On the 4th of September 1944, inside the dark and gloomy execution chamber within Berlin’s Plson prison, a general in the German army who had been disgraced and stripped of his rank was led towards the executioner. On the hanging beam behind were a number of condemned men who had been strung up minutes before, and their lifeless bodies were still.

This would be the fate that would soon come for Eric Felgel. He was a high-ranking member of the German armed forces. But during the Second World War, Felge Gibble joined the resistance against Hitler and he was involved in the July 20th plot which resulted in the bombing of the Wolf Slayer.

The plan was to take out the dictator, but he was only injured. But the roundups and executions then quickly began. Thousands were slaughtered in the aftermath of the bombing plot and Eric Felgel was implicated and he was one of many who were condemned upon the hanging beam within one of the deadliest Nazi prisons of the Second World War.

But what did he do and how linked to the plot was he? To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe. Eric Felgel was born on the 4th of October 1886 inside of Sisia which was at the time Prussia. He like many inside of Prussian society dreamed of a career inside the armed forces and the military and after completing schooling at the age of 18 he joined a signals battalion in the Prussian army as an officer cadet.

He studied for some time there and remained in the military. But when the first world war broke out, he was promoted to the rank of captain and was on the general staff. He served in the conflict. But then at the end of it, he was sent to Berlin and he worked as a general staff officer in the newly created Reichs fair.

After the end of World War I, the German army was limited to 100,000 men and there were further restrictions imposed upon it. This led to a great amount of frustration in military circles and former veterans joined resistance groups as they were also concerned about the political direction of Germany at the time under the VHimar Republic.

But the 1930s were dominated inside of the country with the rise of Nazism and Adolf Hitler. And one of Hitler’s big policies and dreams was to restore German faith in the armed forces and the military. And this saw a huge time of expansion in the army. Men like Eric Felgel, experienced and battleh hardened soldiers were sought after for leadership positions and they were quickly promoted in anticipation of leading younger men into battles in what would become the second world war.

He was promoted to the rank of left tenant colonel after Hitler became chancellor and then a full colonel. But within 5 years, Eric Felgel was made a major general. He remained in the signals regiments of the armed forces. But he was someone who was not the most ardent of Nazis. Felgel a year before the war broke out had contacted the anti-Nazi resistance group which was forming inside of the armed forces.

He heard about this through his friendship with General Ludvik Beck and Felge was involved in resisting the Nazis and Hitler. To begin with, he had been included in plans to topple and bring down the dictator on the eve of the Munich agreement and fell’s job was to cook communications throughout the German nation whilst field marshal von Vitzelben was to occupy Berlin.

The plan was never carried out, but Felgible would have had a pivotal role in preventing resisting units of SS men getting to Berlin to fight the coup and uprising. Now throughout the second world war he despite gaining further promotion to the rank of chief signal officer of the army high command and supreme command of the armed forces would readily pass information and military intelligence onto resistance groups and even the enemy.

He released classified German military intel to Rudolfph Ursula about Operation Citadel on the Eastern Front in the Kursk region which allowed the Soviets, the enemies of the Nazis, to prepare effectively and then deal with the Germans. He remained undercover though, but Hitler did not fully trust him.

Obviously, the dictator was right not to, and he thought Felgel was too open-minded and not as vigilant a Nazi as he should have been. But Hitler needed his knowledge. Felgel was the one who believed and pushed for the Germans to use the Enigma encryption machine which continually frustrated the enemies of the Nazis.

He was someone who knew everything, every military secret, including the work of rockets being done by Veron Brown. How Hitler did not know that Terk Felg was actively resisting him, we don’t know. But eventually his resistance work would catch up with him. The cabal of conspirators that he had been plotting with for many years, including General Ludvik Beck, came up with Operation Vulyrie, which resulted in the July 20th, 1944 bombing of Hitler’s Wolf’s lair.

Claus von Stafenberg planted a briefcase bomb inside of the Wolf’s lair conference room during a meeting of high-ranking German military officials and Hitler. The bomb did explode and with this a coup was put into place to destabilize the Third Reich. When the bomb went off, the conspirators thought Hitler was dead.

Eric Felgel had been told by the plotters to cut off Hitler’s headquarters through communication lines so that it was completely isolated. The plan was to ensure that Hitler could not inform Joseph Gerbles, the minister of propaganda and Galata in Berlin what had happened. So Gerbles could not then rally men to fight against the coup in the capital.

It was claimed about this that but Felgel had pointed out on several occasions that little could be done in advance because although there was a central communication center, the army, the air force, the SS and the foreign office each had their own signal lines. In addition, care would have been taken not to cut off signals to and from the troops at the front.

Thus, Felgible maintained the Fura headquarters could only be isolated for a limited period. Everything depended, he said, on doing exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. Felgible learned that he had not managed to completely black out communications from the wolf’s lair after the bomb went off and he then had to override this and he made a telephone report to conspirator General Fritz the at the conspirator’s headquarters that Hitler was in fact alive.

In this he claimed something awful has happened. The furer lives. It did not take long before Eric Felg was arrested. He was then taken to the darkest torture chambers that the Gustapo had inside of Berlin. And for 3 weeks, the former general was beaten and brutalized, being tortured on a daily basis to reveal other names of the Stafenberg plot.

He gave over nothing. Many of the conspirators had already been executed, but Felgible was brought out in front of the heavily Nazified people’s court. On the 10th of August 1944, in front of terrifying and ruthless Nazi judge Roland Frysler, he said very little and listened to the judge berate and scream at him for his resistance and defiance to Hitler and the regime.

It did not take long for the judge to sentence him to death. And with this, he was then sent back to Plansay prison in Berlin for around 3 to four weeks to await his death sentence and execution. At this time, Eric Felgel knew what was going to happen, and sitting inside of the prison every day, he would actually hear the execution bell ringing out, knowing that his time would soon be up.

On the 4th of September, 1944, Feligible was brought out of his prison cell by guards, and was walked into the courtyard of the prison. He approached a brick building, the execution chamber, and inside there were two execution devices, the guillotine or the falile, the falling axe as it was known in German, and also the hanging beam.

There were probably executions that had taken place minutes before, as the hanging beam had capacity to execute many people at once, possibly up to six or even eight. So Faligible may have seen other traitors and conspirators actually strung up making his ordeal much worse as he knew what was going to happen.

Hitler had ordered the executions of high-ranking traitors to be filmed. So this may also have happened. The executioners infamously used piano wire or just thin wire to hang the plotters. So this may also be what Fel suffered. The executioner placed him onto a stool, then secured the noose around his neck and quickly kicked out the stool, leaving him hanging on the beam, kicking and struggling, suffering a slow, strangling death.

There was no broken neck, just the air being choked out of his lungs. The executioners may have even cut him down at some point and revived him just to repeat the process again and bring further suffering to him. The execution of Eric Felgel was a ruthless and brutal act in which summed up the reprisals and actions following the July 20th bombing plot.

He was one of thousands who were executed. But let’s remember that Felge was not an ordinary civilian. He was a general in the Vermacht, the man who suggested that the Germans use Enigma and a communications expert. And he was someone who Hitler needed greatly for the German war effort. It’s most probable that when informed that Felgible was involved in the conspiracy that Hitler was not too surprised about it as he wasn’t the most ardent Nazi but he would have felt betrayed by a man whose first loyalty was always to the army. But inside of Pleasant prison on the hanging beam the life of Eric Felgi came to a brutal end. Thanks for watching. To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe. And once again, thank you so much for watching.