Generalmajor Otto Ernst Remer | |
|---|---|
 Remer in 1945 | |
| Born | (1912-08-18)18 August 1912 |
| Died | 4 October 1997(1997-10-04) (aged 85) Marbella, Spain |
| Known for | Foiling20 July plot FoundingSocialist Reich Party Holocaust denial |
| Criminal status | Deceased |
| Conviction | Incitement of racial hatred |
| Criminal penalty | 22 months imprisonment |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  Nazi Germany |
| Branch | German Army |
| Years of service | 1933-1945 |
| Rank | Generalmajor |
| Commands | Führer Begleit Brigade Infantry Regiment Großdeutschland |
| Battles / wars | World War II |
| Awards | Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves |
GeneralmajorOtto Ernst Remer (18 August 1912 – 4 October 1997) was aGerman Army officer who served duringWorld War II and played a major role in stopping the20 July plot in 1944 againstAdolf Hitler. He was a captain and a major (1943-1944), and finally aOberst (colonel) and aGeneralmajor (major general) in 1945. In his later years, he became a politician andfar-right activist.[1] He co-founded theSocialist Reich Party inWest Germany in the 1950s and is considered an influential figure in postwarneo-fascist politics in Germany.[1]
Otto Ernest Remer was born atNeubrandenburg,Mecklenburg-Strelitz, in theGerman Empire on 18 August 1912. He attended a military academy and was commissioned as an officer in the German Army 1932 at the age of 20, a few months beforeAdolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, initiating aseries of laws in theWeimar Republic which made him the sole leader in the country.[1]
Remer began his career in April 1933 as an ensign in the 4th Prussian Infantry Regiment. Remer took part in theInvasion of Poland in 1939 (upon which he was awarded the rank ofOberleutnant or Lieutenant), theBalkans Campaign, andOperation Barbarossa. In April 1942, he was posted toInfantry Regiment Großdeutschland.
In February 1943, he commanded an infantry battalion (with the rank of Army Hauptmann/Captain or Army Major) in theGroßdeutschland Division (GD) after the regiment was reformed into a division. His troops covered the withdrawal of aWaffen-SS tank corps during theThird Battle of Kharkov. He was awarded theKnight's Cross for his service as battalion commander and, in November 1943, he was awarded the Oak leaves to the Knight's Cross, which was presented personally byAdolf Hitler.[2]
In March 1944, Remer was appointed as the commanding officer ofWachbataillon Großdeutschland. On 20 July 1944Wehrmacht officers staged acoup d'etat and attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler by means of a bomb-attack at the "Wolf's Lair" inEast Prussia. Remer, who was inBerlin at the time, first heard news of it from members of the Nazi Party, and waited for official word of Hitler's fate.
On the evening of 20 July 1944,OberstClausGraf von Stauffenberg, the officer who had carried out the attack upon Hitler, arrived back in Berlin, and, believing that he had succeeded in killing him, issued orders to Remer to arrest several senior Nazi Government officials, claiming that they were part of a coup. Upon being ordered by GeneralPaul von Hase to arrest Minister of PropagandaJoseph Goebbels, Remer went to Goebbels' office to do so. However, on arrival, Remer was met by Goebbels' protestations that Hitler was still alive and had issued counter-orders to those Remer was enforcing. When Remer asked for proof, Goebbels picked up the phone and asked to be put through to Hitler at the "Wolf's Lair", then handed him the telephone receiver, upon which Remer heard Hitler's voice, ordering him to crush the plot in Berlin with the troops under his command. Remer with this realised that he had been taking orders from the mutineers and returning with his troops to the Berlin Military Headquarters,Bendlerblock, he arrested the plotters, including Stauffenberg.[citation needed]
GeneraloberstFriedrich Fromm had the plotters immediately summarily executed by firing squad, despite Remer's protestations that he had been told to keep the plotters alive if possible pending further orders from Hitler, who was returning to Berlin (General Fromm himself would subsequently be executed by firing squad). That same night, Remer was promoted two ranks toOberst (Colonel), then toGeneralmajor in early 1945.[citation needed]
For the rest of the war,Generalmajor Remer commanded theFührerbegleitbrigade (FBB), a field unit formed from a Grossdeutschland cadre, inEast Prussia, and during theArdennes Offensive. He was captured by theUnited States Army towards the end of the war and remained aprisoner of war until 1947.[citation needed]
After his release from allied captivity, he became involved inWest German post-war politics. He set up a political organisation, theSocialist Reich Party, in 1950, which was promptly banned in 1952 for making inflammatory political statements, but not before it had gathered 360,000 supporters inLower Saxony andSchleswig-Holstein, and won 16 seats in thestate parliament. The Socialist Reich Party also won eight seats in the Parliament of theFree Hanseatic City of Bremen. The party had received some financing from theSoviet Union,[1] and worked with theCommunist Party of Germany, whose aim was the destabilisation of the West German state. Among the campaigning themes of the Socialist Reich Party was that theHolocaust had been an allied propaganda invention (it accused the United States of building fake gas chambers and producing bogus newsreel footage about concentration camps),[3] that the politics of the newly-formed West German state which had been created by the Allied powers were merely a front for American domination,[4] and thatWest Germany's purported status as a puppet of the United States should be opposed.[1]
With the party banned, Remer faced criminal charges from the West German government for being actively engaged in an attempt to re-establish aneo-Nazi political movement. After an arrest warrant was issued against him on these charges, he went into hiding at a chalet belonging to CountessFaber-Castell, an early supporter of the Socialist Reich Party, before subsequently fleeing toEgypt.[4] There, he served as an advisor toGamal Abdel Nasser, and worked with other expatriate Germans assisting Arab states with the development of their armed forces.[1] He was a frequent acquaintance ofJohann von Leers.[4] In 1956, Remer was reported to be inDamascus, engaging in the arms trade; theAlgerianNational Liberation Front was one of his customers.[1]
"I know Mr.Arafat quite well, naturally," he asserted. "I saw him many times. He invited me to eat at his headquarters. I knew all his people. They wanted many things from us." For Remer, anyone who was an enemy ofIsrael was his friend, particularly when a profit could be turned. He claimed to have brokered several business deals between West German companies and the PLO, but Remer denied that he also arranged arms shipments for the PLO. "I couldn't have done so," he maintained. "Arafat gets all he wants from Russia. A German arms dealer can't get into business there."[5]
He returned to West Germany in the 1980s, once more involving himself in politics with the setting up of an organization entitled the "German Freedom Movement" (G.F.M.), which advocated the reunification ofEast andWest Germany and the removal ofNATO military forces from West German soil. The G.F.M. was an umbrella organisation for multiple underground neo-Nazi splinter groups of varying descriptions, and Remer used it to influence a younger generation of post-war Germans.[1]
From 1991 to 1994, Remer published a political newsletter entitledRemer-Depesche, conveying his political philosophy. Its content led to a court case where he was sentenced to 22 months' imprisonment in October 1992 forincitement of racial hatred by writing and publishing a series of articles stating that theHolocaust was a myth. (The political impact of the case upon the Government is discussed in Searle'sWehrmacht Generals.) Remer filed numerous appeals against his conviction, however his complaints of unfairness of trial and violations of freedom of speech were unanimously rejected, ultimately by theEuropean Commission on Human Rights, to which he had taken his case.[6] In February 1994, having exhausted all means of appeal in the newly unitedFederal German Republic, he fled to Spain to avoid the prison sentence. From there he supported the activities internationally of people publiclyquestioning the historical veracity of the Holocaust, such asFred Leuchter andGermar Rudolf. The High Court of Spain ruled against requests made by theGerman Government for hisextradition back to Germany, stating that he had not committed any crimes under Spanish law.[citation needed]
Helmut Friebe, a leader of the Alliance of German Soldiers and formerGeneralleutnant of the Wehrmacht, had the following to say about Remer: "No judgment will be made here as to whether his decision on 20 July was right or wrong. But the consequences of his decision were so terrible,... that we old soldiers had expected that a man to whom destiny gave such a burden to carry until the end of his life would recognize this, and would thereafter live quietly and in reclusion. We, his former comrades, lack any sympathy for the fact that Herr Remer fails to summon up this attitude of self-effacement".[7][8]
Remer died atMarbella in southern Spain on 5 October 1997, at the age of 85 fromnatural causes.[1] His ashes were buried in an undisclosed location in Germany.[citation needed]
Oberst Remer was portrayed by German actorThomas Kretschmann in the 2008 movieValkyrie.
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