Friedrich Olbricht

Infobox Military Person
name=Friedrich Olbricht
lived=4 October 1888 – 21 July 1944
placeofbirth=Leisnig
placeofdeath=Berlin (Bendlerblock)


caption=General Friedrich Olbricht
nickname=
allegiance=flagicon|German Empire German Empire (to 1918)
flagicon|Germany Weimar Republic (to 1933)
flagicon|Nazi Germany Nazi Germany
branch=Heer
serviceyears=1907-1944
rank=General der Infanterie
commands=24. Infanterie-Division
unit=
battles=World War I
World War II
awards="Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross"
laterwork=

Friedrich Olbricht (4 October 1888 – 21 July 1944) was a German general and one of the plotters involved in the attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the "Wolfsschanze" in East Prussia on 20 July 1944.

Life

Olbricht was born in Leisnig, Saxony, and was the son of the mathematics professor Richard Olbricht.

After his "Abitur" in 1907, Olbricht joined Infantry Regiment 106 in Leipzig as an ensign. He then fought in the First World War from 1914 to 1918, and afterwards, as a captain, was taken into the "Reichswehr", which had been reduced in size under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

Olbricht was married to Eva Koeppel. The couple had a son and a daughter.

Olbricht's mistrust of the Nazis became apparent early on, particularly after the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, when he stood together with Hans Oster, Erwin von Witzleben and Georg Thomas, who all distanced themselves from the growing right-wing movement, worried as they were at the allure that the Nazis seemed to have for a lot of military men.

In 1926, Olbricht was called into the Reich Defence Ministry as leader of the "Foreign Armies Bureau". In 1933, he became chief of staff of the Dresden Division.

In 1934, Olbricht managed to save several men from being shot in the wake of the Röhm affair by having them assigned to military-political duties under army protection. They had already been arrested, and would have been put to death in fairly short order.

In 1935 came Olbricht's appointment as chief of staff of the Fourth Army Corps stationed in Dresden. In 1938, he took over leadership of the 24th Infantry Division. That same year, he unsuccessfully advocated the rehabilitation of Werner von Fritsch, who had been disgraced as a result of an accusation of homosexuality (see Blomberg-Fritsch Affair).

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, Olbricht commanded the 24th Infantry Division during the Invasion of Poland. He lead the division from the front, in one case creating an improvised "motorized unit" by loading troops on his own staff car so he could rush ahead and secure important bridges before they could be demolished by the enemy. For his personal bravery and his dynamic leadership style he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. On 15 February 1940, Olbricht was promoted to General of the Infantry. He was appointed Chief of the General Army Office ("Allgemeines Heeresamt") in the Army High Command ("Oberkommando des Heeres"). He was furthermore made Chief of the Armed Forces Replacement Office ("Wehrersatzamt") at the "Oberkommando der Wehrmacht".

Starting in the winter of 1941-1942, Olbricht developed the Valkyrie Plan (see:Operation "Valkyrie"), a General Staff plan which was ostensibly to be used to put down internal unrest, but was in fact a blue print for a coup d'état. Together with the resistance circles around Colonel-General Ludwig Beck, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and Major-General Henning von Tresckow, he worked to find a means of assassinating Adolf Hitler and using the coup plan to bring down the Nazi regime. In 1943, he asked that Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, who would later be the key man in the assassination attempt with the job of actually planting the bomb near Hitler, come to work at his office.

On the day of the attempted coup d'état, 20 July 1944, Olbricht and Colonel Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim initiated Operation "Valkyrie", thereby mobilizing the Reserve Army ("Ersatzheer"). It soon became known, however, that Stauffenberg's briefcase bomb had failed to kill the Führer. The consequences were dire.

After a hastily arranged court martial on the night of 20 July-21 July led by Colonel-General Friedrich Fromm, Olbricht, Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, Werner von Haeften, and Claus von Stauffenberg were all led out into the courtyard of the Bendlerblock where they were shot by firing squad.

Literature

* Friedrich Georgi, "Soldat im Widerstand. General der Infanterie Friedrich Olbricht"; 2. Aufl., Berlin u. Hamburg 1989 (ISBN 3-489-50134-9)
* Helena P. Page, "General Friedrich Olbricht. Ein Mann des 20. Juli"; 2. Aufl., Bonn u. Berlin 1994 (ISBN 3-416-02514-8) (Note the author of this book is better known under her married name Helena Schrader.)
* [http://www.dhm.de/lemo/forum/kollektives_gedaechtnis/103/index.html Report from Olbricht's son-in-law Friedrich Georgi] about the talk on 20 July, in which Olbricht explained his motivations, just before he was arrested.

ee also

* List of members of the July 20 plot

External links

*
* [http://www.joric.com/Conspiracy/Olbricht.htm Friedrich Olbricht at "Joric"]
* Website on the Military Resistance to Hitler created by Olbricht's biographer, Helena Page Schrader [http://valkyrie-plot.com/]