1. Friedrich Olbricht was a German general during World War II.
15 Facts About Friedrich Olbricht
1. 2.
Friedrich Olbricht is known for being one of the plotters involved in the 20 July Plot, an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944.
3.
Friedrich Olbricht was secretly in contact with most of the leaders of the resistance.
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Friedrich Olbricht was born on 4 October 1888 in Leisnig, Saxony, to Richard Friedrich Olbricht, a mathematics professor and director of the Realschule in Bautzen.
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Friedrich Olbricht successfully passed the Abitur in 1907, subsequently accepting a commission as a Fahnrich with Infantry Regiment 106 in Leipzig.
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Friedrich Olbricht fought in World War I, was promoted to captain and chose to stay in the Treaty of Versailles-decimated military after the war.
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Friedrich Olbricht was assigned to the Reich Defense Ministry as leader of the Reichswehr's Foreign Armies Bureau in 1926.
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Friedrich Olbricht was appointed chief of staff of the 4th Army Corps stationed in Dresden in 1935, an assignment that lasted until 1938 when he was promoted to commander of the 24th Infantry Division.
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Friedrich Olbricht has the distinction of being one of the few officers who supported General Werner von Fritsch, the commander in chief of the German armed forces who was accused of homosexuality in January 1938.
10.
On 15 February 1940, Friedrich Olbricht was promoted to General of the Infantry.
11.
Friedrich Olbricht was appointed Chief of the General Army Office in the Army High Command.
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Friedrich Olbricht was furthermore made Chief of the Armed Forces Reserve Office at the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht.
13.
At 21:00, Friedrich Olbricht was arrested at his headquarters in the Bendlerblock by soldiers from the Berlin garrison.
14.
Later that evening, Colonel-General Friedrich Olbricht Fromm held a hastily arranged court martial, supposedly in an attempt to protect himself from being exposed as a silent conspirator.
15.
Friedrich Olbricht appears in all dramatisations of the July 1944 plot, being played by Rolf Hoppe in the third Liberation Film Direction of the Main Blow, Wolfgang Buttner in The Plot to Assassinate Hitler, Erik Frey in Jackboot Mutiny Michael Byrne in The Plot to Kill Hitler, Rainer Bock in Stauffenberg and Bill Nighy in Valkyrie.