Ehrengard Frank-Schultz

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Ehrengard Frank-Schultz , née Maria Hedwig Ehrengard Besser (born March 23, 1885 in Magdeburg ; † December 8, 1944 in Plötzensee prison , Berlin ) was a German deaconess and victim of the Nazi war justice system.

The Frank-Schultz case

Frank-Schultz was a great-granddaughter of the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher . Since the 1930s (?) She lived as a widow in Berlin-Wilmersdorf . During the Second World War she worked as a nurse for the Red Cross as a deaconess .

Around August 1944 Ehrengard Frank-Schultz talked to the nurse's assistant Erika Roeder. They talked about the failed assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 . Roeder said that it was impossible to imagine what would have happened if the attack had succeeded - Frank-Schultz replied that on the contrary, it was a shame that it did not succeed. In a second conversation with Roeder a few days later, Frank-Schultz added that the officers involved would one day be proud to have participated in the attack. At a third meeting, she explained to Roeder when they asked what the assassination attempt was supposed to achieve, that if the attack had succeeded, peace would already reign and there would be no more Allied air strikes on German cities. She went on to explain that it would be better to live under Anglo-American rule for a few years than to continue to endure the tyranny of the National Socialists. Overlooking the recently appointed chief of commander of the Reserve Army appointed SS chief Heinrich Himmler expressed Frank Schultz that it is terrible that these have received this position because it was not an appropriate person for such a responsible position.

After Roeder denounced Frank-Schultz to the authorities, she was arrested and brought to justice. The system was on military force decomposition . The People's Court negotiated under the chairmanship of Roland Freisler , the assessors were the district court director Martin Stier , SS-Brigadführer and Major General of the Waffen-SS Friedrich Tscharmann , SA-Brigadführer Daniel Hauer and City Councilor Hans-Fritz Kaiser . On November 6, 1944, she was found guilty and sentenced to death . In the grounds, she was accused of having made common cause with those involved in the coup attempt of July 20, 1944 and thus having undertaken "an attack on the spiritual warfare of the people". She also demonstrated her “traitor soul” by requesting a new assassination attempt and claiming that an Anglo-American regime was better than the current government. In addition, she was accused of an inner weakness that led her to defeatism and a reactionary attitude.

“Whoever acts like this is the personified shame itself! Anyone who acts in this way has forever dishonored himself as a traitor to our people and as an accomplice to our war enemies. Anyone who acts like this must disappear from our midst. To pass a different verdict than the death sentence would be answered rightly by our soldiers at the front with the question whether the boil of July 20th has really been cut out so that we can lead the fight to victory healthy and strong. "

The death sentence was on December 8, 1944 in the place of execution of the prison Plötzensee by the Executioner Röttger with the guillotine enforced .

literature

  • Hartmut Jäckel: People in Berlin: the last telephone directory of the old Reich capital 1941 , 2000, p. 140f.
  • Walter Wagner: The People's Court in the National Socialist State , Munich 2011, p. 383f.
  • Klaus-Jörg Ruhl: Our lost years , 1985, pp. 86–88.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ancestry.com. Magdeburg, Germany, Birth Register 1874–1903 [database on-line], Magdeburg Old Town Registry Office, Register Number 982/1885