Franz Maria Liedig

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Franz Maria Liedig , after 1945 mostly briefly Franz Liedig (born February 2, 1900 in Hünfeld ; † March 30, 1967 in Munich ), deployed as a naval officer , naval attaché and active in the resistance.

Life

Franz Maria Liedig joined the Imperial Navy as a war volunteer in October 1916 , completed training at the Mürwik Naval School and at the end of the war was an officer on watch on a torpedo boat of the Flanders torpedo boat flotilla . In December 1918 he was released to the reserve. After a short internship in Scapa Flow , he first studied at the Technical University of Munich . On September 28, 1919, he was promoted to lieutenant in the reserve and took part in 1919/20 as a free corps member of the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade in operations in Berlin and Upper Silesia, and finally in 1920 in the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch . In the first years of the Weimar Republic he worked in the Stahlhelm and in the Bund Wiking . From 1928, Liedig turned away from the right-wing National Socialist camp and oriented himself clearly towards political Catholicism . After completing his studies, he became a lawyer, did his doctorate and was temporarily a member of the law faculty of Munich University. At the instigation of the head of the defense department in the Reichswehr Ministry Rear Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (1887–1945), Liedig was reactivated in 1936. From this point on he was deployed in Abwehrstelle V. Stuttgart and moved in 1936 after a change from Herbert Wichmann (1894–1987) to Abwehrstelle X. in Hamburg, as his successor in Stuttgart. His supervisor was Major General Hans Oster (1887–1945) and this was how Liedig met people from the resistance.

September conspiracy 1938

Around September 20, 1938, the closer circle of people around Hans Oster met in his Berlin apartment for a final meeting to discuss how Adolf Hitler should be eliminated. These included Erwin von Witzleben (1881–1944), Hans Oster, Hans Bernd Gisevius (1904–1974), Hans von Dohnanyi (1902–1945), probably also Carl Friedrich Goerdeler (1884–1945) Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz (1899–1968) and Franz Maria Liedig. Since Heinz and Liedig had already been commissioned to set up a raiding party at an earlier point in time, which they had now agreed to deploy, the task now was to determine the exact point in time and the form of "withdrawing from circulation". Under Witzleben's leadership, the group was supposed to overpower all security guards at the entrance to the Reich Chancellery, then break the resistance of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler , arrest Hitler and take him to a safe place in a motor vehicle. But when Witzleben had left the meeting, those who stayed behind tightened the plan on one essential point: Heinz in particular urged that Hitler be shot in the course of the arrest operation. The implementation of the plan was then agreed for September 28, 1938. After the outcome of the Munich conference in mid-September, however, due to the changed mood in military circles and also in parts of the German population, the overthrow plan was abandoned for the time being.

On the evening of October 8, 1939, Hans Oster was on the way to his apartment with Franz Liedig, who occasionally served as his driver. On the way he asked to see Colonel Bert Sas , the Dutch military attaché in Berlin and friend since the 1936 Olympic Games . When Oster came out of Sas' house after a few minutes and sat down next to Liedig again, he said that he had just committed “treason” because he had betrayed the German attack date to Sas in the west.

Arrest and end of the war

After a short briefing phase, Franz Liedig was deployed as a naval attaché at the German legation in Bulgaria in 1940 . Ambassador in Sofia at this time was Herbert von Richthofen (1879–1952), his predecessor in the office of Naval Attaché Ralf von der Marwitz (1888–1966). After about a year he followed from Marwitz to the German embassy in Greece. In Athens there was German ambassador Viktor zu Erbach-Schönberg (1880-1967). But when the embassy had to be closed due to the war situation, Liedig switched to the light cruiser Cologne in February 1944 as first officer . On July 20, 1944, the plan to kill Hitler in Wolfsschanze with a hidden bomb failed. Shortly thereafter, Donany, Oster and then Canaris were arrested. But when records of earlier plans were found in the branch office of the Foreign Office / Defense in Zossen on September 22nd, 1944, it was only a matter of time. These files were revealing because this material revealed to the Nazi leadership for the first time the plans for a coup of opponents of the regime that had existed in 1938 and 1939. Hitler ordered that this material should on no account be handed over to the People's Court and that it was subject to the strictest secrecy. In the tense military situation on the fronts and the assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944, the population should not be further unsettled by the announcement of conspiracy plans from earlier times. At the beginning of November 1944, Liedig was arrested on board the "Köln" in Oslo . First brought to Berlin and interrogated by the Gestapo, he was then successively sent to the Flossenbürg , Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps . On April 24, 1945, Liedig was transported to Niederdorf (South Tyrol) together with around 140 prominent inmates of the camp , where the SS guards fled and left the prisoners behind.

After the end of the war

Franz Liedig returned to Bavaria in April 1945 and was one of the founding members of the CSU . In the years from 1946 to 1948 he served as their country manager. Due to his collaboration with Canaris and Oster, he was nevertheless exposed to suspicions and denigrations for years and was repeatedly accused of treason . At the beginning of the 1950s he resigned his party office primarily for this reason. Liedig died after a long illness on March 31, 1967 and was buried on April 3, 1967 in the Planegger cemetery.

family

Since March 22, 1929 Liedig was married to Edda Joachimi (* 1893), a daughter of Captain Martin Joachimi and Thea Buttmann. Joachimi's first marriage was from 1915 to 1926 with Eugen von Kessel , who was murdered in 1934 .

Franz Liedig died on March 30, 1967 in Munich.

literature

  • Joachim Fest: Coup. The long way to July 20th. Siedler, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-88680-539-5 .
  • Klaus Volker, Giessler, The Institution of the Naval Attaché in the Empire, Harald Boldt Verlag. Boppard on the Rhine, 1976
  • Jörg Hillmann: July 20, 1944 and the Navy. A contribution to the event and reception. Winkler, Bochum 2004, ISBN 3-89911-029-3 .
  • Marineattaché, Books LLC, Wiki Series, Memphis USA, 2011, p. 12
  • Marianne Siedentopf, Company Seelöwe, Taschenbuch Verlag Munich 2014

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the literature, the spelling "Fran-Maria Liedig" (with a hyphen) often appears as the spelling of his name. The fact that the spelling without a hyphen is correct is proven, for example, by the official letter of thanks from his widow for the condolences she received on the occasion of his death, in which it says "The many proofs of love and admiration that my beloved husband Franz Maria Liedig showed when he passed away I and his family were very moved. I would also like to express our heartfelt thanks on behalf of all relatives for the heartfelt condolences. Edda Liedig née Joachimi ".
  2. ^ Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels , Adelslexikon Volume II, Volume 58 of the complete series, pp. 471-472, CA Starke Verlag , Limburg (Lahn) 1974, ISSN  0435-2408 , p. 162.
  3. ↑ Monika Siedentopf, Company Seelöwe, Taschenbuch Verlag Munich 2014, pp. 117f.
  4. ↑ See Joachim Fest: Coup. The long way to July 20th. P. 94.
  5. ↑ Karl Heinz Abshagen, Canaris. Patriot and cosmopolitan, Union Verlag Stuttgart, 1959, p. 191 ff.
  6. ↑ See Joachim Fest: Coup. The long way to July 20th. P. 141 f.
  7. ^ Klaus Volker, Giessler, The Institution of the Naval Attaché in the Empire, Harald Boldt Verlag. Boppard on the Rhine, 1976
  8. ↑ a b Cf. Jörg Hillmann: Naval officers in the resistance movement
  9. ↑ Peter Koblank: The Liberation of Special Prisoners and Kinship Prisoners in South Tyrol , online edition Mythos Elser 2006
personal data
SURNAME Liedig, Franz Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer, resistance fighter against National Socialism and politician (CSU)
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Hünfeld
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1967
Place of death Munich