Wilhelm Bittrich

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Wilhelm Bittrich (right) as SS brigade leader with Hermann Fegelein in the Soviet Union, 1942

Wilhelm Bittrich (born February 26, 1894 in Wernigerode , † April 19, 1979 in Wolfratshausen ) was a German officer and pilot . From 1932 and during the Second World War he commanded various SS units, most recently as SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS of the II. SS Panzer Corps .

Life

First World War and post-war years

Wilhelm Bittrich was born in 1894 as the son of a businessman. He registered at the beginning of the First World War as a volunteer . As a member of the 2nd Hanoverian Infantry Regiment No. 77 in Munster and a lieutenant in the reserve , he was seriously wounded in late 1914 and early 1915. In 1916 he received pilot training at the Halberstadt Military Aviation School and was then used again in war operations.

After the war ended, he temporarily joined the Hülsen Freikorps in 1919 and from March to June 1920 the Reichswehr Battalion in Berlin. From 1921 he worked for a short time as a gymnastics and sports teacher and employed a brokerage company. In 1922 he married the theater actress and director Käte Sonntag-Blume. In 1923 he was accepted into the Reichswehr as a lieutenant . From 1924 to 1930 he worked as a flight instructor in Stettin and Warnemünde . From April 1, 1930 to March 31, 1932 Bittrich was a civilian employee in the Reichswehr. On December 1, 1931, Bittrich joined with membership no . 829,700 joined the NSDAP . From March to June 1932 he was also a member of the Sturmabteilung .

time of the nationalsocialism

Activity in the SS

Bittrich joined the SS-Fliegerstaffel "Ost" as an SS candidate on July 1, 1932 and was promoted to SS-Sturmführer and Führer der Staffel on October 31, 1932 . He developed the SS-Fliegerstürme as an aviator for the SS Upper Section East. From March 1934, Bittrich was entrusted with the management of the 74th SS standard.

From August 1934 he served in the pole. Readiness Hamburg. On January 1, 1935, Bittrich signed a service contract as SS-Hauptsturmführer for the SS disposable troops. He initially worked as a leader in the formation of the 1st  battalion of the SS standard "Germania" (2./SS-Germania). Promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer on October 1, 1936 and to SS-Obersturmbannführer on January 30, 1938 , in the same year he took over as commander of the 2nd Battalion of the SS Regiment "Germany" (II./SS- "Germany"), with which he was relocated to Vienna to re-establish the active SS Standard 3, which was later given the name SS Regiment "Der Führer". On June 1, 1939, Bittrich became the leader of the Leibstandarte SS "Adolf Hitler" staff .

Commander in World War II

Bittrich took part in the attack on Poland in 1939 as a member of the "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler" . On 1 February 1940 he was in the SS Main Office shifted to uniform training requirements for the now Waffen-SS called SS-Verfügungstruppe to work out. During the campaign against the Soviet Union he was the commander of the SS standard “Germany” and, on behalf of the wounded Paul Hausser, commander of the SS division “Das Reich” outside Moscow. On October 19, 1941, he was promoted to SS Brigade Leader and Major General of the Waffen SS. On December 14, 1941, he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for acts of war in front of Moscow .

In January 1942 Bittrich was reassigned to the SS Leadership Main Office and commissioned to set up the 8th SS Cavalry Division "Florian Geyer" , with which he fought until the beginning of 1943 in the central section of the Eastern Front . From February 1943 he set up the 9th SS Panzer Division "Hohenstaufen" as commander . On May 1, 1943 he was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the Waffen-SS. His division initially remained in Belgium and France, where it was converted into a tank division in October 1943 . From March 1944 she fought as part of the II SS Panzer Corps in the Tarnopol area in Ukraine .

After the Allies landed in Normandy in June 1944, the II. SS Panzer Corps was relocated to France, where Bittrich succeeded Paul Hausser as SS-Obergruppenführer and commanding general of the unit on August 1, 1944 . Under his leadership, the corps, now consisting of the 9th SS Panzer Division, the 3rd Parachute Division and parts of the 21st Panzer Division , initially fought on the invasion front, including in the Caen area . On 20./21. August the unit broke open the Falaise pocket with heavy losses and freed the trapped 7th Army and the 5th Panzer Army . For his leadership in this operation, Bittrich received the oak leaves for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on August 28, 1944.

Wilhelm Bittrich during a briefing with Walter Model and Heinz Harmel during the fighting for Arnhem (September 1944)

The II. SS Panzer Corps was relocated to the Arnhem area of ​​the Netherlands in early September 1944 to refresh its formations . On September 17, 1944, the Allies began Operation Market Garden there by jumping British paratroopers into the unit's staging area, whose actual size and combat power had escaped Allied intelligence. Bittrich's corps succeeded in encircling the 1st Airborne Division and inflicting heavy losses on it. At the request of the British division doctor, Bittrich ordered a three-hour ceasefire on September 24, 1944, in order to have more than 2000 wounded British people transported from the boiler and treated in the hospitals of his divisions.

From December 16, 1944, the II. SS Panzer Corps took part in the 6th Panzer Army under Sepp Dietrich in the Ardennes offensive . In addition to the 9th SS Panzer Division "Hohenstaufen", Bittrich was also subordinate to the 2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" and the Führer-Escort Brigade . After a few initial successes, the corps' shock wedges got stuck and suffered heavy losses from constant Allied air raids. After the final failure of the Ardennes offensive and the impending Soviet offensive in the south of the Eastern Front, the 6th Panzer Army with Bittrich's II SS Panzer Corps was relocated to Hungary in February 1945 ( Lake Balaton Offensive ), but could not prevent the Red Army from breaking through .

The II. SS Panzer Corps was then charged with defending Vienna. After the attack on the city began on April 2, 1945, Bittrich received the order on April 9, 1945 from the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW) to hold Vienna “to the last breath”. On the same day, however, he withdrew his units from Vienna and relocated them behind the Danube Canal in order to senselessly destroy Vienna's old town and bleed his divisions - the 2nd SS Panzer Division, 9th SS Panzer Division, 44 Infantry Division and the 6th Panzer Division - prevent. He did not obey a renewed order from the OKW to retake Vienna. Fighting hesitantly, Bittrich withdrew with his corps to the west and on May 8, 1945 went with the remnants of his corps near Steyr ( Upper Austria ) into American captivity .

Captivity, trial

In January 1948, after three years of American internment, Bittrich was extradited at his own request to the French military authorities, who charged him with war crimes in France. He was detained in solitary confinement for five years in the “ Les Baumettes ” prison in Marseille . The trial against him began on June 16, 1953 in a French military tribunal in Marseille. The charge related to the hanging of 17 members of the Resistance near Nîmes by a platoon of the Feldgendarmerie - company of the 9th SS Panzer Division "Hohenstaufen", of which Bittrich had been in command at the time. The seven-day trial revealed that Bittrich was absent from the front and only received knowledge of the hangings afterwards and then immediately initiated proceedings against the soldiers involved. Ultimately, Bittrich was sentenced to five years in prison because - according to the court - as a division commander, he was responsible for the behavior of the soldiers under him. The sentence was considered served by the pre-trial detention. The co-defendant responsible train driver received a 20-year prison sentence.

post war period

After his release in 1953, Bittrich moved to Lake Starnberg . Due to illness, he was no longer able to do a job. He and his wife lived on welfare support from the city of Münsing . As a former general in the Waffen SS, he was not granted a pension. He died on April 19, 1979.

Trivia

In the movie Die Brücke von Arnheim (1977), Bittrich was played by Maximilian Schell .

Awards

literature

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Bittrich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Bridge of Arnheim , by Cornelius Ryan (Simon & Schuster, 1974) ISBN 978-8171676361 , The fighting for Arnhem in detail, including the roles of the Waffen-SS divisions Hohenstaufen and Frundsberg. Based on Cornelius Ryan's extensive interviews with the Waffen-SS generals Willi Bittrich, Heinz Harmel and Oberführer Walter Harzer (Chapters 3 and 4), the commanding officers of the German side at the Battle of Arnhem.
  2. ↑ a b Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 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. 224.
personal data
SURNAME Bittrich, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently SS-Obergruppenführer and general of the Waffen-SS in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Wernigerode
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 1979
Place of death Wolfratshausen