Otto Ernst Remer

Otto-Ernst Remer ( Neubrandenburg , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern , 18 of August of 1912 - Marbella , Málaga , 4 of October of 1997 ) was an officer of the Wehrmacht who played a decisive role in the failure of the coup of July 20, 1944 Against Adolf Hitler . After World War II he founded the Socialist Party of the Reich and was a Holocaust denier .

Biography

Remer was born in Neubrandenburg on 18 August as as 1912 . He joined the army of the Weimar Republic ( Reichswehr ) in 1932 .

Service in the war

In April 1942 , as commander, he was assigned to the Großdeutschland Infantry Regiment to lead the 4th Battalion , a special unit composed of ex-German convicts who supported the three battalions of riflemen of this elite regiment.

In February 1943 he commanded the first mechanized battalion of the Großdeutschland Grenadier Regiment , after the conversion of the infantry regiment into division. Their troops, mounted in half-reliefs , covered the retreat of a body of tanks of Waffen-SS during the Fourth Battle of Kharkov . He was awarded the Knight’s Cross for his services as a battalion commander and in November 1943 he received the Oak Leaves for his leadership in Krivói Rog .

In March 1944 , after being wounded, Major Remer was elected to command the Wachbattalion of the Großdeutschland , a unit that carried out security and representation tasks in Berlin .

During this time, Remer and his men were unknowingly part of the July 20 plot to wage a coup by assassinating Adolf Hitler . After receiving the order of General Paul von Hase to arrest Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels , Remer made personal contact with the minister. Remer was ordered to speak on the telephone with Hitler himself, to whom he owed his oath of allegiance. Hitler asked Remer if he recognized his voice and then gave him orders to end the plot with the whole of his troops, which he did. That same night he was promoted to colonel ( Oberst ).

Remer commented his participation in the events of July 1944 in the BBC documentary series ” The World At War ” ( The World At War ). He did not seem to have any remorse for his role in ending the plot or the war in general. The same can be said of their appearance playing himself (giving advice to a young actor who was playing his role) in the German documentary about the bombing of the 20 of July of 1944 , shot by German historian Joachim Fest .

Remer commanded, in East Prussia and with little success, an expanded Führer Begleit Brigade , a campaign unit formed from men of the Großdeutschland. His unit suffered many casualties, it seems that due to his driving. The brigade was transferred to the West for the Battle of the Ardennes in December 1944 and again suffered heavy casualties and few successes .

In 1945 , when the Führer Begleit Brigade was elevated to division, was promoted to major general and put to the control of the same one. His command at the head of the division was again questioned when he moved to Silesia in March 1945 . He was captured by the US Army and was a prisoner of war until 1947 .

Political life

Remer founded in 1950 the Socialist Party of the Reich ( German : Sozialistische Reichspartei Deutschlands ), which was outlawed in 1952 by the Federal Republic of Germany , having obtained 360,000 votes in the state of Lower Saxony and 16 seats in the parliament of said land . In Bremen he also had representation in parliament with 8 seats. ¹

In October 1992 , Remer was sentenced to several months’ imprisonment for writing and publishing articles arguing his denial of the Holocaust .

Exile and death

In February 1994 Remer was exiled in Spain to avoid facing his judicial responsibility for the public statements in which he questioned the Holocaust . Remer enthusiastically supported the studies carried out by key figures in negationism such as Fred Leuchter and Germar Rudolf . ²

The Spanish National Court ruled against the request of extradition of the German Government, because according to the Spanish legislation (did not exist the crime of denial of the genocide) had not committed any crime. The Spanish Ministry of Justice had denied refugee status as well as asylum to Remer in July 1994 . Remer later lived in Egypt and Syria , being fugitive of the German justice until its death in 1997 , to the 85 years of age, in the tourist city of Marbella , to the south of Spain .

Decorations

Second-class iron cross
First class iron cross
German cross in gold
Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross
Oak Leaves for the Knight’s Cross
Badge of wounded in gold
Melee combat badge in silver
Medal of the Winter Battle in the East 1941/42
Extended Service Medal
Bulgarian medal “For bravery at war” in 4th grade, first class