Friedrich Fromm was born in Berlin on October 8, 1888. He joined the German Army and by the end of the First World War had reached the rank of lieutenant.
Fromm remained in the army and worked under General Ludwig Beck, the chief of general staff. In 1937, he was made commander of the Replacement Army and during the Second World War was chief of armaments (1939-44).
An early supporter of Adolf Hitler, Fromm became disillusioned with his management of the war and, by 1942, Fromm favored a negotiated peace with the Soviet Union.
Fromm tolerated the conspiratorial activities of his immediate subordinates — General Friedrich Olbricht, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, and Colonel Albrecht von Mertz von Quiernheim — who were planning the July 1944 coup d'etat. He refused to commit himself to any attempt and was therefore distrusted by the conspirators.
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