Lindemann, Fritz, born 11-04-1894, in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany., the son of Generalarzt Dr. med, Heinrich Friedrich (1833–1905) and his wife Emilio Konze, after graduating from the Viktoria-Gymnasium in Potsdam in 1912, he joined the Prussian army as a cadet. 4th Guards Field Artillery Regiment one. He experienced World War I as a front-line officer, regimental adjutant and adjutant to the artillery inspector of the Landwehr Corps. fought in the First World War and was a temporary member of the German peace delegation in Versailles in 1919. After 1922 he completed an illegal General Staff training course in the Reich Army, and started training officers himself at the end of the 1920s. He was married to Lina von Friedeburg, with whom he had a daughter and two sons..
After passing the military district examination, Fritz went through General Staff training and then switched several times between military and General Staff service. In the Wehrmacht department of the ministerial office he was General von Kurt Ferdinand Schleicher reported directly and familiarized himself with military-political contexts. As a teacher at the War Academy, he trained General Staff officers. At the same time, he commented in the “Military Scientific Review” on fundamental military-political issues. In the fall of 1936 he was transferred to the General Command of the X Army Corps under command of General der Kavallerie Wilhelm Knochenhauer, in Hamburg as an officer of the General Staff. Knochenberg already died 28-06-1939, age 50, in Hamburg. At the outbreak of World War II, Lindemann was promoted to Oberstl, e.g. V. Commander of the artillery regiment based in Augsburg 27-08-1939 and led it in the Poland and France campaigns. As artillery commander 138 and leader of the advance department of the XI. Army Corps he was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross in September 1941. Reactivated on 01-01-1942 and promoted to Generalmajor, he led the 132nd Infantry Division in the conquest of Sevastopol and in the heavy defensive battles south of Lake Ladoga. On 01-10-1943, Lindemann was put in charge of the duties of General of Artillery at the Army High Command and promoted to General of Artillery on 01-12-1943. His frequent travels between Berlin, the Führer Headquarters, the High Commands of the Army Groups and Armies and the Deputy General Commands working at home enabled him, who belonged to the inner circle of leaders of the resistance movement in the military field, to establish numerous connections and to act as a coordinator. Lindemann also maintained such connections to personalities from the civilian sector, such as Nazi banker-political, Hjalmar Schacht, who considered him “one of the most capable and active men in the officers’ resistance circle”. Lindemann developed contacts with conspirators against Adolf Hitler including General Helmuth Stieff The morning of July 20, Stieff flew with Oberst Claus von Stauffenberg and Oberstleutnant Werner von Haeften in General Eduard Wagner’s Heinkel He 111 plane from Berlin to the Wolfsschanze. But in the evening he was arrested and interrogated under torture by the Gestapo. Stieff held out for several days against the Gestapo’s attempts to obtain the names of fellow conspirators. Rejected by the Wehrmacht, he was tried by the Volksgerichtshof under President Roland Freisler and sentenced to death on 08-08-1944. At Hitler’s personal request, Hellmuth Stieff, age 43, was hanged on the afternoon of the same day in Plötzensee prison in Berlin. General Eduard Wagner after the failure of the coup attempt, feared that his arrest by the Gestapo was imminent and that he might be forced to implicate other plotters. He committed suicide by shooting himself in the head at noon on 23-07-1944, age 50, in Zossen.
General Fritz Lindemann also joined the conspiracy. It was agreed that on the death of Hitler, three speeches were to be broadcast over German radio. Two of the speeches were to be directed to the armed forces and were to be delivered by Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben and General Ludwig Beck. The other was addressed to the German people and would be given by the conservative politician, Carl Goerdeler, who would come out of hiding once the coup had been confirmed. General Erich Fellgiebel, Chief of Signals of the OKW, would cut down all communications from Hitler’s headquarters following the assassination and General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, the military governor of France, would arrange for the troops under his command to arrest all Gestapo and SS officers.
Lindemann was to be involved in the radio broadcasts but did not turn up after the attempted assassination of Hitler and went into hiding when he discovered the July Plot had failed.) General-Major Helmuth Stieff was arrested and tortured. According to a Gestapo report: “The confession eventually made by Major-General Stieff with the interrogations of Schulenburg and various others provide important information.” Although he did give the name of General Fritz Lindemann and General Eduard Wagner. It was later claimed that he implicated primarily only himself and others already dead. For example, he never gave the name of Hauptmann Axel von dem Bussche –Streithorst , who he had helped in a previous failed assassination attempt. Axel von den Bussche-Streithorst survived the war and died age 73, on 26-1-1993 in Begnins, Zwitserland.
General Fritz Lindemann went into hiding. He was tracked down by the police in Berlin on 3rd September. Lindemann tried to jump out of a third-floor window but was shot in the legs and stomach. He was immediately operated on so that he might be tortured and brought to trial. Five of those who had helped him while on the run or had kept him hidden at various times between 22nd July and 3rd September, were executed. Two of them were described as “Jewish half-castes” and another the widow of a Jew.
On 20-10-1944, General Lindemann went on trial with Julius Leber, and a German educator and cultural politician (SPD), Adolf Reichwein,age 46 and a German journalist, SPD politician, and resistance fighter against the Nazi régime, Theodor Haubach, age 48 and many others. He was found guilty and executed on 22-09-1944.
Death and burial ground of Lindemann. Fritz.
Fritz Lindemann’s ashes were buried on the Plötzensee cemetery in an anonymously grave like all Plötzensee victims.
Lindemann’s family fell into clan imprisonment; the sons were charged before the People’s Court and received prison sentences. Five people who had given Lindemann shelter had to pay the price with their deaths.
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