On 20 July 1944 Major Otto-Ernst Remer was in command of the Grossdeutschland Guard Battalion in Berlin. He was a committed Nazi, with no knowledge of the coup, but would be giving orders to troops on the ground when the July plot unfolded. Several officers urged his commander, Lieutenant General von Hase (one of the July plotters), to send him off on an assignment, but fatally, Hase refused. On the day of the coup, having secured the administrative district of Berlin in obedience to the plotter