- Eduard Brücklmeier
Eduard Robert Wolfgang Brücklmeier (
8 June 1903 –20 October 1944 ) was a Germandiplomat and resistance fighter against the Nazi régime who was executed as a result of his association with theJuly 20 Plot .Life
Brücklmeier was born in
Munich , where in 1923 he began his study oflaw before moving toLeipzig ,Würzburg andLausanne . In 1927, he passed the first state examination in Würzburg and in May entered the Foreign Office's three-year preparatory programme. On completing it in 1930, he was posted abroad as a diplomat.In 1933, the year the Nazi Party seized power in Germany, Brücklmeier found himself dealing with minority issues while working at the
Consulate General inKatowice . This led to his first conflict with Nazi authorities. In 1936, he was appointed diplomatic secretary at the GermanEmbassy inLondon , headed by German dictatorAdolf Hitler 's future Foreign Minister,Joachim von Ribbentrop .In 1937, Brücklmeier married Klothilda von Obermayer-Marnach. They would have one daughter, Monika, who would later marry
Friedrich Mandl . Brücklmeier also joined the Nazi Party, having originally submitted his application to join in 1934.The following year, 1938, Brücklmeier and Ribbentrop returned to
Berlin . By that time both Brücklmeier and Foreign Office State SecretaryErnst von Weizsäcker were hoping that German dissenters, working with theBritish government , could thwart Hitler's ever more evident plans for war. In 1939, however, he was denounced for making "defeatist" statements and was very nearly sent to aconcentration camp . Instead, however – apparently at the instigation of the chief of the Reich Security Main Office ("Reichssicherheitshauptamt ", RSHA),Reinhard Heydrich – he was givenearly retirement from the Foreign Office.Following his departure, Brücklmeier underwent military service in
France ; became aWehrmacht staff member at the Foreign Testing Centre in Berlin; and then became a military administrator in the State Administration Office of the Army High Command ("Oberkommando des Heeres "). In 1942, he was given a job by the State Marksmen's Battalion (the "Landesschützenbataillon").By this time, Brücklmeier had established extensive links with the resistance fighters that would take part in the
July 20 Plot to assassinate Hitler.Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg , who had come to know Brücklmeier while he was working at theTehran diplomatic mission during 1930 and 1931, arranged contacts between Brücklmeier and the plot's core membership.Brücklmeier wished to support the plot's attempted
coup d'état , but was not informed that it had been delayed to20 July . One week later on27 July , following the plot's failure, Brücklmeier's involvement was traced. He was arrested inPrague and from28 September to29 September , his case was heard at the German "People's Court" ("Volksgerichtshof "). On20 October , he was found guilty as anaccessory and sentenced to death. On the same day Brücklmeier was hanged atPlötzensee Prison inBerlin .ources
* [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Plotzensee.html Plötzensee Prison]
External links
* [http://www.german-embassy.org.uk/diplomats_and_martyrs.html "Diplomats and Martyrs"] on the
German Embassy in London 's website.
* [http://www.gdw-berlin.de/bio/ausgabe.php?id=214 Biography] at Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand, Berlin.See also
*
List of members of the July 20 plot
*Widerstand
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