Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim

Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim (March 25th 1905, July 21st 1944) is a German officer and a combatant of resistance against the Nazi Germany implied in the Complot of July 20th, 1944 against Adolf Hitler.

Biography

It was born with Munich, his father is Hermann Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim, a captain in the staff of Bavaria. It passes its youth to Munich until the moment when his/her father is named with the head of the Reichsarchiv (files imperial), the family moves then with Potsdam. Young man, Quirnheim meets two of his future Co-conspirators, Werner von Haeften and Hans Bernd von Haeften, via family knowledge.

After its Abitur, Quirnheim enlists in the Reichswehr in 1923. In 1925, he becomes the friend of Claus von Stauffenberg, which will become the key conspirator of the plot of July 20th. At the time when the Second world war bursts, Quirnheim is named officer in the organization of the divisional staff.

Quirnheim greets at the beginning the come to power of Hitler, but outdistances mode whereas he discovers his brutality. In 1941, for example, its step in favor of an application of more human treatments to the civilians of Eastern Europe occupied by the Nazis causes an argument between Alfred Rosenberg (minister of Reich of the occupied territories of the East) and Erich Koch (police chief of Reich for the Ukraine). In 1942, then qu" it is promoted lieutenant colonel and that it is with the head of the staff of the 24e army corps on the face of the East, Quirnheim reinforces its bonds with resistance via his/her brother-in-law Wilhelm Dieckmann. It is promoted colonel in 1943, the year when it marries Hilde Baier.

In September 1943, Quirnheim is implied in the plot aiming at assassinating Hitler. With its superior, the general Friedrich Olbricht and Stauffenberg, it prepares the Valkyrie operation, a plan which must enter in action at once dead Hitler. During this time, it succeeds Stauffenberg at the post of head of staff of the general office to Berlin. Immediately after the attempted murder on Hitler in Eastern Prussia, on July 20th, 1944, Quirnheim presses the Olbricht general so that it déclanche the Valkyrie operation, even if they do not have the certainty that Hitler died. However, about at the same moment, the news comes from that Hitler survived the attempted murder.

In a few hours, Quirnheim, Olbricht, Stauffenberg and Werner von Haeften are stopped and summarily judged by the general colonel Friedrich Fromm, a quiet partisan who betrayed them when he discovers that the plot failed. It are cut down and buried with the Matthäus cemetery in the Schöneberg district of Berlin. There is no tomb stone in memory of this event in the cemetery. Later, Heinrich Himmler makes exhume the bodies to incinerate them and disperse their ashes.

A few days later, the parents of Quirnheim and one of his/her sisters are stopped by the Gestapo and his/her brother-in-law, Wilhelm Dieckmann, are carried out on September 13rd, 1944.

Today, a memorial is set up at the place where Quirnheim and its Co-conspirators were killed.

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