Otto Ernst Remer

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Otto Ernst Remer (January 1945)

Otto Ernst Remer (* 18th August 1912 in Neubrandenburg , † 4. October 1997 near Marbella , Spain ; Complete name: Otto Ernst Remer Fritz Adolf ) was a German Wehrmacht officer and after the attempt on Hitler on 20 July 1944 at involved in the suppression of the coup attempt. After the Second World War he emerged as a right-wing extremist politician and publicist and was convicted several times for politically motivated offenses , including Holocaust denial .

family

Otto Ernst Remer grew up as the eldest of six sons of a large Protestant family in the Mecklenburg Vorderstadt Neubrandenburg. His parents were the land registry keeper and later judicial inspector Otto (Ernst August Martin) Remer (born November 12, 1888 in Neubrandenburg) and his wife Elisabeth (Auguste Friederike), née. Pilgrimm (born January 17, 1889). The family had lived in Neubrandenburg as independent craftsmen for generations. Two Remers brothers died as soldiers in World War II.

Remer attended the local humanistic grammar school and passed the Abitur there. The desire to become an officer was awakened in him early on . At the age of 13 Remer became a member of the Jungsturm, a youth organization belonging to the Bündische Jugend . He is said to have made such a difference through his commitment that General Field Marshal August von Mackensen campaigned for Remer's application for an officer in the Reichswehr .

Remer was married twice and had two sons and a daughter from his first marriage.

Military career

In April 1933 Remer joined the 4th (Prussian) Infantry Regiment of the Reichswehr in Kolberg as a flag junior . By the beginning of the attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, he had reached the rank of first lieutenant and was chief of an infantry gun company. Before the start of the western campaign , he took over a motorized infantry gun company of the 9th Panzer Division . With this unit Remer also took part in the Balkan campaign and the German-Soviet war .

In April 1942, Remer was the promotion to captain for the Division greater Germany placed where he one armored troop battalion commanded. After he had meanwhile been appointed major , Remer received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in May 1943 for his military services in the Battle of Kharkov . In November of the same year he received as the 325th soldier of the Wehrmacht, the oak leaves awarded the Knight's Cross.

Remer was wounded a total of eight times in the war. After convalescing from a serious wound, he was transferred to the "Greater Germany" guard regiment in Berlin in early 1944 .

Remer's role on July 20, 1944

The guard battalion was planned by the Berlin city commandant, Lieutenant General Paul von Hase , one of those involved in the attempted coup of July 20, 1944 , to cordon off the government district during the Walküre operation and to arrest Joseph Goebbels, among others . Remer initially carried out this occupation order. Will Berthold writes about the reasons for this behavior:

"Remer followed Hitler as a loyal follower, but the militant dogma 'order is order' became so much in his flesh and blood that he - in good faith - could have stood against the 'Führer' on orders [...] from Hases, if there hadn't been another [...] chance intervened in the course of this day. "

- Will Berthold : The 42 assassinations on Adolf Hitler. P. 232.

One of the officers of the guard battalion, Lieutenant Hans Wilhelm Hagen , who worked for the Propaganda Ministry in civil life, had doubts as to whether Hitler was actually dead. He suggested inquiring with Goebbels about this before Goebbels' arrest. The Propaganda Minister put the officer through the phone with Adolf Hitler , who gave Remer the order to put down the coup :

"Can you hear me? So I am alive! The assassination attempt failed. A small clique of ambitious officers wanted to get rid of me. But now we have the saboteurs on the front lines. We're going to make short work of this plague. You will receive the order from me to restore peace and security in the Reich capital immediately, if necessary by force. You will report to me personally until the Reichsführer SS arrives in the Reich capital. "

- Otto Ernst Remer : July 20th. P. 12

Remer, a staunch supporter of the dictator, arrested his superior Paul von Hase and thus contributed to the failure of Operation Valkyrie. After the crackdown, Hitler promoted him to colonel , skipping the rank of lieutenant colonel . The propaganda celebrated him as a hero.

Remers and Goebbels' roles in suppressing the coup are often overrated. The chances of success for the coup were slim anyway, since Hitler had survived. In addition, the conspirators did not succeed in getting radio and telecommunications completely into their hands. The OKW under General Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel was able to initiate countermeasures as early as 4:00 p.m. From 5:42 p.m., news of Hitler's survival was repeatedly broadcast on the radio. Remer's phone call with Hitler did not take place until 6:35 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.

Military use until the end of the war

From September 1944 Remer was used as combat commander of Wolfsschanze in East Prussia . In November 1944 he took over as commander of the Führer-Escort Brigade (later expanded to a division), which was newly established after the uprising of July 20, 1944 , which he led in the Ardennes offensive . At the end of January 1945, at the age of 32, he was promoted to major general . Remer was one of the youngest generals in the Wehrmacht. At the beginning of March, the Führer-Accompanying Division was involved in the recapture of Lauban , one of the last counterattacks that the German Reich was able to wage during World War II. In April the unit was broken up by the Red Army in the Spremberg area . Remer himself, disguised as a civilian, escaped the Soviet containment ring. American troops captured him in the Teplitz / Brüx area.

Post War and Remer Trial

After the end of the war and his capture , Remer was handed over by the Americans to the British, who interned him until 1947 . He then took up residence in Varel and learned the mason trade. In the denazification process , he was classified as a fellow traveler in group V (as not affected by a guilt).

Remer subsequently emerged as a right-wing extremist publicist and joined the community of independent Germans under Fritz Dorls . After it joined the German right-wing party in 1949 , but was excluded again after a short time, Remer was a co-founder and later 2nd chairman of the Socialist Reich Party (SRP). Because he called those involved in the assassination attempt on Hitler at a party event in May 1951 as “traitors”, he was sentenced to three months in prison by the Braunschweig Regional Court in 1952 for defamation and defamation of the memory of deceased persons ( Remer trial ). Remer evaded the sentence and fled abroad.

An application by the Federal Government to withdraw his fundamental rights of freedom of expression, assembly and association as well as his right to vote and stand for election in accordance with Article 18 of the Basic Law ( forfeiture of fundamental rights ) was rejected by the Federal Constitutional Court on July 25, 1960, as no further information had been obtained for a long time there were anti-subversive efforts by Remers and because the federal government no longer reacted to his latest defenses. The SRP had already been classified as unconstitutional and banned in October 1952 .

further activities

After his escape, Remer worked for several years as a military advisor to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and in Syria .

Remer was the main speaker at numerous events organized by right-wing extremist Thies Christophersen . After falling out in 1983 with the neo-fascist circle of friends Ulrich von Hutten , which he had co-founded the year before , he founded Die Deutsche Freiheitsbewegung e. V. (DDF), with its youth organization Bismarck-Jugend , a neo-Nazi group, of which he remained chairman until 1989 and which he left again in 1991. He published numerous articles in their organ Huttenbriefe .

Remer was part of a group of people who organized a major Holocaust denier event with an audience of 800 on April 21, 1990 in Munich's Löwenbräukeller . Present and speaker was the Holocaust denier David Irving . The organizer of this event was the neo-Nazi Bela Ewald Althans .

In 1991 he brought out his Remer-Depesche , a historical revisionist paper. The Schweinfurt Regional Court sentenced him to 22 months ' imprisonment on the basis of articles in these publications for sedition and incitement to racial hatred. He escaped this sentence by fleeing to Spain in 1994 and ceased publication of the publication. Since the Spanish laws at that time did not have any corresponding penal provisions for Holocaust denial, an extradition request submitted by the German authorities was rejected in 1996.

Processes

Remer has been convicted in several court cases . For example:

  • In 1951 he was sentenced to four months' imprisonment for defamation against public figures (Federal Chancellor and Minister) by the Verden District Court .
  • 1952 because of defamation and disparagement of the memory of deceased by the Braunschweig Regional Court ( Remer trial ) for three months imprisonment, which he evaded by fleeing abroad.
  • 1985 because of defamation and disparagement of the memory of deceased by the Kaufbeuren district court at 50 daily rates. He had distributed a leaflet with abuse against resistance fighters of July 20th.
  • 1986 for defamation and disparagement of the memory of deceased by the Kempten district court on probation for three months. He had distributed videotapes of the French Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi Robert Faurisson .
  • 1992 because of sedition and incitement to racial hatred by the Schweinfurt district court , subsequently
    • In 1993, however, the appeal was rejected by the Federal Court of Justice
    • In 1994 he escaped to Spain before being sentenced to 22 months in prison

Publications

Anneliese Remer-Heipke , Remer's wife, ran the Remer-Heipke publishing house initially from Bad Kissingen and later from Spain , which in addition to Remer's writings also published Florentine Rost van Tonningen and JG Burg , among others .

  • July 20, 1944. Hans Siep publishing house, Hamburg-Neuhaus / Oste 1951.
  • July 20, 1944. 5th edition. German Opposition Publishing House, Hamburg-Neuhausen 1951.
  • Conspiracy and betrayal around Hitler. Judgment of the front soldier. 5th edition, Remer-Heipke, Bad Kissingen 1993, ISBN 3-87725-102-1 .
  • Incitement to war against Germany: lies and truth about the causes of both wars. Remer-Heipke, Bad Kissingen 1989.

literature

Trivia

Web links

Commons : Otto Ernst Remer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Dieter Krüger: Otto Ernst Remer - An officer between oath and ignorance: A person of right-wing extremism after 1945 In: Resistance against the Nazi regime in the regions of Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania . Pp. 116-123
  2. ↑ https://archive.org/details/1990-Interview-mit-Generalmajor-Otto-Ernst-Remer
  3. ↑ Who was who in the Third Reich. P. 279.
  4. ↑ Lexicon of the Second World War. P. 166.
  5. ↑ Peter Hoffmann: Resistance, coup d'état, assassination attempt: the fight of the opposition against Hitler. Piper, Munich, 3rd edition 1979, ISBN 3-492-02459-9 ; Pp. 528-529, 539-540.
  6. ↑ a b Samuel W. Mitcham: German Order of Battle: 291st-999th Infantry divisions, named infantry divisions, and special divisions in World War II . Stackpole Books, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8117-3437-0 , pp. 211 ( google.de [accessed on May 2, 2019]).
  7. ↑ BVerfG, decision of July 25, 1960, Az. 2 BvA 1/56, BVerfGE 11, 282 f.
  8. ↑ See Thomas Grumke , Bernd Wagner : Handbuch Rechtsradikalismus . People, organizations, networks: from neo-Nazism to the middle of society. Leske + Budrich , Opladen 2002, ISBN 3-8100-3399-5 , p. 298.
  9. ^ Constitutional Protection Report 1983 (Bund), p. 144.
  10. ↑ Truth sets you free - neo-Nazis in Germany
  11. ↑ Winfried Suss:  Remer, Otto Ernst. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 416 f. ( Digitized version ).
  12. ↑ Jesse 1994, pp. 210-214.
  13. ↑ Jürg Altwegg: Noam Chomsky and the reality of the gas chambers. Time online , November 21, 2012
  14. ↑ See Thomas Grumke , Bernd Wagner : Handbuch Rechtsradikalismus . People, organizations, networks: from neo-Nazism to the middle of society. Leske + Budrich , Opladen 2002, ISBN 3-8100-3399-5 , p. 299.
  15. ↑ http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/61360-Operation-Walk%C3%BCre/castcrew.html
personal data
SURNAME Remer, Otto Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Remer, Otto Ernst Fritz Adolf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently major general in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Neubrandenburg
DATE OF DEATH 4th October 1997
Place of death near Málaga , Spain