Nicolaus von Below
Georg Ludwig Heinrich Freiherr von Below Nicolaus ( born September 20, 1907 on Good Jargelin, county Greifswald, Pomerania, † July 24, 1983 in Detmold ), German colonel in the Air Force, was from 1937 to 1945 personal Luftwaffe adjutant of Adolf Hitler.
Family
He was the son of a colonel in the Prussian Army and Chilean Lieutenant Colonel Günther von Below (1868-1933) and his distant cousin Mathilde von Below ( 1875-1937 ). He was lord of the manor to Salchow and Jargelin.
Below married on June 26, 1937 on Good Nienhagen Mary Kuehne ( born September 12, 1918 in Magdeburg ), the daughter of the landowner Stephan Kühne and Barbara Bennecke. The couple had one son and three daughters.
Military Career
Below was 29 years old when Hermann Goering made him from July 16, 1937, Hitler's personal air force adjutant. This command Below kept up to Hitler's death on 30 April 1945 Below's last official act was on 29 April 1945 by four clock in the morning in the Führer bunker his signature as a witness under Hitler's private Testament -. Beside the signatures of Martin Bormann and Joseph Goebbels.
At noon of April 29 asked by Hitler Below the permission to leave the bunker. This readily agreed and told him to go to Grand Admiral Doenitz. This goal is not reached Below. Together with the lads of the adjutant Heinz Mathiesing he left the bunker at midnight on April 29, 1945, after he had attended the evening briefing. On the flight to the West, he was arrested after various intermediate stations on January 7, 1946 in Godesberg by the British. In captivity he was questioned by the historian Hugh Trevor - Roper, who later wrote a book about Hitler's last days. This, to end the coercive detention and to achieve better prison conditions for themselves, he said something about an alleged order from Hitler that he should bring Keitel.
" It has not subsequently gives me little pleasure, in Trevor - Roper's book" The Last Days of Hitler " (1947 ) to read the nonsense about Hitler's order to me, Keitel to deliver a secret message. "
Below was moved in 1948 to Nuremberg in the witness wing of the court of the prison at the Nuremberg Trials, where he made an exculpatory statement in the OKW process in favor of Field Marshal Sperrle. After the denazification and his release from British internment Adelheide in Delmenhorst on May 14, 1948, he lived in North Germany.
In 1982, at the height of the affair of the forged Hitler diaries, he expressed doubts as to their authenticity.
His memoirs he published in 1980.
Pictures
Hanna Reitsch the leader in 1941. Below as adjutant left
Leaders birthday at Headquarters 1942 Below far left