1. Generalmajor Hans Paul Oster was a general in the Wehrmacht and a leading figure of the anti-Nazi German resistance from 1938 to 1943.
15 Facts About Hans Oster
1. 2.
Hans Oster was involved in the Oster conspiracy of September 1938 and was arrested in 1943 on suspicion of helping Abwehr officers that were caught helping Jews to escape Germany.
3.
Hans Oster was born in Dresden, Saxony in 1887, the son of an Alsatian pastor of the French Protestant Church.
4.
Hans Oster entered the artillery in 1907 and in World War I, he served on the Western Front until 1916, when he was appointed as captain to the German General Staff.
5.
Hans Oster had to resign from the army in 1932, when he got into trouble with a married woman.
6.
Hans Oster soon found a job in a new organisation which Hermann Goring set up under the Prussian police.
7.
In 1935, Hans Oster was allowed to re-join the army but never on the General Staff.
8.
Hans Oster played a central role in the first military conspiracy to overthrow Hitler, which was rooted in Hitler's intention to invade Czechoslovakia.
9.
Halder asked Hans Oster to draw up plans for a coup, and it was eventually agreed that Halder would instigate the coup when Hitler committed an overt step towards war.
10.
Hans Oster informed his friend Bert Sas, the Netherlands' military attache in Berlin, more than twenty times the date of the postponed invasion of the Netherlands.
11.
Hans Oster calculated that his treason could cost the lives of 40,000 German soldiers and wrestled with his decision.
12.
The Hans Oster group supplied British-made bombs to Henning von Tresckow's group for their attempts to assassinate Hitler in 1943.
13.
In 1943, the Abwehr group's rescue efforts for Jews were exposed by the Gestapo and Hans Oster was dismissed from his post.
14.
Hans Oster had two sons: one of them was a Oberleutnant who fought at Stalingrad.
15.
Hans Oster committed suicide by putting a blanket over his head and shooting himself near the end of the siege.