Ludwig Beck (General)

Ludwig Beck (1937)

Ludwig August Theodor Beck (born June 29, 1880 in Biebrich ; † July 21, 1944 in Berlin-Tiergarten ) was a German army officer ( Colonel General since 1938 ) who participated in the attempted coup on July 20, 1944 against Adolf Hitler .

Life

family

Beck came from an old Hessian officer family. He was the son of the industrialist Ludwig Beck and his wife Bertha, née Draudt. From 1898 the family lived in the Villa Beck in Biebrich (since 1926 part of Wiesbaden ).

Villa Beck in Wiesbaden-Biebrich, 2006

On May 12, 1916, he married Amelie, nee Pagenstecher , who died a year and a half later on November 16, 1917 after the birth of their daughter Gertrud (born January 30, 1917).

Empire and First World War

After graduating from the Dilthey School in Wiesbaden in 1898, Beck joined the 1st Upper Alsace Field Artillery Regiment No. 15 of the Prussian Army in Strasbourg on March 12, 1898 as an avantageur . In the years 1898/99 he graduated from the Neisse War School and was promoted to secondary lieutenant on August 18, 1899 . In 1902/03 he was commanded for further training at the United Artillery and Engineering School and from 1908 to 1911 at the War Academy . Between these Come Andie conclusions and until 1912 he was again in each case in his regiment in Strasbourg and Saarburg in Lorraine operates from March 1912 he was the General Staff ordered in Berlin, to which he, with effect from October 1, 1913 with simultaneous promotion to captain also was moved.

With the beginning of the First World War he was first second general staff officer at the VI. Reserve Corps , 1916 First General Staff Officer in the 117th Infantry Division , later in the 13th Reserve Division . He was used in various positions on the Western Front . At the end of 1916 he moved to the General Staff at the High Command of the German Crown Prince Army Group . On April 18, 1918, he was promoted to major .

Weimar Republic

After the end of the war he worked in the processing office of the Great General Staff and was taken over in the provisional Reichswehr in 1919 . Between 1919 and 1922 he was in command of the troops and also worked on behalf of General Hans von Seeckt . On October 1, 1922, he became department commander in the 6th (Prussian) Artillery Regiment in Münster . A year later he took over the leadership of the leadership assistant training , the former military academy, at the military district command VI , also in Münster, for two years . He then worked for four years in the staff of the 4th Division in Dresden , initially as first general staff officer and from February 1, 1927 as chief of staff. After being promoted to colonel on November 1, 1927, he was commander of the 5th Artillery Regiment in Fulda for two years from October 1, 1929 .

In 1930 Beck witness in Ulm Reichswehr process before the Supreme Court against the officers Ludin , Scheringer and Wendt from the 5th Artillery Regiment, due to formation of a Nazi cell in the Reichswehr. As their regimental commander , he sat down for the accused officers with u. a. the following formulation: “The Reichswehr is told every day that it is a Führer Army; what should a young officer imagine otherwise? "

Promoted to major general on February 1, 1931 , Beck became Artillery Leader IV in Dresden a year later. On October 1, 1932, he took command of the 1st Cavalry Division in Frankfurt an der Oder for one year . His promotion to lieutenant general took place on December 1, 1932. In the years 1931 to 1933, he revised the regulation on troop leadership .

time of the nationalsocialism

Chief of Staff of the Army

Ludwig Beck, 1936

In October 1933 Beck became Chief of the Troops Office in the Reichswehr Ministry , and in 1935 Chief of Staff of the Army . After a short time, on October 1, 1935, he received the rank of general in the artillery . As Chief of Staff, he was responsible for arming the army alongside other military personnel .

After Adolf Hitler on November 5, 1937 in front of the Reich Foreign Minister ( Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath ), the Commander in Chief of the Wehrmacht ( Werner von Blomberg ) and the Commander in Chief of the Army ( Werner von Fritsch ), the Navy ( Erich Raeder ) and the Air Force ( Hermann Göring ) had openly stated his war aims, Beck criticized the intention of the " Führer " to attack Czechoslovakia as quickly as possible. He found Hitler's statements "devastating" when Hoßbach showed him a copy of his writing . Beck did not fundamentally reject expansion in the direction of Austria and Czechoslovakia, but he was horrified by the irresponsibility with which Hitler was ready to lead Germany into a war with the Western powers. In a later, written and ten-point review, he described it as desirable to involve the military in the decisions about war and peace.

In 1938 Beck tried to organize a joint action by the generals against Hitler's war plans and proposed to General Walther von Brauchitsch that the generals resign if Hitler continued to push for war. The subsequent general meeting on August 4, 1938 (at which, according to Sauerbruch's biography, the 12 most important generals met in Brauchitsch's private apartment) showed that all commanding generals viewed an expanding war as a catastrophe at that time. When asked whether an attack on Czechoslovakia (" Green Case ") would inevitably lead to conflict with the Western powers, only Generals Busch and von Reichenau disagreed . When Reichenau shortly afterwards reported to Hitler about the meeting, he demanded that the Chief of Staff be recalled. During the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis he had already confided in a minister that the only officer he feared was Beck: "The man would be able to do something." On August 18, 1938, Beck asked for his post to be removed and handed over on August 27, the official business of Franz Halder , but at Hitler's request he waived the public announcement of his resignation, which took away its political symbolic power. Beck retired from active service with effect from November 1, 1938, as the September 1938 conspiracy was also not carried out. He received the character of a colonel general.

Resistance and death

Beck's apartment in Berlin-Lichterfelde, Goethestr. 24

In the following years Beck participated in the resistance against National Socialism . Beck lived secluded in his Berlin apartment during the war years. The generals and marshals avoided him, but more and more his apartment became the center of the small circles of the national-conservative resistance. She was under constant surveillance by the Gestapo. Alongside Carl Friedrich Goerdeler , he became a central figure in the resistance. On January 8, 1943, representatives of the military and civil resistance, including the Kreisau Circle , met for the first time under Beck's leadership in Yorck's Berlin apartment to discuss their internal differences in the assessment of the regime, its elimination and Germany's future role in To align Europe. At this secret meeting Goerdeler was accepted as Chancellor of a transitional government. Beck was provided for in later agreements of the resistance as the new head of state ( Reichsverweser ) .

Beck was also a member of the Wednesday Society , in which intellectuals met who were critical of National Socialism and who in some cases also took part on July 20. This society also included the surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch , whom Beck would occasionally visit in his house outside of society meetings, and who had operated on Beck, who had cancer in 1942, in the Charité in early 1943. On July 18, 1944, Sauerbruch also drove him to see the co-conspirator General Friedrich Olbricht , without having been in on the assassination attempt on Hitler planned for two days later.

After the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 , the resistance group around Beck was captured in the Bendler Block in Berlin shortly before midnight. At his own request, Colonel General Friedrich Fromm gave him the opportunity to commit suicide . After this had failed twice, Fromm ordered a sergeant to shoot the dying man. Beck escaped a humiliating hearing before the People's Court for high treason, as they had to endure Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben and Colonel General Erich Hoepner , among others .

Beck's body was buried, along with other victims of July 20, in the Old St. Matthew Cemetery in Berlin-Schöneberg . A little later the dead were exhumed by the SS , burned in the Wedding crematorium and the ashes scattered on the Berlin Rieselfeldern .

Awards

• Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class
• Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with swords
• Order of the Crown IV Class
• Prussian service award cross
• Knight's Cross 1st Class of the Albrecht Order with Swords
• Knight's Cross First Class of the Frederick Order with Swords
• Hanseatic Cross Hamburg
• Friedrich-August-Kreuz II. And I. Class
• Hanseatic Cross Bremen
• Lippe cross for faithful service
• Iron crescent
• Wehrmacht service award IV. To I. class

Commemoration

There are memorial plaques in the German Resistance Memorial Center in the Bendlerblock in Berlin (since 1960), at the Villa Beck in Wiesbaden-Biebrich (since 1964) and on Beck's former home at Goethestrasse 24 in Berlin-Lichterfelde .

The Colonel General Beck barracks of the Bundeswehr was named after him in 1956.

In 1964, the Deutsche Bundespost dedicated a stamp from a block designed by E. and Gerd Aretz to him for the 20th anniversary of July 20, 1944.

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  Memorial plaque on the Bendlerblock , 2007

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  Memorial plaque at Villa Beck , 2006

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  Memorial plaque in Berlin-Lichterfelde , 2009

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  Memorial stone in Berlin-Schöneberg at Beck's short-term grave and other victims of July 20th

The State Capital of Wiesbaden has awarded the Ludwig Beck Prize for Civil Courage annually since 2004 to people who have shown civil courage with a special connection to Wiesbaden. Previous winners include: Marcel Gleffe (2011), Susanne Lewitzke (2008), Serap Çileli (2006), Sonja Fatma Bläser (2006), the first winner Therarajah Balakumar (2004), and others. Due to a lack of candidates, the Ludwig Beck Prize for civil courage has been advertised internationally since 2010, along with another prize for civil courage .

Various streets, u. a. in Berlin, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Göttingen, Leipzig, Neuss and Ulm were named after him.

Movie

Ludwig Beck was portrayed in various films by the following actors, among others:

• Karl Ludwig Diehl in It happened on July 20 (1955)
• Werner Hinz in July 20 (1955)
• Werner Wieland in Liberation (Part 3) (1969)
• Rolf Müller in Operation Walküre (1971)
• Ian Richardson in Stauffenberg - Conspiracy Against Hitler (1990)
• Jürgen Schornagel in The Officer's Hour (2004)
• Remo Girone in Stauffenberg (2004)
• Terence Stamp in Operation Walküre - The Stauffenberg Assassination (2009)

See also

• Personalities of July 20, 1944
• Resistance to National Socialism
• Generaloberst Beck barracks
• Beck / Goerdeler shadow cabinet

Fonts

• Ludwig Beck; Hans Speidel (Ed.): Studies , Koehler, Stuttgart 1955 DNB 450291944 .
• Ludwig Beck, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler ; Wilhelm Ritter von Schramm (ed.): Beck and Goerdeler. Community Documents for Peace, 1941–1944. Müller, Munich 1965, DNB 454464037 .

literature

• Klaus-Jürgen Müller : General Ludwig Beck: Studies and documents on the political-military imagination and activities of the Chief of Staff of the German Army 1933-1938. Boldt, Boppard am Rhein 1980, ISBN 3-7646-1785-3 .
• Klaus-Jürgen Müller: Colonel General Ludwig Beck. A biography. Schöningh, Paderborn 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-72874-6 .
• Klaus-Jürgen Müller: Colonel General Ludwig Beck. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. 68 CVs. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-534-23980-1 , pp. 9-19.
• Joachim Fest : Coup. The long way to July 20th. Siedler, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-88680-539-5 .
• Ian Kershaw : Hitler. 1936-1945. Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-421-05132-1 .
• Kurt Sendtner: The German military opposition in the first year of the war. In: European publication e. V. (Ed.): Power of attorney of conscience. Volume 1. Metzner, Berlin / Frankfurt am Main 1960, p. 385 ff. DNB 368589722 .
• Stefan Arend : Ludwig Becks Fulda years 1929 to 1931. In: Jahrbuch Landkreis Fulda 2002. Fulda 2001, pp. 143–151.
• Wolfgang Foerster :  Ludwig August Theodor Beck. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 699 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Ludwig Beck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Ludwig Beck in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Ludwig Beck  in the German Digital Library
• Newspaper article about Ludwig Beck in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Manfred Wichmann: Ludwig Beck. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
• Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center
• Biography ( memento of December 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 300 kB) on the website of the Diltheygymnasium in Wiesbaden

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Joachim Fest: Coup. The long way to July 20th. P. 280.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Data and units according to the information in the estate ( memento of the original from May 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. and the biographical data in the holdings of the Federal Archives , viewed May 5, 2010 
3. ↑ quoted from John W. Wheeler-Bennet: The Nemesis of Power. Düsseldorf 1954. p. 238.
4. ↑ Joachim Fest: Coup. The long way to July 20th. P. 379 (short biographies).
5. ↑ Ian Kershaw: Hitler. 1936-1945. P. 91.
6. ↑ See Ian Kershaw: Hitler. 1936-1945. P. 91.
7. ↑ See Joachim Fest: Coup. The long way to July 20th. P. 62.
8. ^ Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Hans Rudolf Berndorff: That was my life. Kindler & Schiermeyer, Bad Wörishofen 1951; cited: Licensed edition for Bertelsmann Lesering, Gütersloh 1956, p. 401 f.
9. ↑ See Joachim Fest: Coup. The long way to July 20th. P. 86 f.
10. ↑ See Kurt Sendtner: The German military opposition in the first year of the war. P. 441.
11. ^ The German Army 1939, structure, locations, staffing on January 3, 1939, Bad Nauheim 1953
12. ^ Fabian von Schlabrendorff : Encounters in five decades . Wunderlich, Tübingen 1979, ISBN 3-8052-0323-3 , p. 269 f .
13. ↑ See Joachim Fest: Coup. The long way to July 20th. P. 167 f.
14. ^ Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Hans Rudolf Berndorff : That was my life. Kindler & Schiermeyer, Bad Wörishofen 1951; Licensed edition for Bertelsmann Lesering, Gütersloh 1956, pp. 396–403 and 415–420.
15. ↑ Joachim Fest: Coup. The long way to July 20th. P. 280.
16. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin 1930, p. 109.
17. ↑ Hessische Wirtschaft (IHK-Magazin Wiesbaden) from March 2005: Prize for moral courage ( Memento from March 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 3.2 MB)
18. ↑ Wiesbadener Kurier of December 10, 2010: New confusion about the Ludwig Beck Prize  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Wiesbadener Kurier from July 15, 2009 "Rewarded behavior" or "Make the invisible visible"  ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.