Helmut Willmann

Helmut Willmann, 1997.

Helmut Willmann (born March 10, 1940 in Konstanz ) is a lieutenant general a. D. of the army of the Bundeswehr . He last served as Army Inspector from 1996 to 2001 .

Military career

After Willmann had passed his Abitur at the Fürstenberg-Gymnasium in Donaueschingen , he joined the Bundeswehr as an officer candidate in 1959 . He completed his officer training in the Panzergrenadierruppe with the Panzergrenadierbataillon 293 in Immendingen .

From 1961 to 1971 he served in Wetzlar in the Panzergrenadierbrigade 13 , before completing general staff training at the command academy of the German Armed Forces in Hamburg until 1973 . After this further training he was transferred to the Federal Ministry of Defense in Bonn , where he served from 1974 to 1976 as a consultant for long-term planning in the army command staff under the direction of Lieutenant General Horst Hildebrandt . After this ministerial assignment , Willmann was transferred to Rendsburg and served as a planning officer ( G3 ) in the NATO staff of the Allied Land Forces Schleswig-Holstein and Jutland until 1979 .

From 1979, Willmann took command of the 152nd Panzer Grenadier Battalion in Westerburg for three years. From 1981 to 1982 he served in Diez as a planning and training officer (G3) in the general staff of the 5th Panzer Division under Major General Götz Mayer . He was then reassigned to Bonn, where from 1982 to 1985 he headed the department for long-term planning in the armed forces headquarters under General Inspectors Jürgen Brandt and Wolfgang Altenburg .

From October 1985 to March 1988 Willmann took over a troop command again, this time the Panzer Grenadier Brigade 5 in Homberg . After that he served in the command staff of the Army under Lieutenant General Henning von Ondarza as Staff Department I until 1990 and was thus responsible for personnel matters, as well as training and organizational issues. After the fall of the Berlin Wall , Willmann took command of the 7th Panzer Division in Unna from October 1, 1990 to March 31, 1993 . He then took over the NATO post of Chief of Staff of the Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) under the command of British General Sir Charles Guthrie for only six months in Mönchengladbach . During this time, the Army Group was disbanded in June 1993.

On October 1, 1993, Willmann, appointed lieutenant general, took over as the first commanding general of the Eurocorps in Strasbourg, France, and led this until 1996. Back in Germany, he was appointed inspector of the army on February 6 and remained until his retirement on May 28. March 2001 in this office.

In his role as army inspector, Willmann restructured the German army from a peace army to an operational army. As part of the army structure reform “New Army for New Tasks” , the categorization of the army troops into main defense forces (HVK) and crisis reaction forces (KRK) was pushed further. The establishment of the Special Operations Division (DSO) with the subordinate Special Forces Command (KSK) and the Air Mobile Operations Division (DLO) as the core units of the new army structure is largely due to Willmann. The “General Military Endurance Training” (AMILA) also goes back to Willmann, who wanted to counteract the falling physical performance of soldiers in July 1996.

The German-Israeli military cooperation was institutionalized by Willmann. For example, 15 German officer candidates have been sent to Israel every year since 1999. Willmann, who maintains close contact with the Israeli generals , was the first non-Israeli soldier to receive an honorable mention ( Honorary Citation ) for services outside of combat.

Helmut Willmann was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 2001.

Trivia

Willmann was known for his always rolled up sleeves and was nicknamed "Tiger-Willi".

literature

• Contribution in: Bruno Thoss: From the Cold War to German Unity. Analyzes and eyewitness reports on German military history from 1945 to 1995. Oldenbourg, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-486-56160-X . (Available online at books.google.de )

Web links

• Biography on deutschesheer.de
• The army on new paths

Individual evidence

1. ↑ A lot of food, no fight ( Der Tagesspiegel of March 4, 2008).
2. ↑ Nothing disturbs the friendship of the uniformed men ( memento of the original from May 4, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Article in the Frankfurter Rundschau from April 15, 2002; accessed March 20, 2008).  
3. ↑ Terrorism and use of the armed forces inside and outside  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Announcement of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung; accessed on March 20, 2008).  
4. ↑ Helmut Willmann-General “Tiger-Willi” , in Der Spiegel of March 12, 2001, accessed on September 18, 2015
5. ^ Personal details - Helmut Willmann , in Der Spiegel on February 9, 1998, accessed on September 18, 2015