Peter Sauerbruch

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Peter Sauerbruch (born June 5, 1913 in Zurich ; † September 29, 2010 in Munich ) was a German officer , businessman and manager .

Life

origin

Sauerbruch was the third son of the surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch and brother of the artist Hans Sauerbruch . He had another brother (Friedrich) and a sister (Marilen). He grew up in Zurich in the Florhofgasse in the house where he was born next to the “Pension Florhof” and from November 1918 in Munich, where he attended the Theresien-Gymnasium . In 1928 the family moved to Berlin , where Sauerbruch graduated from the Zehlendorfer Gymnasium in 1932 .

Military background

He then began a military career to become an officer, he joined the 17th (Bavarian) cavalry regiment in Bamberg . He graduated from the Reichswehr cavalry school and was promoted to lieutenant in 1934 . In 1939 he participated as a lieutenant in the 27th Infantry Division at the "Polish campaign" part. With the western campaign he received the Iron Cross 1st class. In 1941 he completed general staff training. In 1941/42 he was an orderly officer with the Chief of the General Staff of the Army. In May 1942 he was promoted to captain and second general staff officer of the 14th Panzer Division . With this he took part in the battle of Kharkov as part of his deployment to eastern theaters of war. At the beginning of January 1943 he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . In 1943 he was promoted to Major i. G. He was assigned to the General Army Office in Berlin. At Operation Citadel he was the third general staff officer of the 2nd Panzer Army . With an interruption, Colonel i. G. 1944 First General Staff Officer of the 4th Panzer Division. In December 1944 he received the German Cross in Gold and became First General Staff Officer of the 1st Panzer Army .

Peter Sauerbruch - a comrade in the Bamberg cavalry regiment and a friend of Stauffenberg - had been in correspondence with Stauffenberg and was one of the people who knew about the attack on Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944 . After the attack, Sauerbruch was arrested on the Eastern Front, temporarily interned by the SS in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse and interrogated several times by the Gestapo , but was released because of his origins and because his involvement could not be proven at the time. His father Ferdinand Sauerbruch was also questioned (by the head of the Reich Security Main Office). Towards the end of the war, Peter Sauerbruch escaped being captured by the Soviets by swimming across the Vltava . Until 1947 he was an American prisoner of war .

Activity in business

In 1947 he began studying medicine , which, however, he did not finish for financial reasons. He first worked in an agricultural machinery company, in 1948 he went to Deutsche Vacuum Oil AG, where he became an assistant to the management. From 1952 Sauerbruch worked as an expert at the Blank office for the development of the European Defense Community (EVG). In 1954 he switched back to business as a businessman for Mobil Oil AG and lived near Hamburg. In 1955 he became head of the sales department in Nuremberg and later in Düsseldorf. In 1957 he became an authorized signatory and in 1958 a member of the management. In 1977 he left the company as Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of Mobil Oil AG, based in Hamburg, after almost 29 years of active service.

Fonts (selection)

  • Report by a former general staff officer about his motives for participating in the military resistance . In: Thomas Vogel (Ed.): Uprising of conscience. Military resistance against Hitler and the Nazi regime 1933–1945 . Commissioned by the Military History Research Office, 5th completely revised and expanded edition, Mittler, Bonn 2000, ISBN 3-8132-0708-0 , pp. 263-278.

literature

  • Dieter Krüger : The Blank Office. The difficult founding of the Federal Ministry of Defense (= individual publications on military history . 38). Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993, ISBN 3-7930-0198-9 , p. 196.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Werner E. Gerabek :  Peter Sauerbruch. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 459 f. ( Digitized version ).
  2. ^ Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Hans Rudolf Berndorff : That was my life. Kindler & Schiermeyer, Bad Wörishofen 1951; cited: Licensed edition for Bertelsmann Lesering, Gütersloh 1956, p. 156 f.
  3. ^ Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Hans Rudolf Berndorff: That was my life. Kindler & Schiermeyer, Bad Wörishofen 1951; cited: Licensed edition for Bertelsmann Lesering, Gütersloh 1956, pp. 319 and 398.
  4. ↑ a b c Christian Hartmann : Wehrmacht in the Eastern War. Front and military hinterland 1941/42 (= sources and representations on contemporary history. Volume 75). 2nd edition, Oldenburg, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-486-70225-5 , p. 174.
  5. ^ Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Hans Rudolf Berndorff: That was my life. Kindler & Schiermeyer, Bad Wörishofen 1951; Licensed edition for Bertelsmann Lesering, Gütersloh 1956, pp. 319, 398, 402 f. and 419-421.
  6. ↑ Peter Hoffmann : Stauffenberg's friend. The tragic story of the resistance fighter Joachim Kuhn . Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-55810-8 , p. 55.
  7. ^ Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Hans Rudolf Berndorff: That was my life. (1951) 1956, pp. 419-421.
  8. ^ Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Hans Rudolf Berndorff: That was my life. (1951) 1956, p. 156.
personal data
SURNAME Sauerbruch, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer and manager
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH September 29, 2010
Place of death Munich