Friedrich Olbricht was born on October 8, 1888 in Leisnig, Saxony to a mathematics professor named Richard Olbricht. He attained his Baccalaureate in 1907 and joined the 106th Infantry Regiment as an ensign.
World War I
Olbricht fought with his regiment in the First World War from 1914 to 1918. After the armistice, and promoted to captain, he stayed with the army despite its having been substantially reduced in size by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. He later married Eva Koeppel and they had a son and a daughter.
Adolf Hitler
Olbricht had little use for Adolf Hitler and the Nationalist Socialist Party despite the fact that a lot of military men were joining. His opinion of the Nazis was confirmed after the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 and he found kindred spirits in later conspirators such as Georg Thomas and Hans Oster.
By 1926 Olbricht had become leader of the Foreign Armies Bureau within the Reich Defence Ministry and chief of staff Dresden Division in 1933. During the Night of the Long Knives when Hitler’s elite SS guards slaughtered members of the Party who did not agree with Hitler, Olbricht managed to save the lives of several men by assigning them to duties under military protection.
Despite his political views, Olbricht continued to advance in the military. By 1935 he was chief of staff of Fourth Army Corps and headed the 24th Infantry Division in 1938.
World War II
In September 1939, Olbricht led the 24th Division during the invasion of Poland. His policy of leading his troops into battle led to his earning of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross when he loaded troops into his own staff car in order to race ahead and secure vital bridges. Promoted to General of the Infantry in 1940 he was soon appointed Chief of the General Army Office in the High Command and made Chief of the Armed Forces Replacement Office of the German Army.
Operation Valkyrie
During Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of Russia beginning in 1941, Olbricht came to realize that Germany might lose the war. The brutal Russian winter of 1941-42 stopped the German advance and killed many German soldiers. Olbricht began working on a plan with the General Staff that on the surface appeared to be for use against unrest within Germany. It fact it was a plot to assassinate Hitler and take over the government. It was called Operation Valkyrie. Olbricht had developed a circle of like-minded men and together they worked out the details, one of which was to arrange for Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the man who would plant the bomb designed to kill Hitler, to work in his office.
The coup was planned for July 20, 1944 and when word reached Olbricht that a bomb had been detonated in Hitler’s headquarters, he and Colonel Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim mobilized the Reserve Army. The plan soon faltered when word arrived that Hitler was still alive and the Nazis regained control of the situation.
Soldiers of the Berlin garrison arrested Olbricht in his headquarters at nine o’clock that evening. He was held until Colonel-General Friedrich Fromm arrived. Purportedly to cover his own involvement, Fromm arranged a hasty court-martial and shortly after midnight, Olbricht, von Stauffenberg and two other officers were executed by firing squad.
Sources:
Alan Bullock - Hitler: A Study in Tyranny –1952
Jacques Delarue – The Gestapo: A History of Horror –1965
Joachim Fest – Plotting Hitler’s Death: The German Resistance to Hitler –1996
Pierre Galante – Operation Valkyrie: The German Generals’ Plot Against Hitler - 2002
William L. Shirer – The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich –1959
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