Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel

Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel
Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel
Born	2 January 1886 Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Died	30 August 1944 (aged 58) Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, Nazi Germany
Allegiance	German Empire (to 1918)  Weimar Republic (to 1933)  Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Heer
Years of service	1904–44
Rank	General der Infanterie
Commands held	II. Armeekorps
Battles/wars	World War I World War II
Awards	Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel (2 January 1886 – 30 August 1944) was a German general and a member of the July 20 Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.^[1]

Early life

Born in Berlin, Stülpnagel joined the German military straight from school in 1904,^[1] and in the First World War, he was a general staff officer. After the war he served in the Reichswehr. He was promoted to Captain in 1924 and Major in 1925.^[1] He then commanded the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Infantry Regiment based at Neuruppin. In 1933 as a Colonel he was appointed head of the 'Foreign Armies' branch of the General Staff of the Army.^[1] In 1935 he published a memorandum in which he combined anti-Bolshevism with anti-semitism^[2] By 1936 he was a Major General and commanded the 30th Infantry Division in Lübeck. On 27 August 1937 as a Lieutenant General he was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Army.

In 1938, after the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair and the Sudeten Crisis, he established contact with the Schwarze Kapelle, revealing the secret plan for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Stülpnagel took part in the military opposition's first plans to remove Hitler from power, but these plans were largely abandoned after the Munich Agreement.

World War II

Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, 1941, Poland

From 20 December 1940 to 4 October 1941, Stülpnagel was a General of Infantry (April 1939) and commanded the 17th Army. On 22 June 1941, after the launch of Operation Barbarossa, he successfully led this army across southern Russia on the Eastern Front. Under Stülpnagel's command, the 17th Army achieved victory during the Battle of Uman and the Battle of Kiev.

In February 1942, Stülpnagel was made German-occupied France's military commander,^[1] and in this position, he, along with his personal adviser Lieutenant-Colonel Caesar von Hofacker, continued to be active in the conspiracy against Hitler. Hofacker served as Stülpnagel's liaison with Claus von Stauffenberg, who eventually carried out the assassination attempt at the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia.

War crimes

Substantial archival evidence indicates that during his tenure as commander of the 17th Army and military governor of France, Stülpnagel was involved in war crimes. In the Soviet Union, Stülpnagel signed many orders authorizing reprisals against civilians for partisan attacks and closely collaborated with the Einsatzgruppen in their mass executions of Jews. He admonished his soldiers not for the murder of civilian population but for chaotic means in which it was undertaken, particularly early premature taking hostages and random measures. He ordered his troops to focus on Jews and communist civilians, remarking that communists were Jews that needed capture anyways; in order to improve relations with Ukrainians, even in cases of Ukrainian sabotage, local Jews were pointed out for punishment.^[3]

20 July plot

On the day in question, 20 July 1944, Stülpnagel put his part of the plot into operation. This mainly involved having Hans Otfried von Linstow, who was only informed of the plot on that same day, round up all SS and Gestapo officers in Paris and imprison them. However, when it became apparent that the assassination attempt in East Prussia had failed, Stülpnagel was unable to convince Field Marshal Günther von Kluge to support the uprising and was forced to release his prisoners. When Stülpnagel was recalled from Paris, he stopped at Verdun and tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the head^[1] with a pistol on the banks of the Meuse River. He only succeeded in blinding himself.^[4]

General Stülpnagel and his adviser were both arrested by the Gestapo, and Stülpnagel was brought before the Volksgerichtshof (People's Court) on 30 August 1944. He was found guilty of high treason and hanged the same day^[1] at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.

Awards and decorations

• Iron Cross (1914)
  • 2nd Class
  • 1st Class
• Cross of Honor
• Iron Cross (1939)
  • 2nd Class
  • 1st Class
• German Cross in Silver (14 February 1944)
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 21 August 1941 as General der Infanterie and commander-in-chief of the 17. Armee^{[5][Notes 1]}

Notes

Footnotes

1. Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, in connection with the 20 July plot, failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, was deprived of all honors, ranks and orders and dishonourably discharged from the Heer on 14 August 1944. The civilian von Stülpnagel was sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshof on 30 August 1944 and executed the same day^[6]

Citations

1. Correlli Barnett, ed. (1989). Hitler's Generals. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0 297 79462 0.
2. Bulletin , Volume 12-14 German Historical Institute in London, page 27 The Institute, 1990
3. Nazi empire-building and the Holocaust in Ukraine, Wendy Lower pages 54-55 UNC Press 2006
4. Die Wehrmacht: Eine Bilanz, Guido Knopp, p. 258
5. Fellgiebel 2000, p.337.
6. Scherzer 2007, p. 140.

References

• Fellgiebel, Walther-Peer (2000) [1986]. Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939–1945 — Die Inhaber der höchsten Auszeichnung des Zweiten Weltkrieges aller Wehrmachtteile [The Bearers of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939–1945 — The Owners of the Highest Award of the Second World War of all Wehrmacht Branches] (in German). Friedberg, Germany: Podzun-Pallas. ISBN 978-3-7909-0284-6.
• Knopp, Guido Die Wehrmacht: Eine Bilanz, C. Bertelsmann Verlag, München, 2007. ISBN 978-3-570-00975-8
• Anthony Cave Brown, Bodyguard of Lies, Harper & Row, 1975
• Scherzer, Veit (2007). Die Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives [The Knight's Cross Bearers 1939–1945 The Holders of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939 by Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and Allied Forces with Germany According to the Documents of the Federal Archives] (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Miltaer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2.

External links

• Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel in the German National Library catalogue