Hans-Ulrich von Oertzen

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Hans-Ulrich von Oertzen (born March 6, 1915 in Berlin ; † July 21, 1944 there ) was a German general staff officer and was part of the core of the military resistance fighters from July 20, 1944 around Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg .

Life

Hans-Ulrich von Oertzens father Ulrich von Oertzen from the house Lübbersdorf -Teschow fell on 27 February 1916 in the Champagne ( Western Front ) as a captain and company commander in the First World War . His widowed mother Elisabeth von Oertzen, née von Oertzen from the Rattey family (born October 12, 1887 in Rattey, † August 11, 1938 in Berlin) raised the young Hans-Ulrich alone, initially on the family estate owned by her brother Henning von Oertzen in Rattey near Strasburg in Mecklenburg . She later went to Berlin as a painter, from 1933 first chairwoman of the Association of Berlin Women Artists in 1867 , while her son, after being selected for a scholarship, attended the boarding school at Salem Castle on Lake Constance and graduated from high school there in 1933.

Hans Ulrich von Oertzen wanted professionally his father followed, then joined as a cadet in the signal corps of the Reichswehr , and indeed at the 6th (Prussian) news department in Hanover . In the following years he went through officer training in the Wehrmacht . In 1938 Oertzen was transferred to the group command in Vienna as an adjutant. From 1940 he served as a teaching officer at the Army Intelligence School in Halle (Saale) , from June 1941 in the Panzer Army Intelligence Regiment 1. After taking part in the general staff course, Oertzen was employed in the staff of an infantry division from September 1942. In 1943 he became a major in the general staff and training officer in the staff of the Army Group Center under Colonel Henning von Tresckow . Oertzen now belonged to a group of officers who wanted to shoot Adolf Hitler in March 1943 while visiting Army Group Center in Smolensk .

Together with Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg , the chief of staff at the General Army Office in Berlin, Oertzen developed the Walküre company in autumn 1943 . Originally conceived as a plan to put down possible civil unrest, it was added to a resistance group's plan of operations for the coup with the addition of a few more people to be arrested .

On March 26, 1944, just under four months before the attack, von Oertzen married Ingrid von Langen-Steinkeller (born September 13, 1922 in Braunschweig; † March 4, 2015 in Bad Segeberg), the daughter of the former Rittmeister. D. Franz Helmut von Langen-Steinkeller, manor owner on Bellin (today Bielin) in Neumark, and his wife Charlotte née wet nurse.

Company Valkyrie

On July 20, 1944, Hans-Ulrich von Oertzen, as a liaison officer for the military district of Berlin , passed on the first " Valkyrie " orders from the headquarters of the military district command on Hohenzollerndamm . After the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler he was arrested. Karl Freiherr von Thüngen , who actually belonged to the resistance group, also took part in the interrogation of Hans-Ulrich von Oertzen by General of the Infantry Joachim von Kortzfleisch . At first there was no evidence of his participation in the conspiracy until a secretary remembered that she had seen Oertzen with Stauffenberg in the fall of 1943. Before the arrival of the Gestapo , Hans-Ulrich von Oertzen killed himself with an explosive grenade .

His wife Ingrid von Oertzen described the process:

“He put two hand grenades in the sandbags that were on the window sills because of the air raids. The first just tore off his hand. And then he had the strength to somehow get to the second and then he has it ... "

Hans-Ulrich von Oertzen put the second hand grenade in his mouth. Then he pulled off the split pin.

Gravestone of Major Hans-Ulrich von Oertzen in Berlin-Wilmersdorf

The body of Hans-Ulrich von Oertzen was brought to the crematorium through the intervention of his father-in-law. While the ashes of most of the resistance fighters of July 20, 1944 were scattered, his grave is in a grave site of the victims of war and tyranny on Berliner Strasse in Berlin-Wilmersdorf.

In the village church of Rattey, a plaque commemorates Hans-Ulrich von Oertzen, which was ceremoniously unveiled in 1992 in the presence of Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker and Axel Freiherr von dem Bussche as a surviving resistance fighter. There is a memorial stele for Hans-Ulrich von Oertzen in the churchyard.

judgment

Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager , the last survivor of the innermost circle of the military resistance group against Hitler around Major General Henning von Tresckow and Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, paid tribute to Oertzens' role:

“When you think of the military resistance, the names Oster , Tresckow, Stauffenberg immediately come to mind, whereby Oster was the mind, Tresckow the heart and Stauffenberg the brave arm of the resistance. But without men like Hans-Ulrich von Oertzen, the assassination attempt on Hitler and his planning would not have been possible. "

- Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lars-Broder Keil (2005): Hans-Ulrich von Oertzen , p. 13 ( online )
  2. ↑ Board members since 1867: 1933–1935 Elisabeth von Oertzen, painter, graphic artist (1887–1938 Berlin) , on VdBK1867e.V., Accessed on February 3, 2020
  3. ↑ Lübecker Nachrichten of March 10, 2015.
  4. ↑ Quoted from Bert Lingnau: Failed Tyrannenmord - July 20, 1944. Radio broadcast on NDR 1 Radio MV (PDF) .
  5. ↑ According to the information provided by the Grünflächenamt-Friedhofsverwaltung Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf: Department C13, Row 14, Number 4.
  6. ↑ See Keil, p. 154.
personal data
SURNAME Oertzen, Hans-Ulrich von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH July 21, 1944
Place of death Berlin