Ernst John von Freyend
- Birth Date:
- 25.03.1909
- Death date:
- 00.00.1980
- Nationality:
- german
- Cemetery:
- Set cemetery
Ernst John von Freyend (25 March 1909–1980) was a German Oberkommando der Wehrmacht officer who served during World War II as the adjutant to Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. He is notable for unwittingly helping to place the 20 July plot bomb that was intended to kill Adolf Hitler.
Biography
On 20 July 1944 he held the rank of Major and arrived at the Wolf's Lair headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia for a situation conference attended by Hitler. Also there as a subordinate to Field Marshal Keitel was Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg who arrived clutching a briefcase. As Stauffenberg was disabled following the loss of his right hand and two fingers from his left hand, von Freyend offered to carry it for him. Stauffenberg at first refused, but then relented upon approaching the conference room and he asked von Freyend to put him as near as possible to Hitler so that 'I catch everything the Führer says for my briefing afterwards'. Freyend placed the briefcase by the conference map table to the right of General Adolf Heusinger who was standing next to Hitler and Stauffenberg adjusted its position. However, Heinz Brandt, wanting to get a closer look at a map on the table, re-positioned the briefcase farther away from Hitler on the other side of a thick table leg. Seven minutes later the bomb exploded. It was later concluded that its exact positioning next to the table leg was a crucial factor in determining who in the room survived.
Freyend survived the explosion and the remainder of the war. After surrendering with Keitel he was briefly interrogated by the Americans who decided that he was not involved in military decision making and acted mainly as Keitel's valet.
Portrayal in the media
Ernst John von Freyend has been portrayed by the following actors in film productions.
- Manfred Bendik in the 1971 Eastern Bloc co-production Liberation: Direction of the Main Blow.
- Michael Fitzgerald in the 1990 United States television movie The Plot to Kill Hitler.
- Andy Gätjen in the 2004 German TV movie Stauffenberg.
- Werner Daehn in the 2008 United States film Valkyrie.
Source: wikipedia.org
No places
| Relation name | Relation type | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Wilhelm Keitel | Commander |
20.07.1944 | Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg
The 20 July plot refers to the attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Third Reich, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, in July 1944. The apparent purpose of the assassination attempt was to seize political control of Germany and its armed forces from the Nazi Party (including the SS) in order to obtain peace with the Allies as soon as possible. The underlying desire of many of the involved high ranking Wehrmacht officers was apparently to show to the world that not all Germans were like Hitler and the NSDAP. The details of the conspirators' peace initiatives remain unknown, but they likely would have included demands to accept wide reaching territorial annexations by Germany in Europe.