Background
Ludwig Beck was born on 29 June 1880 in Biebrich, in the Rhineland.
Ludwig Beck was born on 29 June 1880 in Biebrich, in the Rhineland.
He was educated in the Prussian military tradition.
He rose to the top of his profession, succeeding Wilhelm Adam as head of the Truppenamt (and adjutant general of the Reichswehr Ministry) on 1 Oct 1933. When the Wehrmacht was created on 21 May 1935, Beck was promoted to Generaloberst and chief of the revived German general staff. The Rhinelander was no Nazi, but he viewed National Socialism as a political experiment of benefit to the army, and one that could be eradicated if it became a threat. For more than three years Beck effectively directed the army’s tremendous expansion. But continuing conflict with Hitler led him to resign on 18 Aug 1938, he was succeeded on 1 Sep 1938 by Halder Beck was supposed to head AG 3 if Germany mobilized, but he was permanently retired on 18 Oct 1938 in Hitler’s expulsion of “uncooperative” generals after the Munich crisis.
Living quietly near Hanover, Beck remained “the secret mentor of the older generals” and the recognized head of anti-Hitler resistance. He was designated to serve as interim head of state if a putsch succeeded. Although “a man of high honour, matchless integrity and great moral courage", the venerable general, like most others of his caste, was a political innocent and never an effective conspirator. An operation for cancer in the fall of 1943 left him a shell of his former self. Beck’s failure to act effectively on 20 July 1944 is covered in more detail under Stauffenberg. Among those arrested in the Bcndlerstrasse, he was offered the privilege of shooting himself. After two failed attempts that merely rendered him unconscious, a sergeant administered the coup de grace: a pistol shot in the neck. The time of death apparently was shortly after midnight on 20-21 July 1944.
Beck came into increasing conflict with Hitler, opposing the war on the grounds that Germany was not yet ready and resenting Nazi efforts to increase Party influence at the expense of the army. Beck, a brilliant officer in the Prussian tradition who believed in a limited war based on moral principles rather than a ‘revolutionary’ war of conquest with uncontrolled conscript armies, was horrified by Hitler’s proposal to invade Czechoslovakia in 1938 and by his adventurous policy based on intuition rather than solid planning.
Tall and extremely slender, he had the look of a philosopher and was a fervent admirer of French literature and food.
Generaloberst