Hans Oster

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Hans Oster (1939)
Berlin memorial plaque on Bayerische Strasse 9 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf
The execution site of Osters: the courtyard of the arrest block in the Flossenbürg concentration camp
Memorial for Hans Oster at the Dresden North Cemetery

Hans Paul Oster (born August 9, 1887 in Dresden ; † April 9, 1945 in Flossenbürg concentration camp ) was a German officer , most recently major general of the Wehrmacht , and one of the central figures of the military resistance against National Socialism in the German Reich during the Second World War .

Life

Oster came from a Protestant pastor's family. His father was a pastor in the Reformed French community in Dresden. After graduating from high school, he embarked on the career of a professional officer and in 1907 joined the 4th Royal Saxon Field Artillery Regiment No. 48 as a flag junior . He took part in the First World War , most recently as a captain in the general staff of the 23rd Division (1st Royal Saxon) and was accepted into the Reichswehr at the end of the war . Here he initially served as a general staff officer in the staffs of the military district command IV (Dresden) and the 4th division , where he worked with Friedrich Olbricht and Erwin von Witzleben , among others . From 1924 to 1929 he served as battery chief and staff officer in the 2nd (Prussian) artillery regiment in Güstrow and Schwerin . In 1929, meanwhile promoted to major , he was transferred to the staff of the 6th Division in Munster , where he worked for several years as second general staff officer. In December 1932 he was forced to quit because of a "matter of honor" - a relationship with the wife of a comrade. As early as May 1933, he received a civilian position in the research office of the newly formed Reich Aviation Ministry and in October of the same year changed to the service of the Defense Department of the Reich Defense Ministry . Oster, who was already hostile to the National Socialists before 1933, was strengthened in his opposition to the Hitler government , among other things, by the events of the Röhm Putsch in 1934 .

In 1935, under the new head of the Abwehr Wilhelm Canaris , Oster was appointed as a supplementary officer to the head of Section III C 1 (part of the Abwehr Inland group) and promoted to lieutenant colonel in the same year . During this time he began to establish a network of contacts with opponents of the Nazi regime in the state, administration and security organs. For example, he worked with Hans von Dohnanyi and Hans Bernd Gisevius to collect evidence for a later trial against the Nazi leadership. At the end of September 1938 Canaris appointed him head of the central defense department (human resources and finance). An intended overthrow of the military during the Sudeten crisis in 1938, in the planning of which Oster played an important role, could not be carried out because Great Britain and France gave in to German territorial claims to the Sudetenland at the Munich conference and at the same time longed for the crisis to be one of the conspirators and the dreaded escalation led to a domestic political strengthening of Hitler . In 1939 Oster was promoted to colonel .

During the Second World War , with cover from Canaris, Oster managed the contacts with the Army High Command with the help of men like Helmuth Groscurth and Georg Thomas , who again aimed at thwarting the National Socialist war plans in the period between the Polish and Western campaigns . He went so far as to warn the Netherlands and Belgium of the planned German attack date, which was still often raised as an accusation against him in the post-war period. In the warning for Bert Sas , the Dutch military attaché in Berlin, he wrote that the "pig" (which meant Hitler) had left for the front (in the west). In 1942 he was promoted to major general .

When Dohnanyi was arrested in April 1943, the Gestapo became suspicious of Oster's behavior. The investigation was initially carried out only because of foreign currency offenses against Dohnanyi (he had smuggled Jews into Switzerland disguised as agents and provided them with foreign currency), for which Oster immediately took responsibility. When Dohnanyi was arrested, he did not manage to remove the fragile documents from his desk, and so he whispered the word "Note!" To the Easter present. Oster tried to make the papers disappear, but was, as the indictment later said, "immediately confronted and had to return the papers". Oster was placed under house arrest and released from his position in the Abwehr a few days later. Oster's dismissal was the worst setback the resistance had ever suffered.

One day after the failed assassination attempt and attempted coup on July 20, 1944 , Oster was arrested after he was identified as a liaison officer in Wehrkreis IV, who had been designated by the conspirators . Exactly one month before the military capitulation, a show trial took place in the Bavarian concentration camp Flossenbürg chaired by Otto Thorbeck : Major General Oster as well as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Wilhelm Canaris were sentenced to death on April 8, 1945 without any minimum legal standard . Walter Huppenkothen represented the prosecution . a. Max Koegel , concentration camp commandant and long-time SS member. On April 9th, the same day on which the resistance fighter Georg Elser was executed in the Bavarian concentration camp Dachau , her execution took place by hanging .

To humiliate the accused and to "amuse" the SS people present, the three convicts had to undress and go to the gallows completely naked . Oster was buried in the north cemetery in Dresden .

Role in resistance

Oster was one of the most active resistance fighters. Over twenty times he disclosed the planned German attack date on Holland, Belgium and France to his friend, the Dutch military attaché Bert Sas , an act of resistance that after the war led to controversial discussions about the limits of the right of resistance. Oster made no secret of his motives. He repeatedly spoke openly to Sas. “You could say now,” he explained to him, “that I am a traitor, but in truth I am not. I consider myself a better German than all the others who run after Hitler. My plan is and I see it as my duty to free Germany and thus the world from this plague. ”As early as 1938 he pushed for a coup d'état and the unconditional killing of Hitler and took part in several failed assassination attempts and putsch attempts.

According to the plans, Oster was supposed to be president of the Imperial Court Martial in the event of the success of the July 20 assassination attempt . The later judge of the Federal Constitutional Court Fabian von Schlabrendorff , surviving member of the military resistance, ruled that with Oster, the resistance had lost its "manager" and only found an equal successor in Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg .

family

Oster was married to Gertrud Knoop, cousin of Walter Jauch from a textile industrial family in Bremen, and had three children, including Achim Oster . The later major general of the Bundeswehr , as a military attachée in Spain at the time, was charged with the arrest of Spiegel editor Conrad Ahlers as part of the Spiegel affair .

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Hans Paul Oster  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Joachim Fest : Coup. The long way to July 20th. Berlin 1994, p. 94.
  2. ↑ Joachim Fest: Coup. The long way to July 20th. Berlin 1994, p. 207. According to Gert Buchheit : The German secret service. History of military defense. List, Munich 1966, p. 420, it emerged from the notes that Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer had tried to get seven pastors of the Confessing Church released from military service . According to Hoffmann : resistance, coup, assassination. 1985, p. 364, it was about a planned trip to Rome by Josef Müller and Bonhoeffer, and Dohnanyi's remark was only intended as a reminder to Oster to classify these Canaris as game material, but this made the Gestapo officials suspicious.
  3. ^ Jean Vanwelkenhuyzen : The Netherlands and the "Alarm" in January 1940. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte . 1, 1953, pp. 17–36, here: p. 23 ( PDF ; 5.3 MB).
  4. ↑ Joachim Fest: Coup. The long way to July 20th. Berlin 1994, p. 207.
personal data
SURNAME Oster, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oster, Hans Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German general and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH April 9, 1945
Place of death Flossenbürg concentration camp