Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel

Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R63893, Carl Heinrich von Stülpnagel.jpg Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel
Born	(1886-01-02)2 January 1886 Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Died	Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, Free State of Prussia, 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.

Early life

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

In 1938, the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair and the Sudeten Crisis led to a weakening of Stülpnagel's enthusiasm for the National Socialist régime in Germany. It was at that time that he established contact with the Schwarze Kapelle, notably revealing the secret plan for the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

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.

Stülpnagel also took part in the military opposition's first revolutionary plans, aimed at ousting Hitler and the Nazis, but these plans were largely abandoned after the Munich Agreement. Despite his involvement in the military opposition's plot to assassinate Hitler, 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 Russia, 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

In February 1942, Stülpnagel was made German-occupied France's military commander, and in this position, he, along with his personal adviser Lieutenant-Colonel Caesar von Hofacker, went forth with their plans to further the cause of ridding Germany of Hitler. Hofacker served as Stülpnagel's liaison with Claus von Stauffenberg, who eventually carried out the assassination attempt at the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia.

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 with a pistol on the banks of the Meuse River. He only succeeded in blinding himself. While he was in captivity, he reportedly screamed the name "Rommel" in a delirium. As a result, Erwin Rommel was soon put under surveillance by the SS.

General Stülpnagel and his adviser were both arrested by the Gestapo, and Stülpnagel was brought before the "People's Court" (Volksgerichtshof) on 30 August 1944. He was found guilty of high treason and hanged the same day 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

Notes

Footnotes

Citations

References

• 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

External links

• Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel in the German National Library catalogue
• Biography of Carl Heinrich von Stülpnagel (German), Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand (Memorial to German Resistance) website

Military offices
Preceded by —	Commander of 30. Infanterie-Division 1 October 1936 – 4 February 1938	Succeeded by Generalmajor Kurt von Briesen
Preceded by Generaloberst Adolf Strauß	Commander of II. Armeekorps 30 April 1940 – 21 June 1940	Succeeded by General der Infanterie Walter von Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt
Preceded by none	Commander of 17. Armee 20 December 1940 – 4 October 1941	Succeeded by Generaloberst Hermann Hoth