k98k792
03-04-2007, 09:22 PM
Major General Friedrich Von Rabenau, Thorn in the side of the Nazis.
From the German Resistance Memorial Center
"Friedrich von Rabenau (10.10. 1884 - April 9/14, 1945)
Friedrich von Rabenau
In 1936 the career officer Friedrich von Rabenau is assigned by Colonel-General Ludwig Beck, chief of the general staff, to build up and direct the Army archives. In this position Rabenau consistently opposes any form of ideological distortion. His Christian beliefs make him a convinced opponent of the National Socialist regime. Both at work and off duty he follows his own political convictions without reference to any particular resistance groups, opposing the provocative actions of the National Socialist dictatorship as an individual. Rabenau is married to Eva Kautz, with whom he has two daughters. He is seen as an important intermediary for the resistance groups around Beck and Carl Friedrich Goerdeler. In mid-1942 he is relieved of his post as chief of the Army archives and retires from the Army. In retirement, Friedrich von Rabenau studies Protestant theology and gains the licentiatus theologiae in November 1943. After the unsuccessful coup attempt of July 20, 1944, Rabenau is arrested on July 25. He is imprisoned in Ravensbrück concentration camp, Lehrter Straße Prison in Berlin and the Gestapo headquarters in Prinz-Albrecht-Straße before he is murdered in Flossenbürg concentration camp between April 9 and April 14, 1945. "
He was a author,writing "Seeckt Aus Seinum Lebin" a biography of General Seeckt one of the men that gave birth to the so called Blitzkrieg.
He also wrote a pamphlet issued by the Army before the Nazis seized power,called "The Spirt and Soul of the Soldier."
In it he said a soldier highest duty was to God.
The Nazis found his ideas a threat to National Socialism.
From the transscripts of the Nuremburg War trials.Sent to Rudolf Hess by Gauleiter Florin
"Dear Party Member Hess, the reading of Von Rabenau's pamphlet, The Spirit and Soul of the Soldier, has reminded me again of this. In this brochure Rabenau affirms as before the necessity of the Church straightforwardly and clearly, even though he is shrewdly careful. He writes on Page 28: 'There could be more examples; they would suffice to show that a soldier in this world can scarcely get along without thoughts about the next one.' Because Von Rabenau has a false spiritual basis, I consider his activities as an educator in spiritual affairs dangerous; and I am of the opinion that his educational writings are to be dispensed with, by all means, and that the publication section of the NSDAP can and must forgo these writings...
"The churches with their Christianity constitute a danger against which a struggle absolutely must be carried on."
After the attempt to kill Hitler at WolfsLair Von Rabenau is arrested and imprisoned. He is moved to various prisons and concentration camps. Finally moved to Flosenberg Concentration Camp where, on or about April 14th he was executed.
From an article in the London Times
"THE fate of one of the plotters who tried to kill Adolf Hitler has been
discovered by two amateur code-breakers who have deciphered a
series of German army Enigma messages 60 years after they were
sent.
The code-breakers have found proof that General Friedrich von
Rabenau was assassinated, probably by SS Hauptsturmführer Kurt
Stawitzki, a Gestapo chief.
Von Rabenau had been one of the senior army officers who
conspired to kill Hitler by planting a bomb at his eastern
headquarters in east Prussia on July 20, 1944. Hitler survived and
wreaked revenge on the plotters, ordering eight to be hung from
meat hooks.
However, there has always been doubt about what happened to von
Rabenau other than that he was believed to have been executed at
Flossenbürg concentration camp near Weiden, close to the German-
Czech border.
This has now been confirmed by Geoff Sullivan, a software engineer
from Redditch, Worcestershire, and his friend Frode Weierud, a
Norwegian electrical engineer.
They had been working on hundreds of previously unbroken
messages sent by the Nazis using the Enigma code when they
came across one by Stawitzki, chief of the Gestapo in Lemberg.
"
Codebreakers solve Hitler bomb riddle - Britain - Times Online
They broke the codes using the “hill climb” technique — taking a
random starting point and looking for words or word fragments in the
results, then giving this a score for accuracy. After up to 3,000 trial
decrypts (which takes about 60 hours) a message can usually be
read.
Such was the secrecy surrounding the murder of von Rabenau that
even when decrypted, the message disguised his death, making it
appear that he had been killed by an American bomb attack.
The message, dated April 15, 1945, specified that it should be
passed by hand to Heinrich Müller, the Gestapo chief. It says: “To
inform through messenger and immediate announcement to RSHA
Gruppenführer Müller in person. Rabenau mortally injured by
American low flying airplane attack while on the way to here.”
There is documentary evidence to show that Müller ordered
executions of prominent people be reported in this way. Stawitzki, as
the messenger, is most likely to have carried out the execution,
probably by shooting."
Today his name is on the monument to the German War Resistence as the second highest ranking officer executed in the plot to kill Hitler. Killed not only for the plot, but for his refusal to let the Nazis rewrite history,and his belief that God not the Nazis were the higher power.
I am proud to say that he is,though distantly,a relative of mine.
From the German Resistance Memorial Center
"Friedrich von Rabenau (10.10. 1884 - April 9/14, 1945)
Friedrich von Rabenau
In 1936 the career officer Friedrich von Rabenau is assigned by Colonel-General Ludwig Beck, chief of the general staff, to build up and direct the Army archives. In this position Rabenau consistently opposes any form of ideological distortion. His Christian beliefs make him a convinced opponent of the National Socialist regime. Both at work and off duty he follows his own political convictions without reference to any particular resistance groups, opposing the provocative actions of the National Socialist dictatorship as an individual. Rabenau is married to Eva Kautz, with whom he has two daughters. He is seen as an important intermediary for the resistance groups around Beck and Carl Friedrich Goerdeler. In mid-1942 he is relieved of his post as chief of the Army archives and retires from the Army. In retirement, Friedrich von Rabenau studies Protestant theology and gains the licentiatus theologiae in November 1943. After the unsuccessful coup attempt of July 20, 1944, Rabenau is arrested on July 25. He is imprisoned in Ravensbrück concentration camp, Lehrter Straße Prison in Berlin and the Gestapo headquarters in Prinz-Albrecht-Straße before he is murdered in Flossenbürg concentration camp between April 9 and April 14, 1945. "
He was a author,writing "Seeckt Aus Seinum Lebin" a biography of General Seeckt one of the men that gave birth to the so called Blitzkrieg.
He also wrote a pamphlet issued by the Army before the Nazis seized power,called "The Spirt and Soul of the Soldier."
In it he said a soldier highest duty was to God.
The Nazis found his ideas a threat to National Socialism.
From the transscripts of the Nuremburg War trials.Sent to Rudolf Hess by Gauleiter Florin
"Dear Party Member Hess, the reading of Von Rabenau's pamphlet, The Spirit and Soul of the Soldier, has reminded me again of this. In this brochure Rabenau affirms as before the necessity of the Church straightforwardly and clearly, even though he is shrewdly careful. He writes on Page 28: 'There could be more examples; they would suffice to show that a soldier in this world can scarcely get along without thoughts about the next one.' Because Von Rabenau has a false spiritual basis, I consider his activities as an educator in spiritual affairs dangerous; and I am of the opinion that his educational writings are to be dispensed with, by all means, and that the publication section of the NSDAP can and must forgo these writings...
"The churches with their Christianity constitute a danger against which a struggle absolutely must be carried on."
After the attempt to kill Hitler at WolfsLair Von Rabenau is arrested and imprisoned. He is moved to various prisons and concentration camps. Finally moved to Flosenberg Concentration Camp where, on or about April 14th he was executed.
From an article in the London Times
"THE fate of one of the plotters who tried to kill Adolf Hitler has been
discovered by two amateur code-breakers who have deciphered a
series of German army Enigma messages 60 years after they were
sent.
The code-breakers have found proof that General Friedrich von
Rabenau was assassinated, probably by SS Hauptsturmführer Kurt
Stawitzki, a Gestapo chief.
Von Rabenau had been one of the senior army officers who
conspired to kill Hitler by planting a bomb at his eastern
headquarters in east Prussia on July 20, 1944. Hitler survived and
wreaked revenge on the plotters, ordering eight to be hung from
meat hooks.
However, there has always been doubt about what happened to von
Rabenau other than that he was believed to have been executed at
Flossenbürg concentration camp near Weiden, close to the German-
Czech border.
This has now been confirmed by Geoff Sullivan, a software engineer
from Redditch, Worcestershire, and his friend Frode Weierud, a
Norwegian electrical engineer.
They had been working on hundreds of previously unbroken
messages sent by the Nazis using the Enigma code when they
came across one by Stawitzki, chief of the Gestapo in Lemberg.
"
Codebreakers solve Hitler bomb riddle - Britain - Times Online
They broke the codes using the “hill climb” technique — taking a
random starting point and looking for words or word fragments in the
results, then giving this a score for accuracy. After up to 3,000 trial
decrypts (which takes about 60 hours) a message can usually be
read.
Such was the secrecy surrounding the murder of von Rabenau that
even when decrypted, the message disguised his death, making it
appear that he had been killed by an American bomb attack.
The message, dated April 15, 1945, specified that it should be
passed by hand to Heinrich Müller, the Gestapo chief. It says: “To
inform through messenger and immediate announcement to RSHA
Gruppenführer Müller in person. Rabenau mortally injured by
American low flying airplane attack while on the way to here.”
There is documentary evidence to show that Müller ordered
executions of prominent people be reported in this way. Stawitzki, as
the messenger, is most likely to have carried out the execution,
probably by shooting."
Today his name is on the monument to the German War Resistence as the second highest ranking officer executed in the plot to kill Hitler. Killed not only for the plot, but for his refusal to let the Nazis rewrite history,and his belief that God not the Nazis were the higher power.
I am proud to say that he is,though distantly,a relative of mine.