Erich Fellgiebel

Fritz Erich Fellgiebel (4 October 1886 – 4 September 1944) was a German Army officer and a conspirator in the 20 July plot to assassinate Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Military career
Fellgiebel was born in Pöpelwitz (Present-day Popowice in Poland) near Breslau, in the Prussian Province of Silesia. At the age of 18, he joined a signals battalion in the Prussian Army as an officer cadet. During the First World War, he served as a captain on the General Staff. After the war he was assigned to Berlin as a General Staff officer of the Reichswehr. His service had been exemplary, and in 1928 he was promoted to the rank of major.

Fellgiebel was promoted lieutenant colonel in 1933, and became a full colonel (Oberst) the following year. By 1938, he was a major general. That year, he was appointed Chief of the Army's Signal Establishment and Chief of the Wehrmacht's communications liaison to the Supreme Command (OKW). Fellgiebel became General der Nachrichtentruppe (General of the Communications Troops) on 1 August 1940.

Adolf Hitler did not fully trust Fellgiebel, considering him too independent-minded, but needed Fellgiebel's expertise. He was the first to understand the use that the German military could have of an encryption machine called Enigma, and worked to have it adopted by the Wehrmacht. As head of Hitler's Signal services, Fellgiebel knew every military secret, including Wernher von Braun's rocketry work at the Peenemünde Army Research Center.

Resistance activities
Through his acquaintance with Colonel General Ludwig Beck, his superior, and then Beck's successor, Colonel-General Franz Halder, Fellgiebel contacted the anti-Nazi resistance group in the Wehrmacht armed forces. In the 1938 September Conspiracy on the eve of the Munich Agreement, he was supposed to cut communications throughout Germany while Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben would occupy Berlin.

Fellgiebel was again involved in the preparations for Operation Valkyrie and during the attempt on the Führer's life on 20 July 1944 tried to cut Hitler's headquarters at Wolf's Lair in East Prussia off from all telecommunication connections. He only partly succeeded, as he could not prevent the information of Minister Joseph Goebbels in Berlin via separate SS links. When it became clear that the attempt had failed, Fellgiebel had to override the communications black-out he had set up.

Fellgiebel's most famous act that day was his telephone report to his co-conspirator General Fritz Thiele at the Bendlerblock, after he was informed that Hitler was still alive: "Etwas schreckliches ist passiert! Der Führer lebt!" ("Something awful has happened! The Führer lives!").

Fellgiebel was arrested immediately at Wolf's Lair. He was charged before the Volksgerichtshof ("People's Court"). On 10 August 1944, he was found guilty by Roland Freisler and sentenced to death. He was executed on 4 September 1944 at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.

Memorials
The Bundeswehr's barracks, a signals and intelligence school ("Führungsunterstützungsschule") in Pöcking-Maxhof is named the General-Fellgiebel-Kaserne in his honour.

Fictional portrayal
Vernon Dobtcheff portrayed him in a 1990 television film, The Plot to Kill Hitler.

Fellgiebel was portrayed by Harald Krassnitzer in the 2004 German TV film Stauffenberg.

He was portrayed by actor and comedian Eddie Izzard in the 2008 Bryan Singer thriller Valkyrie.

Awards and decorations

 * Iron Cross of 1914, 1st and 2nd class
 * Clasp to the Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd class
 * Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918

Literature

 * Brown, Anthony Cave, Bodyguard of Lies, Harper & Row, 1975.
 * Macksey, Kenneth: Without Enigma: the Ultra & Fellgiebel riddles. Shepperton: Allan, 2000. – ISBN 0-7110-2766-8.
 * Stahlberg, Alexander, Bounden Duty: The Memoirs of a German Officer 1932-45, 1990.
 * Wildhagen, Karl Heinz (Hrsg.): Erich Fellgiebel, Meister operativer Nachrichtenverbindungen. – Wenningsen: Selbstverl., 1970.