Ludwig Gehre (5 October 1895 – 9 April 1945) was an officer and resistance fighter involved in the preparation of an assassination attempt against

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

Life

Gehre was born in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

, Germany. Little detail is known of his early years in the parental home, or the education he received. The first reference to Gehre appears when he was a managing director of a building contractor. In 1928, he published a study on

Clausewitz Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz (; 1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral", in modern terms meaning psychological, and political aspects of waging war. His mos ...

; by that time he is supposed to have begun his career as an officer in the Reichswehr.

Contact man with the conspirators

At the beginning of the Second World War, Gehre was active as a captain in the Abwehr that had formed to remove the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

regime and end the war. This circle included Canaris, General

Ludwig Beck Ludwig August Theodor Beck (; 29 June 1880 – 20 July 1944) was a German general and Chief of the German General Staff during the early years of the Nazi regime in Germany before World War II. Although Beck never became a member of the Na ...

Hans von Dohnanyi Hans von Dohnanyi (; originally ''Johann von Dohnányi'' ; 1 January 1902 – 8 or 9 April 1945) was a German jurist. He used his position in the Abwehr to help Jews escape Germany, worked with German resistance against the Nazi régime, a ...

Hans Oster Hans Paul Oster (9 August 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a general in the ''Wehrmacht'' and a leading figure of the anti-Nazi German resistance from 1938 to 1943. As deputy head of the counter-espionage bureau in the ''Abwehr'' (German military inte ...

and

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonhoeffer (; 4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have ...

, as well as Gehre. By March 1943, Gehre was privy to the preparations under

Henning von Tresckow Henning Hermann Karl Robert von Tresckow (; 10 January 1901 – 21 July 1944) was a German military officer with the rank of major general in the Nazi Germany, German Army who helped organize German resistance to Nazism, German resistance again ...

to assassinate

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...

. In January 1944,

Helmuth James Graf von Moltke Helmuth James Graf von Moltke (11 March 1907 – 23 January 1945) was a German jurist who, as a draftee in the German Abwehr, acted to subvert German human-rights abuses of people in territories occupied by Germany during World War II. He w ...

was arrested, and in March 1944 Gehre was also taken by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

. Gehre, however, was soon able to flee and disappeared. After the failed 20 July 1944 assassination attempt to kill Hitler, the search for Gehre intensified. Gehre, together with his wife, kept himself hidden for several more weeks. Further shelter was procured by the brothers Hans and

Otto John Otto John (19 March 1909 – 26 March 1997) was a German lawyer and intelligence official. During World War Two, he was a conspirator in the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Following the war, he became the first head of West Germ ...

. When Gehre realised that he was about to be discovered by the Gestapo on 2 November, he shot his wife and then directed the gun toward himself. Although he was badly hurt, he survived. On 3 February 1945, the building of the Central Reich Security Office on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, Berlin was destroyed. Gehre, along with Bonhoeffer, was sent to the

Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

. From there, he was put onto a transport of SS special detainees and on 5 April incarcerated in the

Flossenbürg concentration camp Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Unlike other concentration camps, it was located in a remote area, in the Fichtel Mountains of Bavaria, adjacent to the town of F ...

. On 9 April 1945, after an SS flying

court-martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...

, Gehre and Bonhoeffer along with Admiral

Wilhelm Canaris Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and the chief of the '' Abwehr'' (the German military-intelligence service) from 1935 to 1944. Canaris was initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, and the Nazi r ...

, General

, General Karl Sack and Captain Theodor Strünck were executed at Flossenbürg by hanging. In 1946, the individuals who had participated in the flying court-martial were brought to justice for murder. However

Otto Thorbeck Otto Thorbeck (26 August 1912 in Brieg, Silesia – 10 October 1976 in Nuremberg) was a German lawyer and Nazi SS judge in the ''Hauptamt SS-Gericht''. In 1941, Sturmbannführer (Major) Thorbeck was appointed the chief judge of the SS and p ...

, the presiding officer, was exonerated after appeal. The decision was rescinded by the Berlin State Court in 1996. Gerd Ueberschär: '' For another Germany ''. fiTb 13934, Frankfurt/M 2006, , P. 308 Anm.21

References

Bibliography

* '' Encyclopedia of the resistance 1933-1945 '', hrsg. by Peter Steinbach/Johannes Tuchel, Munich 1994, * Winfried Heinemann: '' The military resistance and the war. '' In: The German Reich and the war. Given change of the military-historical office for research. Volume 9,1, Munich 2004, * Otto John: '' Wrong and too late. 20 July 1944. '' Munich and Berlin 1984,

External links

GDW Ludwig Gehre

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20040323174547/http://www.buchenwald.de/downloads/denkmal.pdf memory place Bonhoeffer Rabenau Gehre* Article in the German Wikipedia {{DEFAULTSORT:Gehre, Ludwig 1895 births 1945 deaths Abwehr personnel of World War II Military personnel from Düsseldorf People who died in Flossenbürg concentration camp Resistance members who died in Nazi concentration camps Military personnel who died in Nazi concentration camps People from North Rhine-Westphalia executed in Nazi concentration camps Executed members of the 20 July plot Executed people from North Rhine-Westphalia People executed by Nazi Germany by hanging People from the Rhine Province People who were court-martialed 20th-century Freikorps personnel Reichswehr personnel