Role Political leader | Name Ferdinand Bredow Service/branch Reichswehr | |
 | ||
Born 16 May 1884Neuruppin ( 1884-05-16 ) Similar People Kurt von Schleicher, Herbert von Bose, Karl Ernst, Edmund Heines, Willi Schmid | ||
Ferdinand von Bredow (16 May 1884, Neuruppin, – 30 June 1934, Berlin) was a German Generalmajor and former head of the Abwehr (the military intelligence service) in the Reich Defence Ministry (Reichswehrministerium) and deputy defence minister in Kurt von Schleicher's cabinet (December 1932 - January 1933).
Bredow was, along with Schleicher, among Adolf Hitler's bitterest adversaries at the time of the Weimar Republic's downfall. Towards the end of this regime, Bredow, as the leader of Schleicher's personal "information service" was head of a number of coexisting secret service organizations, among them even the SS's Sicherheitsdienst, which was under Reinhard Heydrich's leadership.
Bredow, along with Schleicher, was murdered in Berlin-Lichterfelde by SS men from the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. Bredow was tied to a chair and shot five times in the chest on the Night of the Long Knives, a purge in which Hitler eliminated some of his most prominent opponents.