Generalmajor Otto Ernst Remer (18 August 1912 – 4 October 1997) was a German Army officer who served during World War II and played a major role in stopping the 20 July plot in 1944 against Adolf Hitler. He was a captain and a major (1943-1944), and finally a Oberst (colonel) and a Generalmajor (major general) in 1945. In his later years, he became a politician and far-right activist.

Early life

Otto Ernst Remer was born in Neubrandenburg, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, in the German Empire on 18 August 1912. He attended a military academy and was commissioned as an officer in the German Army 1932 at the age of 20, a few months before Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, initiating a series of laws in the Weimar Republic which made him the sole leader in the country.

20 July Plot

In March 1944, Remer was appointed as the commanding officer of Wachbataillon Großdeutschland. On 20 July 1944 Wehrmacht officers staged a coup d'etat and attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler by means of a bomb-attack at the "Wolf's Lair" in East Prussia. Remer, who was in Berlin at the time, first heard news of it from members of the Nazi Party, and waited for official word of Hitler's fate.

thumb|Remer gives an interview to the [[Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft|Reich Broadcasting Corporation in the aftermath of the 20 July Plot. ]]

On the evening of 20 July 1944, Oberst Claus Graf von Stauffenberg, the officer who had carried out the attack upon Hitler, arrived back in Berlin, and, believing that he had succeeded in killing him, issued orders to Remer to arrest several senior Nazi Government officials, claiming that they were part of a coup. Upon being ordered by General Paul von Hase to arrest Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, Remer went to Goebbels' office to do so. However, on arrival, Remer was met by Goebbels' protestations that Hitler was still alive and had issued counter-orders to those Remer was enforcing. When Remer asked for proof, Goebbels picked up the phone and asked to be put through to Hitler at the "Wolf's Lair", then handed him the telephone receiver, upon which Remer heard Hitler's voice, ordering him to crush the plot in Berlin with the troops under his command. Remer with this realised that he had been taking orders from the mutineers and returning with his troops to the Berlin Military Headquarters, Bendlerblock, he arrested the plotters, including Stauffenberg.

Generaloberst Friedrich Fromm had the plotters immediately summarily executed by firing squad, despite Remer's protestations that he had been told to keep the plotters alive if possible pending further orders from Hitler, who was returning to Berlin (General Fromm himself would subsequently be executed by firing squad). That same night, Remer was promoted two ranks to Oberst (Colonel), then to Generalmajor in early 1945.

For the rest of the war, Generalmajor Remer commanded the Führerbegleitbrigade (FBB), a field unit formed from a Grossdeutschland cadre, in East Prussia, and during the Ardennes Offensive. He was captured by the United States Army towards the end of the war and remained a prisoner of war until 1947.

Postwar life

Political activities

thumb|left|Former [[Generalmajor#Germany|Generalmajor Remer (centre) with Socialist Reich Party leaders, August 1952]]

After his release from allied captivity, he became involved in West German post-war politics. He set up a political organisation, the Socialist Reich Party, in 1950, which was promptly banned in 1952 for making inflammatory political statements, but not before it had gathered 360,000 supporters in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, and won 16 seats in the state parliament. The Socialist Reich Party also won eight seats in the Parliament of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. The party had received some financing from the Soviet Union, that the politics of the newly-formed West German state which had been created by the Allied powers were merely a front for American domination, There, he served as an advisor to Gamal Abdel Nasser, and worked with other expatriate Germans assisting Arab states with the development of their armed forces.

Criminal prosecution

He returned to West Germany in the 1980s, once more involving himself in politics with the setting up of an organization entitled the "German Freedom Movement" (G.F.M.), which advocated the reunification of East and West Germany and the removal of NATO military forces from West German soil. The G.F.M. was an umbrella organisation for multiple underground neo-Nazi splinter groups of varying descriptions, and Remer used it to influence a younger generation of post-war Germans. In February 1994, having exhausted all means of appeal in the newly united Federal German Republic, he fled to Spain to avoid the prison sentence. From there he supported the activities internationally of people publicly questioning the historical veracity of the Holocaust, such as Fred Leuchter and Germar Rudolf. The High Court of Spain ruled against requests made by the German Government for his extradition back to Germany, stating that he had not committed any crimes under Spanish law.

Legacy and death

Helmut Friebe, a leader of the Alliance of German Soldiers and former Generalleutnant of the Wehrmacht, had the following to say about Remer: "No judgment will be made here as to whether his decision on 20 July was right or wrong. But the consequences of his decision were so terrible,... that we old soldiers had expected that a man to whom destiny gave such a burden to carry until the end of his life would recognize this, and would thereafter live quietly and in reclusion. We, his former comrades, lack any sympathy for the fact that Herr Remer fails to summon up this attitude of self-effacement".

Remer died in Marbella in southern Spain on 4 October 1997, at the age of 85 from natural causes. His ashes were buried in an undisclosed location in Germany.

Major Remer was portrayed by German actor Thomas Kretschmann in the 2008 movie Valkyrie.

Awards

  • Iron Cross (1939) 2nd Class (20 May 1940) & 1st Class (12 June 1940)
  • German Cross in Gold on 29 August 1942 as Hauptmann in IV./Infanterie-Regiment "Großdeutschland"
  • Close Combat Clasp in Silver
  • Wound Badge in Silver
  • Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves
  • Knight's Cross on 18 May 1943 as Major and commander of I./Grenadier-Regiment "Großdeutschland"
  • 325th Oak Leaves on 12 November 1943 as Major and commander of the I.(gepanzert)/Grenadier-Regiment (motorized) "Großdeutschland"

References

Citations

Bibliography

  • Germany's New Nazis 1951 pamphlet about Otto Ernst Remer and other neo--nazis