Otto von Stülpnagel

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Otto Edwin von Stülpnagel
Cherche-Midi Prison, Paris, French Fourth Republic
Buried	Champigny-Saint-André German war cemetery
Allegiance	German Empire  Weimar Republic  Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Prussian Army Reichsheer Luftwaffe (1934–1939) then Heer
Years of service	1898–1942
Rank	General of the Infantry
Battles/wars	World War I World War II

Otto Edwin von Stülpnagel (16 June 1878 – 6 February 1948) was a German military commander of occupied France during the

Career

Otto von Stülpnagel was born on 16 June 1878 in Berlin. He was a member of the

On 25 October 1940, German army high command transferred Stülpnagel to France and placed him in charge of a military government with the title of Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich (MBF; "Military Commander in France"). Not without controversy, this last assignment defined Stülpnagel's career.[2]

Orders from Hitler placed the army and the MBF in charge of "security" but allowed other state and Nazi party agencies to exercise a degree of influence in

Determined to support the Nazi war effort by placing French industrial resources at the disposal of the German war economy, Stülpnagel discouraged all activities that did not advance the German war effort. The latter goal placed him at loggerheads with Nazi party stalwarts who viewed World War II as a struggle against Jews and their alleged Communist allies. Days after German troops occupied Paris, agents of the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce and German embassy staff began to confiscate the art collections of prominent French Jews. Upset by the apparent seizure of France's artistic patrimony, the French government complained to German diplomats and the MBF. Eager to maintain cordial relations with the Vichy regime, Stülpnagel and his staff condemned the confiscations through a series of protests that eventually reached Hitler's desk, but to no avail. Hitler eventually exempted the Einsatzstab from military control and sanctioned the wholesale theft of Jewish art collections.^[1]

Conflict with the SS followed a similar pattern. Forced to accept an advisory role at the start of the Occupation, the SS complained of the alleged danger of the so-called 'Jewish menace' and pressed MBF to launch an active campaign against "racial opponents" in France, but lacked the authority to act independently. After

Suspecting the MBF of Francophilia, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the head of Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW; Armed Forces High Command) grew tired of Stülpnagel's complaints. On 2 February 1942, he directed the MBF to answer all acts of resistance with "sharp deterrents, including the execution of a large number of imprisoned Communists, Jews, or people who carried out previous attacks, and the arrest of at least 1,000 Jews or Communists for later evacuation."^[1]

Stülpnagel, who had executed 95 hostages on 15 December 1941, refused to go any further in the implementation of the retaliation policy. He promptly submitted a bitter letter of resignation. Succeeded by his cousin Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, Stülpnagel may have suffered a nervous breakdown. He spent the remainder of the war with his wife in Berlin.^[2]

Imprisonment and death

Arrested by Allied authorities after Germany's surrender, Stülpnagel was moved to a French military prison. Charged with war crimes by French authorities, Stülpnagel committed suicide in

• Walter Bargatzky, Hotel Majestic: Ein Deutscher im besetzten Frankreich (Freiburg: Verlag Herder, 1987,
  ISBN 3-451-08388-4
  ).
• Thomas Laub, After the Fall: German Policy in Occupied France, 1940-1944 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
• Allan Mitchell, Nazi Paris: The History of an Occupation (New York: Berghahn, 2008).
• François Marcot, Dictionnaire Historique de la Résistance (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2006).