Hans Oster

Hans Oster
Oster in 1939
Deputy Chief of the Abwehr
In office 1935 – 21 July 1944
Leader	Wilhelm Canaris
Personal details
Born	Hans Paul Oster (1887-08-09)9 August 1887 Dresden, German Empire
Died	9 April 1945(1945-04-09) (aged 57) Flossenbürg concentration camp, Nazi Germany
Cause of death	Execution by hanging
Military service
Allegiance	German Empire  Weimar Republic  Nazi Germany German Resistance
Branch/service	Imperial German Army  Reichsheer  German Army
Years of service	1907–1932 1935–1944
Rank	Generalmajor
Battles/wars	World War I World War II

Hans Paul Oster (9 August 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a general in the Wehrmacht and a leading figure of the anti-Nazi German resistance from 1938 to 1943. As deputy head of the counter-espionage bureau in the Abwehr (German military intelligence), Oster was in a good position to conduct resistance operations under the guise of intelligence work.

He was involved in the Oster conspiracy of September 1938 and was arrested in 1943 on suspicion of helping Abwehr officers caught helping Jews to escape Germany. After the failed 1944 July Plot on Hitler's life, during interrogation, he named Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of Abwehr, as the "spiritual founder of the Resistance Movement". The Gestapo arrested Canaris and eventually found his diaries, in which Oster's anti-Nazi activities were revealed. In April 1945, he was hanged with Canaris and Dietrich Bonhoeffer at Flossenbürg concentration camp.