GeneralMajor Otto Ernst Remer - Wehrmacht

Otto-Ernst Remer was a German Wehrmacht officer who played a decisive role in stopping the 1944 20 July Plot against Adolf Hitler. During the war he was wounded nine times in combat. After the war he co-founded the Sozialistische Reichspartei (SRP) and advanced Holocaust denial. He is considered the "Godfather" of the post-war Nazi underground. By the time of the attack on Poland, in 1939, he was an Oberleutnant in a motorised infantry company, and went on to serve in the Balkans Campaign, as well as in Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. By April 1942, he was a battalion commander, and he joined the Infantry Regiment Grosseutschland and his troops, mounted in halftracks, covered the withdrawal of an entire Waffen-SS tank corps during the fighting at Kharkov. He was awarded the Knight's Cross for his service as battalion commander, and in November 1943, he was awarded the Oak leaves to the Knight's Cross for leadership at Krivoi Rog, which was presented by Adolf Hitler personally. In March 1944, Remer and his men successfully stopped the 20 July plot to seize control of the German government, following an assassination attempt on Hitler. Otto Ernst Remer first heard of it through members of the Nazi Party and waited for official word of Hitler's fate. Remer heard both rumours that Hitler survived and rumours saying he died in the blast. That evening Claus Von Stauffenberg was given control of Germany and its power because the military was convinced that Hitler did not survive the assassination attempt. Stauffenberg and his staff had Remer arrest several Nazi officials, claiming that they were arming defense from a mutiny. Upon being ordered by General Paul von Hase to arrest Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, Remer went to Goebbels' office to do so, pistol in hand. However, Goebbels used his oratory skills to dissuade Remer from arresting him, insisting instead that Hitler was still alive. When Remer asked for proof, Goebbels picked up the phone and asked to be put through to Hitler. Within the minute, Hitler was on the phone, and Goebbels handed the receiver to Remer. Hitler asked Remer whether he recognised his voice, whereupon Remer answered that he did. Hitler then gave Remer orders to crush the plot with his troops. Remer guiltily realised that he and his men actually were taking orders from the mutineers and unwittingly supporting it. Remer and his troops reversed the results from given orders from the plotters. Slowly the plotters were stripped of controls from Germany thus confusing the plotters and postponing the mutiny to figure out the confusion. Then Remer went to the Berlin Nazi base and arrested the plotters including Stauffenberg. Friedrich Fromm had the plotters executed but Remer unsuccessfully tried to dissuade Fromm since Remer was told to keep the plotters alive. That same night Remer was promoted two ranks to Oberst (colonel). Remer went on to command an expanded Führer Begleit Brigade, a field unit formed from a Grossdeutschland cadre, in East Prussia and then transferred to the west for the Ardennes Offensive,suffering high casualties. He was eventually captured by American troops, and remained a prisoner until 1947.Remer's Socialist Reich Party, which he had co-founded in 1950, was banned in 1952, after it had gathered about 360,000 supporters in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, and won 16 seats in the state parliament. Main issues of the party included Holocaust denial, where it accused the U.S. of planting fake gas chambers and films about concentration camps, seesaw politics, and ending Germany's puppet status with the United States. With the party banned, Remer faced criminal charges from the German government as being the successor party to the Nazis, but fled to Egypt. Arriving in Egypt, he served as an advisor to Gamal Abdel Nasser and worked with fellow Nazis proliferating weapon technology to Arab countries.