Günther Caracciola-Delbrück

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Günther Caracciola-Delbrück (born November 27, 1898 in Frankfurt am Main , † April 28, 1945 in Munich ) was a German publisher and resistance fighter . Caracciola was a soldier in the First World War and from 1939 until his death a member of the Wehrmacht . He was considered a close confidante of the Nazi Reich Governor Franz Ritter von Epp .

Life

As a volunteer in the First World War, Caracciola was awarded the 1st Class Cross of Honor. In the interwar years he worked as a publisher.

At the beginning of the Second World War, Lieutenant Caracciola was drafted into the military district office in Munich. Since 1943 he acted as a liaison officer of the Wehrmacht and was promoted to major by General von Epp. In this function he was close to the resistance group around Franz Sperr . After the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , he planned the establishment of a transitional government and the unconditional surrender of all troops in southern Bavaria in order to avoid further destruction and casualties. However, he did not manage to find enough allies.

In April 1945, Caracciola joined the Bavarian Freedom Campaign organized by Rupprecht Gerngross , which was supposed to pave the way for the city to be surrendered quickly and without a fight shortly before the US Army took Munich by overthrowing the local Nazi governor around Gauleiter Paul Giesler .

With members of the Bavarian Freedom Campaign, Caracciola tried to occupy the central ministry of the Bavarian state government on Ludwigstrasse and arrest Giesler. The resistance failed, not least because Caracciola did not succeed in convincing Ritter von Epp of the project. The SS entrenched in the building put down the uprising and arrested the resistance.

When Giesler fled to Berchtesgaden, he gave the order to liquidate those arrested. Günther Caracciola Delbrück was with the company interpreter Maximilian Roth for their involvement in the freedom of action in the court of the Central Ministry shot .

Post fame

Caracciola is buried in the Feldafing cemetery. At the end of 2017, the community announced that it would convert his resting place into a grave of honor. A memorial plaque in the courtyard of the former Central Ministry, now the Ministry of Agriculture , commemorates Caracciola's resistance campaign. Streets in the Harthof district of Munich and in Gauting ( Starnberg district ) are named after him.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manuel Limbach: Citizens against Hitler. Prehistory, structure and work of the Bavarian “Sperr-Kreis” . Göttingen 2019, ISBN 978-3-525-31071-7 , pp. 239 .
personal data
SURNAME Caracciola-Delbrück, Günther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German major
DATE OF BIRTH November 27, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 1945
Place of death Munich