Carl Goerdeler

Goerdeler, Carl 

Born July 31, 1884, in Schneidemühl; died Feb. 2, 1945, in Berlin-Plötzensee. German political figure.

In the period of the Weimar Republic, Goerdeler sided with the reactionary German National Party. From 1920 to 1930 he was the vice-mayor of Königsberg, and from 1930 to 1937 the chief mayor of Leipzig. In 1931 and 1932 he was also the imperial commissar for prices, and he resumed this post under Hitler in 1934 and 1935. Toward the end of the 1930’s he joined the opposition, dissatisfied with Hitler’s severing of ties with the Western powers. During World War II, when Germany was suffering massive defeats on the Soviet-German Front, he led the bourgeois generals’ plot of 1944 to save German imperialism at the cost of renouncing Hitler’s fascist ruling clique and was on the extreme right wing of the conspiracy After the July 20, 1944, attempt on Hitler’s life failed, Goerdeler was arrested and executed.

REFERENCES

Mel’nikov, D. Zagovor 20 iiulia 1944 goda v Germanii, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1965.
Berthold, W. Golodat’ i povinovat’sia. Moscow, 1964. (Translated from German.)