli di Poggio Suasa, née Countess Elisabeth van der Noot d'Assche, a member of the Belgian aristocracy, and now Falkenhausen's lover. Because of Falkenhausen, the matter was so important that Wilhelm Keitel personally brought it to Hitler. Falkenhausen was able to hold its own in this intrigue, as his replacement was seen as too destabilizing at the moment. But on December 16, 1943, Harbo was arrested by the SD on charges of undermining military strength . From the military prison in Brussels, he, who is said to have illegally procured identity papers for Ruspoli, was brought to Germany like Ruspoli. A few days later, Harbou committed suicide while in custody in Berlin, presumably out of fear of betraying political plans against Hitler and those who knew it.

Web links

• Knud from Harbou. In: Supplements to Hans Magnus Enzensberger: Hammerstein or the obstinacy . Suhrkamp-Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-518-46095-5 (PDF; 2.5 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ There are contradicting information on the date of birth and death; The date of death mentioned by his grandson Knud von Harbou as well as the date and place of birth according to Peter Broucek (Ed.): A General in Twilight are used here. The memories of Edmund Glaise von Horstenau. Volume 1: Kuk General Staff Officer and Historian. Böhlau, Vienna 1980, ISBN 3-205-08740-2 , p. 326, Matthias Graf von Schmettow, Ingrid Gräfin von Schmettow (eds.): Memorial book of the German nobility: supplement . CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1980, p. 18 and HR Hiort-Lorenzen and A. Thiset: Danmarks adels aarbog 1889, p. 187.
2. ↑ Berliner Tageblatt. No. 426 of August 23, 1914 [1] and after Erich Koch-Weser: Local politics in the First World War: The diaries of Erich Koch-Weser 1914 to 1918 . In: Series of publications by the Reichspräsident-Friedrich-Ebert-Gedenkstätte Foundation, Oldenbourg Verlag, 1999, ISBN 978-3-486-56394-8 .
3. ↑ Peter Wulf 19179: Hugo Stinnes . In: Volume 28 of Kieler historical studies, Klett-Cotta-Verlag, 1979, ISBN 978-3-12-912080-4 .
4. ↑ Waldemar Erfurth 1957: The History of the German General Staff from 1918 to 1945 . In: Volume 1 of studies on the history of the Second World War, Musterschmidt-Verlag, 1957.
5. ↑ Data on Bodo von Harbou in: Federal Archives, files of the Reich Chancellery from 1919–1933. (therein as a date of death July 29, 1944).
6. ↑ Data on Bodo von Harbou in: German National Library (therein Lifetime 1887–1944 and UuF (= causes and consequences) 1880–1943).
7. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler : German history of society: From the beginning of the First World War to the founding of the two German states 1914-1949 . In: Volume 4 of German history of society , CH Beck, 2003, ISBN 978-3-406-32264-8 .
8. ^ Karl Heinz Roth : The history of IG Farbenindustrie AG from its founding to the end of the Weimar Republic (PDF; 333 kB).
9. ↑ Files of the Reich Chancellery No. 141 Ministerial Meeting of September 14, 1932, 11 a.m.
10. ^ Karl Dietrich Erdmann , Karl-Heinz Minuth, Wolfgang Mommsen: Files of the Reich Chancellery: Weimar Republic, September to December 1932 . Ed .: Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Federal Archives, Oldenbourg Verlag, 1989, ISBN 978-3-7646-1875-9 .
11. ↑ Jürgen Zarusky, Vasiliĭ Semenovich Grossman 2008: Occupation, Collaboration, Holocaust: New Studies on the Persecution and Murder of European Jews. In: Johannes Hürter (Hrsg.): Volume 97 of series of quarterly books for contemporary history, Institute for Contemporary History Munich, Oldenbourg-Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58728-9 .
12. ↑ Peter Broucek (Ed.): A General in the Twilight / Edmund Glaise von Horstenau . In: Publications of the Commission for Modern History of Austria, K. u. K. General Staff Officer and Historian: Vol. 1, Böhlau Verlag Vienna, 1980, ISBN 978-3-205-08740-3 .
13. ↑ Jörn Mazur 1997: Organizational structures of the German occupation administrations in France, Belgium and the Netherlands with special consideration of the position of the SS and police apparatus ( Memento of October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). Diploma thesis submitted on January 16, 1997 in the Faculty of Administrative Science at the University of Konstanz.
14. ↑ ^{a b} Knud von Harbou: Ways and astray. Franz Josef Schöningh, the co-founder of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. A biography . Allitera, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-86906-482-6
15. ^ Herwig Jacquemyns: België in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Belgium in World War II) . Description of the rule and life of Falkenhausen and Harbous in occupied Belgium, including the foreign exchange affair (Flemish with incorrect German translation).
16. ↑ Florian Altenhöner 2010: The man who started World War II: Alfred Naujocks: forger, murderer, terrorist . Prospero-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-941688-10-0 .
17. ^ Werner Warmbrunn 1993: The German occupation of Belgium 1940-1944 . In: Volume 122 of American university studies: History, Verlag P. Lang, 1993, ISBN 978-0-8204-1773-8 .
18. ↑ Ulrich von Hassell, Klaus Peter Reiss, Friedrich Hiller von Gaertringen: The Hassell diaries 1938–1944: Notes from Andern Germany . Volume 12864 from Einsiedler Buch, Goldmann, 1194, ISBN 978-3-442-12864-8 .
19. ^ Wilfried Wagner: Belgium in German politics during the Second World War . In: Military History Research Office (Hrsg.): Volume 18 of Wehrwissenschaftliche Forschungen, Verlag Boldt, 1974, ISBN 978-3-7646-1597-0 .
20. ↑ Complaint file for officers in the army (date of birth 1880), RW 59/2076: Bodo von Harbou. Federal Archives, Military Archives Department (date of birth December 12, 1880), under January 24, 1945 entry: "von H. died".