Hitler aide urgedallies to help
AN ABERDEEN academic has uncovered evidence showing how Hitler’s former adjutant begged the Allies to help remove Hitler from power in 1940.
Dr Thomas Weber has discovered papers belonging to a former British intelligence officer which reveal how Fritz Wiedemann, Hitler’s commanding officer during the First World War, tried to warn the British and American intelligence services about the extent of Hitler’s megalomania.
Wiedemann is regarded as a father figure to Hitler during the First World War and backed his nomination for the Iron Cross.
He became the Fuhrer’s personal adjutant in the peacetime years of the Third Reich but after a fall-out was exiled from his inner circle and sent to the US as German Consul General to San Francisco in early 1939.
Although many in the US believed he was a spy, new evidence has been found which shows how he sought international support to depose Hitler.
The new information came to light following the publication of Dr Weber’s book, Hitler’s First War, which described how Wiedemann met a senior British intelligence representative in a San Francisco hotel in 1940.
“Following the publication of the book, I stumbled, amongst the collections of Yale University, across the private papers of Sir William Wiseman, who met with Wiedemann, which really give us a true flavour of the lengths he was prepared to go to in acting against Hitler,” Dr Weber said.
According to Wiedeman, Hitler considered himself a “superior Napoleon” who could conquer the world.
Following Nazi Germany’s defeat in the Battle of Britain, Wiedemann informed British intelligence Hitler did not know what to do and the Allies should use the opportunity to “strike back at Germany hard”.
Dr Weber added: “Fascinatingly, the intelligence files also mention a number of Wiedemann’s associates in Germany who also were prepared to act against Hitler in 1940 including Hjalmar Schacht, the president of the German Central Bank and Hitler’s economics minister.
“Schacht and many others did claim after 1945 that they had been prepared to act early on in the war, and not only once Hitler’s war effort turned sour, but their post-war claims have been dismissed as apologetic attempts to save their skins.
“This new evidence shows that there may have been truth in these claims.”
Dr Weber said new evidence also demonstrates how Wiedemann helped several Jewish families escape the Third Reich.
Jessica Ennis with her gold medal in Sheffield city centre.