Wilfred von Oven

Who was Wilfred von Oven?

Wilfred von Oven was between 1943 and the German capitulation in 1945 the personal Press adjutant of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

He was born of German parents, the father's side having a strong military tradition. His father fell in Flanders in 1917: two uncles held high rank in the German Army, and of these Ernst von Oven was the highest ranking German officer in the field at the Armistice and subsequently reported directly to the Minister of Defence. Both helped form Freikorps to combat communism and the revolutionary movement in Germany.

Wilfred von Oven joined the SA and Nazi Party on 1 May 1931, but resigned from both exactly one year later in protest at the shift of Nazism to the Right. Oven was interested in journalism and served with the Legion Condor in Spain as a war correspondent. After obtaining an Army commission in 1939 he served with the Propaganda Ministry as a war correspondent reporting from the fronts in Poland and the Soviet Union during World War II. In 1943, with the rank of Lieutenant, the OKW appointed him as Goebbel's Press adjutant, which he remained until the end of the war.