Werner Kempf (General)

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Werner Kempf (born March 9, 1886 in Koenigsberg , † January 6, 1964 in Bad Harzburg ) was a German officer , most recently a general of the tank troops in World War II .

Life

Empire

Kempf was born the son of a Prussian lieutenant colonel . As was not uncommon at that time in officer and aristocratic circles, he completed his school and pre-military training in the Prussian cadet corps in Karlsruhe , Oranienstein and Groß-Lichterfelde from 1897 to 1905 .

On March 14, 1905, he joined the 6th West Prussian Infantry Regiment No. 149 in Schneidemühl as an ensign . There he was appointed lieutenant on August 18, 1906 and on October 1, 1912 he was transferred to the II. Seebataillon under Major Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck in Wilhelmshaven . From April 1, 1913 to March 31, 1914, Kempf was commanded to train the midshipmen on the great cruiser SMS Vineta . During his command on board, he took part in the Vineta's international voyage to South America and the Caribbean . Here he commanded the landing corps of the cruiser in Haiti for a month, which was supposed to protect and represent German interests during the civil war-like unrest in the island republic. After the end of the trip, Kempf returned as a battalion adjutant to the 2nd Sea Battalion.

With the outbreak of the First World War , Kempf was deployed with the Marine Corps Flanders on the Western Front , was employed as a regimental adjutant in the 2nd Marine Infantry Regiment and was promoted to first lieutenant on November 28, 1914 and to captain on January 27, 1916 . After the general staff training in the 21st Division and in the AOK Army Department B , Kempf worked in the General Staff of the Marine Corps as the second general staff officer of the 3rd Marine Brigade from the beginning of 1918 .

Weimar Republic

After the end of the war, Kempf was initially 2nd General Staff Officer of the 2nd Guard Division of the Silesian Border Guard, before joining the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade on October 1, 1919, also as a General Staff Officer . After participating in the Kapp Putsch in March 1920, the naval brigade was disbanded. Kempf was accepted into the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic . There he was employed as a company commander in the 4th (Prussian) Infantry Regiment in Stargard and was stationed in his old garrison town of Schneidemühl. From 1922 to 1926 he was employed as a general staff officer with Infantry Leader II in Schwerin , then with the 1st Prussian medical department in Königsberg (East Prussia) and with the 2nd company of the 1st (Prussian) motor vehicle department in Allenstein . After his promotion to major on February 1, 1929, Kempf was transferred to the Reichswehr Ministry in Berlin as the first general staff officer to inspect the transport troops. In 1932 he was given command of the 7th (Bavarian) motor vehicle department in Munich .

time of the nationalsocialism

Hermann Breith (center) in conversation with General of the Panzer Force Werner Kempf (right) and Lieutenant General Walter Chales de Beaulieu (left) during the Citadel operation near Kursk on June 21, 1943

After the National Socialists came to power , Werner Kempf quickly climbed the military career ladder. On May 1, 1933, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and from July 1, 1934, he was chief of staff for the inspection of army motorization. Promoted to colonel in 1935 , he became inspector of army motorization in the Reich Ministry of War from June 1, 1936. On October 1, 1937, he took over as commander of the newly established 4th Tank Brigade in Stuttgart. He was promoted to major general on January 18, 1939. During the invasion of Poland , he was commander of the newly formed Kempf Panzer Division (Panzerverband Ostpreußen) in the 3rd Army under Artillery General Georg von Küchler . As a division commander, he took on 28 September 1939, the surrender of the highly competitive forts Zakroczym the Modlin Fortress contrary. After the end of the fighting in Poland, Kempf's division was returned to East Prussia and on October 12, 1939 he became commander of the 1st light division, a little later renamed the 6th Panzer Division , with which he took part in the western campaign. On June 3, 1940, Kempf was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross , and on August 1, 1940, he was promoted to Lieutenant General .

In January 1941 Kempf was with the establishment of the General Command XXXXVIII. Army Corps (mot.) Commissioned and on April 1st with the promotion to General of the Panzer Force Commanding General of the Corps. With this he took on 22 June 1941 as part of the Armored Group 1 of the Army Group South at the attack on the Soviet Union in part, with it after taking part in the battles of encirclement at Uman and Kiev in the area around Kursk was advancing. During the summer offensive of 1942 it was subordinate to the 4th Panzer Army , captured Voronezh and advanced over the Don to Stalingrad , whose southern suburbs and districts were reached and occupied by its units in August 1942. On August 10, 1942, Kempf was awarded the Oak Leaves for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross by Hitler as the 111th member of the Wehrmacht . Kempf escaped encirclement, imprisonment and extermination in the Battle of Stalingrad when he was recalled from the front and transferred to the Führer Reserve at the end of September 1942.

It was not until January 18, 1943, that Kempf received a new command. He became head of the first course for division leaders and, from February 15, 1943, commander of the Kempf Army Department , which consisted of various armored and infantry units of the Wehrmacht. In March 1943 he succeeded in temporarily retaking Kharkov together with units of the Waffen SS . From July 5 to 13, 1943, he took part in the Citadel operation with his army department, which was subordinate to Army Group South . Kempf was made responsible for the failure of the German offensive and the renewed loss of Kharkov and replaced on August 18, 1943 as commander of the army department.

The following months Kempf remained again without a command in the Führerreserve. It was not until the spring of 1944 that he was appointed commander of Field Command II and from May 1, 1944, he was appointed Wehrmacht Commander Ostland ( Reichskommissariat Ostland ) based in Riga . But already on August 10, 1944, the staffs of Kempf and Lieutenant General Theodor Scherer were disbanded by the new Commander in Chief of Army Group North , Colonel General Ferdinand Schörner . Kempf was reassigned to the Führer Reserve. It was only shortly before the end of the war that the OKW had another use for him. In March 1945, he was "Special Representative of the Supreme Commander West" and fell in mid-April 1945 in the Ruhr Pocket in American captivity .

post war period

Werner Kempf was released from captivity by the United States in 1947. He moved to Bad Harzburg , where he lived until his death at the age of 78.

Awards

literature

  • Dermot Bradley, Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Markus Rövekamp: The Generals of the Army 1921-1945. Volume 6: Hochbaum – Klutmann. Biblio Verlag, Bissendorf 2002, ISBN 3-7648-2538-3 , pp. 538-539.
  • Janusz Piekałkiewicz : Citadel company. Kursk and Orel - the biggest tank battle of World War II. Pawlak Verlag, Herrsching 1989, ISBN 3-88199-579-X .

Web links

Commons : Werner Kempf  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin 1930, p. 127.
  2. ↑ 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. 436.
personal data
SURNAME Kempf, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently General of the Armored Force in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg
DATE OF DEATH January 6, 1964
Place of death Bad Harzburg