Nicolaus von Below

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Nicolaus von Below (1941)

Georg Ludwig Heinrich Nicolaus von Below (born September 20, 1907 at Gut Jargelin , Greifswald district, Western Pomerania ; † July 24, 1983 in Detmold ), German Colonel in the Air Force , was Adolf Hitler's personal air force adjutant from 1937 to 1945 .

family

He was the son of Colonel of the Prussian Army and Chilean Lieutenant Colonel Günther von Below (1868-1933) and his distant cousin Mathilde von Below (1875-1937). Below married on June 26, 1937 at Gut Nienhagen Maria Kühne (born September 12, 1918 in Magdeburg ), the daughter of the landowner Stephan Kühne and Barbara Bennecke . The couple had a son and three daughters.

Military background

Below was 29 years old when Hermann Göring made him Hitler's personal air force adjutant on June 16, 1937. Below kept this command until Hitler's death on April 30, 1945. Below's last official act was his signature as a witness under Hitler's private will on April 29, 1945 at four o'clock in the morning in the Führerbunker - alongside the signatures of Martin Bormann and Joseph Goebbels .

At lunchtime on April 29, Below asked Hitler for permission to leave the bunker. He immediately consented and said he should go to Grand Admiral Dönitz . Below did not achieve this goal. Together with the adjutant's boy , Heinz Mathiesing , he left the bunker at midnight on April 29, 1945, after having attended the evening briefing. On the flight to the west he was arrested by the British on January 7, 1946 in Godesberg after various stops . As a prisoner of war he was interviewed by the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper , who later wrote a book about Hitler's last days. To him confined to quit and to achieve better conditions for themselves, he said this about an alleged Hitler's orders that he was to deliver Keitel.

"Later I was very pleased to read in Trevor-Roper's book" The Last Days of Hitler "(1947) the nonsense about Hitler's commission to convey a secret message to Keitel."

- Nicolaus von Below

Below was moved to Nuremberg in 1948 in the witness wing of the court prison at the Nuremberg trials , where he made a relieving statement in the OKW trial in favor of General Field Marshal Sperrle . After denazification and his release from the British internment camp Adelheide in Delmenhorst on May 14, 1948, he lived in northern Germany. In 1982, at the height of the affair over the forged Hitler diaries , he expressed doubts as to their authenticity.

He published his memoirs in 1980.

photos

  • Group photo in Münstereifel-Rodert 1940. Below is the third from the right

  • Hanna Reitsch with the Führer in 1941. Below as adjutant on the left

  • Speer, Hitler, Keitel on a walk in 1942, Below on the far left

See also

swell

  • Nicolaus von Below: As Hitler's adjutant. 1937-45 . v. Hare u. Koehler, Mainz 1980, ISBN 3-7758-0998-8 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nicolaus v. Below, as Hitler's adjutant 1937–45, v. Hase & Koehler Verlag Mainz, ISBN 3-7758-0998-8 , p. 418
  2. ↑ Nicolaus v. Below, as Hitler's adjutant 1937–45, v. Hase & Koehler Verlag Mainz, ISBN 3-7758-0998-8 , p. 423
  3. ^ Nicolaus von Below: As Hitler's Adjutant 1937-45 , v. Hase & Koehler Verlag Mainz, ISBN 3-7758-0998-8 , pp. 424-425
personal data
SURNAME Below, Nicolaus von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Below, Georg Ludwig Heinrich Nicolaus Freiherr von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German colonel, personal air force adjutant to Adolf Hitler
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Good Jargelin , Pomerania
DATE OF DEATH July 24, 1983
Place of death Detmold