Otto Lasch

Otto Lasch (born June 25, 1893 in Pleß , Upper Silesia , † April 28, 1971 in Bad Godesberg ) was a German officer , most recently a general of the infantry in World War II .

Life

The son of the chief forester of Prince Pless joined after graduating in 1914 as an officer cadet in the Hunter Battalion "Bismarck" (Pomeranian) no. 2 in Kulm , with whom he at the First World War took part. At the end of the war he was deployed as an aerial observer and after 1918 in the Eastern Border Guard .

After 1920, Lasch initially served in the security police until he was accepted into the Wehrmacht in 1935 . After commanding a battalion and the 43rd Infantry Regiment, he was commander of the 217th Infantry Division in 1942/43 . From August to November 1944 he commanded the LXIV as commanding general . Army corps , which was subordinate to the 19th Army and was used in Alsace , among other places . He then became commander in military district I (Königsberg) .

After Königsberg was enclosed by the Red Army , Lasch was appointed commander of the city that had been declared a fortress at the end of January 1945 . With three broken divisions, he was supposed to defend them against 36 divisions of the enemy. On January 31, 1945, the Red Army finally surrounded Königsberg.

Lasch urged Erich Koch (he was a powerful Nazi functionary, including 1928 to 1945 Gauleiter of the NSDAP in East Prussia , since November 25, 1944 head of the Volkssturm in East Prussia) several times to give Königsberg, which was in ruins, to the Soviet troops to hand over. Koch always refused this on the grounds that Lasch was a soldier and had to fight as such ( "You don't surrender so easily! Surrender is a question of honor!" ). On April 6, 1945 the battle for Königsberg began . Lasch capitulated on the evening of April 9th when Soviet soldiers appeared in front of his command bunker on Paradeplatz. For this he was demoted by Hitler in absentia and sentenced to death for cowardice in front of the enemy. This procedure is said to have been triggered by a telegram from Koch with the wording: “The commander of Konigsberg, Lasch, used a moment of my absence from the fortress to cowardly surrender. I keep fighting in Samland and on the Spit. "

Lasch's wife and two daughters were arrested in Denmark and Berlin and taken into kin custody; after the end of the war they were released again.

Lasch himself became a Soviet prisoner of war and was sent to numerous Gulag camps. In 1948 he was sentenced to 25 years in a labor camp and sent to Vorkuta . At the end of October 1955 he returned to the Federal Republic of Germany on the so-called amnesty transport . In his book about the fall of Königsberg, he relied on the documents of Kurt Dieckert .

The lashing bunker in Kaliningrad can be visited.

Works

So Koenigsberg fell. Battle and fall of East Prussia's capital. Gräfe and Unzer Verlag. Munich 1958. New editions 1959 and 1994. Motorbuch Verlag. ISBN 3-87943-435-2 .
Carrot and Stick. Ilmgau publishing house. Pfaffenhofen / Ilm 1965. (Report on captivity)

Awards

Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class
Cross of Honor of the World War
Wehrmacht service award IV. To I. class
Clasp for the Iron Cross, 2nd and 1st class
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with oak leaves
- Knight's Cross on July 17, 1941
- Oak leaves on September 10, 1944 (578th award)
Mention in the Wehrmacht report

literature

Dermot Bradley: The Generals of the Army 1921–1945. Volume 7: Knabe-Luz. Biblio Publishing House. Bissendorf 2004. ISBN 3-7648-2902-8 . Pp. 395-396.

Web links

Literature by and about Otto Lasch in the catalog of the German National Library
General of the Infantry Otto Lasch. Axis Biographical Research, accessed July 25, 2010 (English, résumé and picture).

Individual evidence

↑ Otto Lasch in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
^ Jäger Battalion 2 (GenWiki)
^ Ralf Meindl: East Prussia Gauleiter, Erich Koch - a political biography . fiber Verlag, Osnabrück 2007 ISBN 978-3-938400-19-7 .
↑ Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 1939-1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 495.

personal data
SURNAME	Lasch, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German officer, most recently General of the Infantry (Wehrmacht)
DATE OF BIRTH	June 25, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH	Pleas
DATE OF DEATH	April 28, 1971
Place of death	bad Godesberg

[1] Otto Lasch in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

[2] Jäger Battalion 2 (GenWiki)

[Meindl466-3] Ralf Meindl: East Prussia Gauleiter, Erich Koch - a political biography . fiber Verlag, Osnabrück 2007 ISBN 978-3-938400-19-7 .

[Scherzer-4] Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 1939-1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 495.