Hans Karl Fritzsche

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hans Karl Fritzsche (born January 3, 1914 in Graudenz , West Prussia , † June 8, 1999 in Bonn ) was a German officer and ministerial official . He was a confidante of Stauffenberg and belonged to the resistance against National Socialism .

Life

Fritzsche was born in 1914 as the son of a foreman and his wife. He grew up in Plauen (Vogtland) and Singen. After graduating from high school in 1933, he studied history , philosophy , German and war studies at the University of Heidelberg (among others with Paul Schmitthenner ) and the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin from 1933 to 1936 . From 1933 to 1935 he was a member of the SA and from 1933 to 1944 he was a member of the NSDAP . In 1934 he completed the Reich Labor Service in Rosenberg. In 1936 he studied history and war history with Günther Franz at the University of Heidelberg with the dissertation A German Borderland Fight in the Late Middle Ages. The defensive movement of German nationality against Burgundy to the Dr. phil. PhD. During this time he campaigned in vain for Arnold Bergstraesser to remain at the university, which had a negative effect on his further employment.

He then joined the 1st company of the respected 9th Infantry Regiment in Potsdam. In 1938/39 he was a lieutenant in the 9th Company. After the outbreak of war he became an orderly officer in the staff of the 178 Infantry Regiment. As a company commander, he took part in the French campaign in 1940 . Later he was deployed on the Eastern Front (Romania, Bulgaria and Russia). Most recently he was the leader of the 3rd LR battalion. In 1941 he became first lieutenant and in 1943 captain of the reserve . He was seriously injured in his left arm and was no longer fit for the front. In 1943/44 he served in Grenadier-Ersatzbataillon 9, where he represented the commander.

Through his contact with Oberleutnant Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg , he was one of the close confidants of Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg . On July 20, 1944 - as he himself later demonstrated in an interview - he walked to the replacement army in the Berlin Bendler Block . Together with co-conspirators such as Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg , Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg, Friedrich Gustav Jaeger and Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin , he waited there for Stauffenberg's return from the Führer headquarters in Wolfsschanze . After his arrival, the assassin falsely informed those present of Hitler's death . Fritzsche, who had to occupy the government quarter if successful, initially participated in the arrest of Colonel General Friedrich Fromm . He then stood guard and was responsible for security in the corridors. By chance he was able to pretend to be the adjutant of an Austrian colonel and, when the coup failed, he left the Bendler block for Potsdam . After a few days he was arrested by the Gestapo . He was u. a. imprisoned in the Lehrter Strasse cell prison. On September 14, 1944, he was expelled from the Wehrmacht , which was reversed on December 19. An infantry sergeant in his regiment, a blood order carrier, vouched for him on the instructions of his former boss in the Nazi leadership. On December 12, 1944, the senior Reich attorney at the People's Court , Ernst Lautz , dropped the proceedings. Last used as a battalion commander with a transfer order to the fighting troops, he went into Soviet captivity in 1945 , where he remained until 1947.

He continued his studies at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau (among others with Clemens Bauer , Gerhard Ritter and Gerd Tellenbach ) and finally passed the state examination for the higher teaching post. From 1950 to 1954 he was a teacher of history, German and art (or English ) and an educator at the Birklehof educational reform home in Hinterzarten in the Black Forest.

Due to the initial mood against the conspirators of July 20, he decided against joining the Bundeswehr and from 1955 to 1963, as Ministerialrat, he was personal advisor to the Bundestag President Eugen Gerstenmaier (CDU), later advisor in the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs , responsible for the Franco-German Youth exchange . In 1957 Fritzsche himself became a member of the CDU ; he stood for both western integration and reconciliation with the Soviet Union. Because of his (political) convictions, he was denounced as a "national Bolshevik" by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and briefly arrested.

In 1987, in a memorandum addressed to Federal Defense Minister Manfred Wörner (CDU) and published in the Frankfurter Rundschau , he campaigned against right-wing extremist influences on the tradition of the Bundeswehr. He demanded that all such attempts by persons and groups be "firmly and clearly to be rejected!"

Part of his estate u. a. a conversation (1974) with Ulrich Wickert is in the Potsdam Museum .

Awards

Fonts (selection)

  • A life in the shadow of betrayal. Memories of a survivor on July 20, 1944 (= Herder Library . Vol. 1152). Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1984, ISBN 3-451-08152-0 .

literature

  • Ines Reich: Potsdam and July 20, 1944. On the trail of the resistance against National Socialism. Accompanying document to the exhibition of the Military History Research Office and the Potsdam Museum . Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau 1994, ISBN 3-7930-0697-2 , p. 72 f.
  • The resister who ate tulips . In: Ulrich Wickert : Curiosity and arrogance. Stories of life with agents, assassins, bomb makers, cowboys, poets, cabaret artists, emperors, chancellors, cheese dealers, murderers, philosophers, presidents, psychiatrists and revolutionaries - in short. From people I met . Goldmann, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-442-15775-4 , p. 11 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ines Reich: Potsdam and July 20, 1944. On the trail of the resistance against National Socialism. Accompanying document to the exhibition of the Military History Research Office and the Potsdam Museum . Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau 1994, ISBN 3-7930-0697-2 , p. 72.
  2. ↑ Eike Wolgast : Middle and Modern History . In: Wolfgang Uwe Eckart , Volker Sellin , Eike Wolgast (eds.): The University of Heidelberg in National Socialism . Springer, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 978-3-540-21442-7 , p. 512.
  3. ↑ a b Ines Reich: Potsdam and July 20, 1944. On the trail of the resistance against National Socialism. Accompanying document to the exhibition of the Military History Research Office and the Potsdam Museum . Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau 1994, ISBN 3-7930-0697-2 .
  4. ↑ Ines Reich: Potsdam and July 20, 1944. On the trail of the resistance against National Socialism. Accompanying document to the exhibition of the Military History Research Office and the Potsdam Museum . Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau 1994, ISBN 3-7930-0697-2 , p. 73.
  5. ^ Peter Hoffmann : Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. The biography . Pantheon, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-570-55046-5 , p. 459.
  6. ↑ Johannes Tuchel : "... and the rope was waiting for all of them". the cell prison Lehrter Straße 3 after July 20, 1944 (= writings of the German Resistance Memorial Center . Series A: Analyzes and Representations . Vol. 7). Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86732-178-5 , p. 63.
  7. ↑ Birklehof: The Birklehof in the post-war period, 1946–1963. A collection of texts . Birklehof, Hinterzarten 2004, p. 51.
  8. ↑ Gernot Erler , Rolf-Dieter Müller , Ulrich Rose , Thomas Schnabel , Gerd R. Ueberschär , Wolfram Wette : Turning history? Disposal attempts on German history . With a foreword by Walter Dirks , Dreisam Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 1987, ISBN 3-89125-255-2 , p. 144.
  9. ↑ Volker Oelschläger: "My rescue from the gallows" . In: Märkische Allgemeine , October 10, 2012, S. STADT4.
personal data
SURNAME Fritzsche, Hans Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer and ministerial official
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Graudenz , West Prussia
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1999
Place of death Bonn