Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim
Encyclopedia
Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim (25 March 1905 – 21 July 1944) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 officer
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...

 and a resistance fighter in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 involved in the 20 July plot against Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

.

Biography

Quirnheim was born in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

, to Hermann Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim, a captain on the Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

n General Staff. He spent his youth in the Bavarian capital before his father became head of the Imperial Archive (the Reichsarchiv) and the family moved to Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....

. As a child he befriended Hans-Jürgen von Blumenthal
Hans-Jürgen von Blumenthal
Hans-Jürgen Graf von Blumenthal was a German aristocrat and Army officer in World War II who was executed by the Nazi régime for his role in the July 20 Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.-Biography:...

 and as a young man came to know the brothers Werner von Haeften
Werner von Haeften
- See also :* German Resistance* List of members of the July 20 plot...

 and Hans Bernd von Haeften
Hans Bernd von Haeften
Hans-Bernd August Gustav von Haeften was a German jurist and member of the German Resistance against Adolf Hitler....

, through family connections; these were all future fellow-conspirators.

Following his Abitur
Abitur
Abitur is a designation used in Germany, Finland and Estonia for final exams that pupils take at the end of their secondary education, usually after 12 or 13 years of schooling, see also for Germany Abitur after twelve years.The Zeugnis der Allgemeinen Hochschulreife, often referred to as...

, Quirnheim joined the Reichswehr
Reichswehr
The Reichswehr formed the military organisation of Germany from 1919 until 1935, when it was renamed the Wehrmacht ....

in 1923. His friendship with Claus von Stauffenberg, who would become the key conspirator in the 20 July plot, began in 1925. On the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Quirnheim was appointed Staff Officer at the General Staff's organizational division.

Quirnheim had initially welcomed Hitler's seizure of power
Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...

, but began to distance himself from the régime as he became more aware of its brutality. In 1941, for example, his support for the more humane treatment of civilians in Nazi-occupied eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

 triggered a dispute between Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Rosenberg
' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...

 (Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories) and Erich Koch
Erich Koch
Erich Koch was a Gauleiter of the Nazi Party in East Prussia from 1928 until 1945. Between 1941 and 1945 he was the Chief of Civil Administration of Bezirk Bialystok. During this period, he was also the Reichskommissar in Reichskommissariat Ukraine from 1941 until 1943...

 (Reich Commissar for the Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

). In 1942, while being promoted to lieutenant colonel and then to Head of Staff of the 24th Army Corps at the Eastern Front, Quirnheim strengthened his ties to the resistance through his brother-in-law Wilhelm Dieckmann. He was promoted to colonel in 1943, the same year he married Hilde Baier.

By September 1943, Quirnheim had become involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler. He, his superior General Friedrich Olbricht
Friedrich Olbricht
General Friedrich Olbricht was a German general and one of the plotters involved in the attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia on 20 July 1944.-Early life:...

 and Stauffenberg drew up Operation Valkyrie
Operation Valkyrie
Operation Valkyrie was an emergency continuity of government operations plan developed in Nazi Germany for the Territorial Reserve Army of Germany to execute and implement in case of a general breakdown in civil order of the nation...

, a plan of action to be implemented as soon as Hitler had been killed. Meanwhile, he succeeded Stauffenberg as Chief of Staff at the Army's General Office in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. Immediately after the attempt on Hitler's life in East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...

 on 20 July 1944, Quirnheim urged General Olbricht to activate Operation Valkyrie, even though they could not be sure whether Hitler was dead. At about the same time, however, news began to arrive that Hitler had survived the assassination attempt.

Within hours, Quirnheim, Stauffenberg, Olbricht and Werner von Haeften had been arrested, summarily tried by Colonel General Friedrich Fromm
Friedrich Fromm
Friedrich Fromm was a German army officer. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.-Early life:Fromm was born in Charlottenburg...

—a quiet supporter who betrayed them once he saw the plot had failed—and were shot and buried in the Matthäus Churchyard in Berlin's Schöneberg district. There is a stone in memory of the event in the churchyard. Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

 subsequently ordered the bodies exhumed, burnt and the ashes scattered.

A few days later, Quirnheim's parents and one of his sisters were arrested by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 and his brother-in-law Wilhelm Dieckmann was executed on 13 September 1944.

There is a now a memorial at the spot where Quirnheim and his co-conspirators were shot.

Depiction in Media

  • East German actor Paul Berndt portrayed von Quirnheim in the 1971 Eastern Bloc co-production Liberation
    Liberation (film series)
    Liberation is an epic five-part film series considered the most large-scale World War II film ever made in the Soviet Union. Filmed from 1967 to 1971, the first part was released during 1970 for the 25th anniversary of Victory Day...

    .
  • Rainer Bock
    Rainer Bock
    Rainer Bock is a German actor. Bock was born in Kiel. He had already worked as a stage actor for about 25 years, beginning in 1982, in Kiel, at the National Theatre Mannheim, the Staatstheater Stuttgart, and at the Bavarian State Theatre in Munich, before his film work increased by the end of the...

     portrays von Quirnheim in the 2004, Stauffenberg
    Stauffenberg (Film)
    Stauffenberg is a German-Austrian TV movie released in 2004 by Das Erste , about Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and the 20 July 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler....

    .
  • German actor Christian Berkel
    Christian Berkel
    Christian Berkel is a German actor.Berkel was born in Berlin, Germany. His father was a military doctor.From the age of 14 he lived in Paris where he took drama lessons with Jean-Louis Barrault and Pierre Berlin...

     portrays Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim in the 2008 Bryan Singer
    Bryan Singer
    Bryan Singer is an American film director and film producer. Singer won critical acclaim for his work on The Usual Suspects, and is especially well-known among fans of the science fiction and superhero genres for his work on the X-Men films and Superman Returns.-Early life:Singer was born in New...

     thriller Valkyrie
    Valkyrie (film)
    Valkyrie is a 2008 American historical thriller film set in Nazi Germany during World War II. The film depicts the 20 July plot in 1944 by German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and to use the Operation Valkyrie national emergency plan to take control of the country...

    .

External links

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