World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseWerner Eduard Fritz von Blomberg was born in Stargard, Pomerania, Prussia of the German Empire. He enrolled in the military academy in 1904 and completed the studies in 1907. He served with the General Staff in 1908. During WW1, he served in combat, and was awarded the Pour le Mérite. In 1920, he was made the Chief of Staff of the Döberitz Brigade. In 1921, he was made Chief of Staff of the Stuttgart Army Area. In 1925, he was made Chief of Army Training by General Hans von Seeckt. In 1927, at the rank of major general, he headed the Troop Office. After a disagreement with the influential General Kurt von Schleicher, he was transferred out of the spotlight in 1929 to East Prussia. In 1933, he was appointed the Minister of Defense under Adolf Hitler, whom he became fiercely loyal to; in fact, Hitler's rise to power could not have been successful without the support of top German Army leadership, and that was accomplished much to Blomberg's credit. He was promoted to the rank of colonel general later that year. In 1934, he played a major role in the planning and operations of the Night of the Long Knives in which Hitler purged the Nazi Party against potential political enemies, namely Ernst Röhm and other top leaders of the SA organization. Later in 1934, when Hitler took absolute power over Germany, Blomberg ordered the German Army to pledge loyalty not to Germany, but to Hitler instead. In 1935, the Ministry of Defense was renamed the Ministry of War. In 1936, he was made a Field Marshal, the first person to receive such a title from Hitler. Beginning around that time, however, Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler conspired to remove him from influence. Göring and Himmler got their chance in Jan 1938 when Blomberg's newly wedded wife Erna Gruhn was discovered to have a criminal record for having posed for pornographic photographs, and she also grew up in a suspected house of prostitution. Göring reported it to Hitler, who ordered Blomberg to annul the marriage to avoid a political scandal, which Blomberg refused; Hitler thus dismissed Blomberg from service, though told him that he might call upon him again should Germany require his service (as it would turn out, Hitler would not make good on that promise even after the European War had begun). Göring threatened Blomberg to resign or he would make public his wife's record. On 27 Jan, Blomberg departed Berlin and returned to his honeymoon on Capri, Italy, never returning to power again. He played no further role in German leadership. After the war, he was arrested by the Allied authorities, and gave testimonies at the Nuremberg Trials. Blomberg passed away while in detention at Nuremberg in 1946.

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