Hasso von Boehmer

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Hasso von Boehmer (* 9. August 1904 in Gross-Lichterfelde , † 5. March 1945 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German lieutenant colonel in the General Staff and the military resistance to the Nazi regime involved, of the July 20, 1944 assassination led .

Hasso von Boehmer

Career

Hasso von Boehmer comes from the Böhmer / von Boehmer family , which produced several well-known lawyers. The third of four children of Hugo Erich von Boehmer and Ellinor born Seliger, he grew up in Berlin-Lichterfelde. There he first attended the Lichterfelder Realgymnasium , where he met Hans and Harald von Uslar-Gleichen , who were lifelong friends of his family. Then, at his own request, he switched to the Viktoria-Gymnasium in Potsdam to improve his school grades , where he graduated from high school in September 1923 . Contrary to health restrictions, he was allowed to join the Potsdam 9th Infantry Regiment of the Reichswehr as an officer candidate on October 1, 1923 , on the basis of a special permit from the then Chief of Army Command General von Seeckt . He served there until 1934. This unit also included numerous other later members of the resistance, such as his later friend Henning von Tresckow from 1925 to 1934 . Even Wolf Graf Baudissin , which in this regiment served from 1930 to 1938, then was a close friend of Boehmer. In 1934 von Boehmer was transferred to the 29th Infantry Regiment in the course of the army expansion. The next positions were battalion adjutant, company commander and regimental adjutant in the garrisons of Crossen on the Oder , Cottbus and Guben . During the Second World War he took part in the Polish and Western campaigns and completed a shortened general staff training. During the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 he was second general staff officer (Ib) in a division . Von Boehmer and his family lived in the same house as Harald von Uslar-Gleichen and his family at several locations. Through this he met his future wife Käthe von Boehmer, born in 1937. Torhorst (1911-2019) know. The marriage had three children between 1938 and 1942, a daughter and two sons, including Harald von Boehmer . Due to several war injuries, he received the Silver Wound Badge and the Iron Cross 1st Class and had to be hospitalized in Berlin from autumn 1941 to August 1943. He also withdrew as a complication disease of tetanus to.

July 20, 1944

orientation

In his youth, Hasso von Boehmer was a member of a "Patriotic Youth Group", then the " Jungsturm ". Founded in Pomerania in 1897, the aim of the “Jungsturm” was to educate German youth in the military; later the association had connections to the Stahlhelm and became a member of the Young Germany Federation . Wilhelm Grewe described the “Jungsturm” from the time of his membership as an association that “preferred strict discipline, military sport and labor service with increasing intellectual politicization”. Via Grewe, the “Jungsturm” also cooperated with Bernhard Ludwig von Mutius , publisher of the “Noble Youth”. Von Boehmer then switched to the Jungnationalen Bund , which saw itself as an “education league ” for political renewal and rejected parliamentary democracy. Like many others, von Boehmer agreed to the unilateral repeal of the Versailles Treaty that Hitler had called for before 1933 . Like others who later became part of the military resistance, Boehmer's first doubts about the Nazi regime came on the occasion of the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis in spring 1938. However, he considered the Anschluss of Austria shortly afterwards and the Sudetenland in autumn 1938 to be justifiable. The members of the July 20, 1944 coup attempt represented a broad spectrum of political and philosophical views . According to his origin, youth and career choice, Hasso von Boehmer is assigned to the national-conservative camp, which represented the majority among the members of the coup attempt.

preparation

Von Tresckow won von Boehmer for the goals of the resistance group around Ludwig Beck and Carl Goerdeler in the summer of 1943 . Von Tresckow and von Stauffenberg had revised pre-existing plans that, as the Walküre company, were originally intended to put down rebellions by forced laborers and prisoners against the Reich government, in order to establish important representatives of the Nazi regime in the Reich and in the occupied territories and to give them power take over. The military district commands should be the starting point for this . Although von Boehmer was still clearly in a bad state of health - because of the tetanus consequences he had to rely on supports when walking - he allowed himself to be put back into service in the fall of 1943 as part of the overturn plans. Officially First General Staff Officer (Ia) of the Commander General Bodewin Keitel , he secretly became a liaison officer to military district  XX ( Danzig ) for the planners of the coup attempt . Its “degree of initiation” in details of the overturning plans is not known. But as his widow remembers, he had "declared himself ready for a responsible position and done all sorts of preparatory work", whereby a political leadership position had been planned. Opponents of the Nazi regime consciously only used vague terms such as “necessary personnel changes at the top” and “catching movement” (for the expected collapse of the German Reich) by opponents of the Nazi regime for their respective goals, such as Helmuth James Graf von Moltke and (with the aim of separating a Kingdom of Bavaria from the German Empire) by Franz Sperr . In 1947, von Boehmer's widow stated that her husband had “come to the rescue movement”. In the wake of the successful Allied invasion of Normandy in early June 1944, the resistance group accelerated its preparations. Two arguments were decisive for this. Some hoped to take power in the German Reich and enter into negotiations with the Allies before the foreseeable military collapse. Von Tresckow, on the other hand, described his motivation as follows: “The attack must take place, coûte que coûte. Should it not succeed, action must nevertheless be taken in Berlin. For it no longer depends on the practical purpose, but on the fact that the German resistance movement dared to make the decisive throw before the world and before history at the stake of life. Everything else is irrelevant. ”Von Stauffenberg argued in a similarly absolute manner:“ I could not look the women and children of the fallen in the eyes if I did not do everything to prevent this senseless human sacrifice. ”

Failure

The concept and preparation of the coup attempt contained crucial shortcomings; In addition, the execution was impaired by breakdowns. It is true that the conspirators in the Bendler Block had well- founded doubts about Hitler's death just a few minutes after the bomb explosion in the Fuehrer's headquarters on July 20, 1944 : Co-conspirator General Erich Fellgiebel called the Bendler Block from Wolfsschanze at around 1 p.m. and informed General Fritz Thiele ambiguously “Something terrible has happened, the Führer is alive,” and shortly afterwards co-conspirator Colonel Kurt Hahn also explicitly confirmed to Thiele in another telephone call that Hitler had survived the attack. General Friedrich Olbricht and General Erich Hoepner then decided not to trigger Valkyrie. Nevertheless, after landing in Rangsdorf at around 3:45 p.m., Stauffenberg had his adjutant Oberleutnant Werner von Haeften informed that Hitler was dead. The first series of telexes with the keyword "Valkyrie" because of alleged internal unrest was not sent until around 4 p.m. triggered the state of emergency, to the military district commands. The Wolfsschanze was also entered in the mailing list of the Bendlerblock for this first series and for numerous other telexes, which mainly contained implementation provisions, so that it was informed promptly and in detail about the Bendlerblock's approach. As a result, telexes were also sent from there, but with the content that commands from the Bendler block were invalid.

The Germany transmitter beamed range-18:28 to 18:42 Watch Three special messages to survive Hitler out. The authors agree that Boehmer's superior Bodewin Keitel was on an inspection trip to Graudenz at the beginning of the release of Walküre , learned from the radio that Hitler had survived an assassination attempt with only minor injuries, and then immediately returned to Danzig.

However, it is unclear when the Valkyrie telex arrived in the Danzig military district and who received them. Sending the first series of these telex messages, which announced the triggering of Valkyrie, took about three hours because of the effort involved in encryption and the lack of suitable telex machines. In Szczecin, for example, the telex came in at the same time as the radio reports. An Abwehr officer at the time claims in his memoirs that on July 20, 1944, von Boehmer did not receive the telex from the Bendler block either to trigger Valkyrie or to describe his tasks in the context of Valkyrie.

On the other hand, all later authors, including those who can be attributed to the German Resistance Memorial Center and the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation , state that Boehmer received the (first) Valkyrie telexes to the military district XX himself - as a representative of his not yet returned to Danzig Supervisor. However, von Boehmer was no longer able to implement the instructions of the (first) Walküre telex. Rather, immediately after his return, Keitel made contact with his brother Wilhelm Keitel in Wolfsschanze, who had confirmed to his brother in Danzig that Hitler had survived the assassination attempt without major injuries. Thereupon Keitel had his subordinate arrested by Boehmer in the general command.

In any case, from July 20, 1944, von Boehmer was imprisoned in Danzig prison for a few days and finally taken to the Lehrter Strasse cell prison in Berlin at the beginning of August 1944 . During the subsequent house search, the Gestapo confiscated his wartime correspondence, and his wife was taken to Berlin for interrogation. As far as possible, apart from his family, Hasso von Boehmer received support in prison from school friends and professional colleagues Harald and Hans von Uslar-Gleichen. However, after the prison conditions had been tightened and the Gestapo threatened him with reprisals against his wife and children, he confessed on September 19, 1944. He was later transferred to what was then the Tegel military prison in Berlin-Reinickendorf. On January 28, 1945, she was transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp infirmary because of complications from the war injuries . There he was at times cell neighbors of Carl-Hans Graf von Hardenberg and Hans von Dohnanyi . On March 5, 1945, he was sentenced to death by the People's Court under the direction of Wilhelm Crohne and hanged on the same day in Plötzensee prison . The widow and his brother Thilo von Boehmer, who legally represented him alongside the public defender Hellmuth Boden , received notification of the execution in a letter dated March 8, 1945 from the senior Reich attorney at the People's Court with the note: "The publication of an obituary is not permitted" . Boehmers' wife had to vacate the house in Guben at the end of January 1945 and had to flee to her home town of Wuppertal with the three children because Niederlausitz had become part of the German-Soviet combat zone. Since 1943, members of the Wehrmacht have not been brought before the Reich Court Martial , but rather before the People's Court, on charges of “public dissolution” . In addition, those found guilty of the attempted coup of July 20, 1944 were expelled from the Wehrmacht by the alleged "Ehrenhof der Wehrmacht" demanded by Hitler in early August 1944 . This not only meant that Hasso von Boehmer was referred to as a “former lieutenant colonel” in the judgment, but until 1945 his surviving dependents were also no longer entitled to corresponding pensions. Instead, there was always a threat of clan liability , as suffered by members of politically much less polluted people in the context of the grate action in summer 1944 or the mass arrest in spring 1945 .

After the war

After the war, the widow Hasso von Boehmers, like other bereaved relatives, initially unsuccessfully tried to find out more about the circumstances of her husband's death. As with the GDR , the Federal Republic of Germany did not initially pay state pensions to the surviving dependents of the victims of the People's Court. Even Konrad Adenauer had turned against this in 1946 . In any case, the occupying powers initially forbade the payment of pension payments to the surviving dependents of members of the Wehrmacht; it was not until 1948 that they largely permitted the payment of maintenance contributions. Therefore, the situation remained difficult for the bereaved in the first years after the war. For Käthe von Boehmer, it was also initially not possible to resume her previous job as a parish assistant. So she was grateful for some help. For her part, she also became an early supporter of the relief organization July 20, 1944, which her friend Renate Countess von Hardenberg co-founded .

Social recognition was also long denied to the bereaved: In the Federal Republic of Germany, public opinion on the attempted coup of July 20, 1944 remained divided and shaped by the Cold War for decades, despite the efforts of many people and institutions . Formally, the judgments of the People's Court were not overturned until 1998. In representative surveys of the German population, there was a predominantly positive assessment of the attempted coup of July 20, 1944 only in 2004.

Honors

In 2001, two memorial plaques with the names of the soldiers who were involved in the attempted coup of July 20, 1944 were put up on the premises of the Federal Ministry of Defense in the former Bendlerblock at Reichpietschufer 76-78 in Berlin-Tiergarten. Among other things, the name Hasso von Boehmers was. Two other plaques of honor, on the right of which commemorates Hasso von Boehmer as a victim of the injustice justice of the “People's Court”, are located in the plenary hall of the Berlin Superior Court at Elsholzstrasse 30-33 in Berlin-Schöneberg, at that time the place of many hearings by the People's Court.

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. 65.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Harald von Uslar-Gleichen: Memories of Hasso von Boehmer . In: Vergilia-Nachrichten, vol. 1982/83, pp. 42–43, abridged and commented print in: Erika Reinhold: July 20, 1944 - July 20, 2004: Memories of Hasso von Boehmer . In: Heimatverein Steglitz eV (Hrsg.): Steglitzer Heimat. Bulletin of the Heimatverein Steglitz eV, 49th year, July - December 2004, No. 2/2004 , pp. 39–42, pdf 1.3 MB STEGLITZER HEIMAT 49th year. July - December 2004 2004/2 ( Memento from August 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ a b c d e Ines Reich-Hilweg: Hasso von Boehmer . In: Potsdam and July 20, 1944: on the trail of the resistance against National Socialism , Rombach Verlag, 1994, ISBN 978-3-7930-0697-8 .
  3. ^ Rüdiger von Voss: The coup d'état of July 20, 1944: political reception and tradition formation in the Federal Republic of Germany . Lukas Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86732-097-9 , p. 58.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Bodo Scheurig : Henning von Tresckow: a Prussian against Hitler. Biography . Stalling, Oldenburg and Hamburg, 3rd edition 1973; latest edition Propylaen, Berlin, 2004, ISBN 978-3-549-07212-7 , quoted by Peter Steinbach, Johannes Tuchel, Ursula Adam (eds.): Lexicon of Resistance, 1933–1945 , Volume 1061 of Beck's Series, Verlag CH Beck, 1998, ISBN 978-3-406-43861-5 , p. 30.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Babette Stadie (ed.): The power of truth: Reinhold Schneider's> Gedenkwort zum 20 July <in reactions of survivors of the resistance . Lukas Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-86732-033-7 .
  6. ↑ Jungsturm 1897–1932: For the 35th anniversary . National Printing and Publishing Cooperative, Schlawe, 1932.
  7. ↑ Christoph Schubert-Weller: Hitler Youth: From the 'Jungsturm Adolf Hitler' to the state youth of the Third Reich . Juventa Verlag, 1993, ISBN 978-3-7799-1123-4 , p. 79.
  8. ↑ The "Jungsturm" was brought into line with the Hitler Youth in 1933 , but is not identical to the "Jungsturm Adolf Hitler".
  9. ^ Wilhelm Georg Grewe: Flashbacks . Propylaea, Berlin, 1979, p. 421.
  10. ↑ Stefan Breuer: Carl Schmitt in Context: Intellectual Policy in the Weimar Republic . De Gruyter, Berlin, 2012, ISBN 978-3-05-005943-3 , p. 234.
  11. ↑ Christine Schindler (Ed.): Armed Resistance - Resistance in the Military . In: Yearbook of the Documentation Archive of Austrian Resistance, LIT Verlag Münster, 2009, ISBN 978-3-643-50010-6 , p. 30.
  12. ^ A b Marc Philipp: July 20, 1944 in the memory of the Federal Republic of Germany . GRIN Verlag, 2005, ISBN 978-3-638-35773-9 .
  13. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Winfried Meyer (Ed.): Conspirators in the concentration camp: Hans von Dohnanyi and the prisoners of July 20, 1944 in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Volume 5 of the Rebel Book / series of publications by the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation , Verlag Edition Hentrich, 1999, ISBN 978-3-89468-251-4 and ISBN 3-89468-251-5 .
  14. ↑ a b Jürgen Dittberner: Difficulties with commemoration . Westdeutscher Verlag, 1999, ISBN 978-3-531-13406-2 , p. 61.
  15. ↑ Sven Felix Kellerhoff: When the resistance was still considered immoral . Review by Babette Stadie (Ed.): The Power of Truth: Reinhold Schneider's> Memorial Word for July 20th < In: Die Welt, July 19th, 2008.
  16. ↑ a b c Peter Hoffmann: Resistance, coup d'état, assassination attempt .: The fight of the opposition against Hitler . Volume 418 of the Piper series, Piper Verlag, Issue 4, 1985, ISBN 978-3-492-00718-4 .
  17. ^ A b c Peter Hoffmann: History of the German Resistance, 1933–1945. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 1996, ISBN 978-0-7735-6640-8 .
  18. ^ Christian Müller: Colonel i. G. Stauffenberg . In: Volume 3 of Bonner Schriften zur Politik und Zeitgeschichte, Edition 2, Droste Verlag, 1971, p. 355.
  19. ↑ Günter Brakelmann (ed.): In the land of the godless. Diary and letters from prison in 1944/45 . Beck, Munich, 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-58235-6 , p. 39.
  20. ↑ Hans Zehetmair (Ed.): Politics out of Christian responsibility . Springer, 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-90651-5 , p. 55.
  21. ^ Ger van Roon: Reorganization in the resistance . R. Oldenbourg-Verlag, 1967, p. 263.
  22. ↑ Bodo Scheurig: Henning von Tresckow: a Prussian against Hitler. Biography . Stalling, Oldenburg and Hamburg, 3rd edition 1973.
  23. ↑ Stauffenberg shortly before July 20, 1944, cited above. n. Joachim Kramarz: Claus Graf von Stauffenberg. November 15, 1907 to July 20, 1944. The Life of an Officer. Bernard & Graefe, Frankfurt am Main 1965, p. 201 u. P. 132.
  24. ↑ a b Wolfgang Malanowski: "Mein Führer, you live, you live" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 28 , 1984, pp. 38-57 ( online - 9 July 1984 ).
  25. ↑ a b Klaus Kunze: The terminally ill general , biography of Bodewin Keitel in: Lebensbilder aus dem alten Bodenfelde , volume 14, 1947.
  26. ↑ Friedrich von Wilpert: One in five ages: Milestones on an eventful life path . Self-published, Bonn-Bad Godesberg, 1977.
  27. ↑ For the limited reliability of this publication, see Discussion.
  28. ↑ German Resistance Memorial Center: biography of Hasso von Boehmer
  29. ^ A b c Robert Loeffel: Family Punishment in Nazi Germany: Sippenhaft, Terror and Myth . Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, ISBN 978-1-137-02183-0 , p. 151.
  30. ^ Back of the envelope of a letter from the military prison in Berlin-Tegel from Oct. 20, 1944 from Hasso von Boehmer to his brother Thilo von Boehmer .
  31. ↑ Notice of the execution with a ban on obituaries .
  32. ↑ Manuel Becker, Christoph Studt (ed.): The handling of the Third Reich with the enemies of the regime: XXII. Königswinterer Conference (February 2009) . In: Volume 13 of the series of publications of the Research Foundation July 20, 1944 eV, Research Foundation July 20, 1944, LIT Verlag Münster, 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-10525-7 , pp. 173, 193.
  33. ^ Arnim Ramm: Critical analysis of the Kaltenbrunner reports on the assassins of July 20, 1944: a contribution to the history of the military resistance . Tectum Verlag, 2003, ISBN 978-3-8288-8575-2 , p. 35.
  34. ↑ a b Hendrik Behrendt: Assassination attempt on July 20 - How Hitler took revenge on the children of the conspirators . In: Spiegel Online , July 20, 2017.
  35. ↑ Brigitte Oleschinski (Ed.): Plötzensee Memorial . German Resistance Memorial Center, 1994, p. 73.
  36. ↑ For a confidential British report on a meeting of the British Zone Advisory Board ( Control Commission for Germany / British Element ) , British Liaison Staff / Zonal Advisory Council, Confidential Report No. 5 (Public Record Office, London, FO 371 / 5562.1). October 3, 1946.
  37. ^ Judgment of the First Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court of February 26, 1954 - 1 BvR 371/52 - "Reasons AI "
  38. ↑ Reinhild Countess von Hardenberg: On always new ways: memories of Neuhardenberg and the resistance against National Socialism . Lukas Verlag, 2003, ISBN 978-3-936872-02-6 , p. 202.
  39. ↑ Johannes Tuchel: July 20: "Feiglinge" and "Verräter" . In: Die Zeit , January 8, 2009.
  40. ↑ Text of the Act to Repeal National Socialist Judgments in Criminal Justice
  41. ↑ Johannes Tuchel (ed.): The forgotten resistance: on real history and perception of the fight against the Nazi dictatorship . In: Volume 5 of Dachauer Symposia on Contemporary History, Wallstein Verlag, 2005, ISBN 978-3-89244-943-0 .
  42. ↑ Memorial plaques in the former Bendler Block for soldiers who died as a result of participating in the attempted coup of July 20, 1944
  43. ↑ Memorial plaques in the chamber court for the victims of the "People's Court"
personal data
SURNAME Boehmer, Hasso von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German military, lieutenant colonel in the general staff and Nazi victim
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Groß-Lichterfelde
DATE OF DEATH March 5, 1945
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee