Alexander von Daniels (General)

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Alexander Edler von Daniels (born March 17, 1891 in Trier ; † January 6, 1960 in Bielefeld ) was a German lieutenant general in World War II .

Life

Daniels entered on March 1, 1910 as a lieutenant in the 4th Lower Alsatian Infantry Regiment No. 143 and acted there from October 1, 1913 as an adjutant of the 1st battalion. As such, he came to the front when the First World War broke out . In the further course of the war, Daniels served as a company commander from September 9 to October 15, 1915, was then employed as a court officer and finally rose to regimental adjutant on April 30, 1916. For his achievements he received both classes of the Iron Cross and the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords.

After demobilization at the beginning of 1919, at the end of February 1919 he joined the Freikorps Lichtschlag as an adjutant , in which Daniels was most recently deployed as leader of the MG company there. On September 15, 1919 he was transferred to the Reichswehr Infantry Regiment 14 , which he left at the end of 1920. He then worked in the 18th Infantry Regiment as chief of the 12th Company until April 1933 and then joined the regimental headquarters in Paderborn . After working as a teacher at the Dresden Infantry School from April 1933 to January 1934, Daniels was appointed commander of the 2nd Battalion of Infantry Regiment 1 on February 1, 1934 . On October 1, 1934, he was appointed commander of the training battalion in the "Königsberg" infantry regiment, in which he served until mid-October 1935. He was then commander of MG Battalion 9 until the end of September 1938. During this period, he also completed a communications course . In October 1938 he was transferred to the staff of Infantry Regiment 18. This was followed on November 24, 1938 by his appointment as regimental commander.

With this regiment, Daniels was part of the 6th Infantry Division at the outbreak of World War II, initially as a security regiment on the Siegfried Line . In the spring of 1940, the regiment took part in the campaign in the west under his leadership and then remained as the occupying power there for the medium term . On December 10, 1940, Daniels was appointed commander of the 239 Infantry Regiment. As part of the 106th Infantry Division , the regiment moved under Daniel's leadership in the eastern campaign in the area of Army Group Center via Białystok - Smolensk - Vyasma to Moscow . On December 15, 1941, he was awarded the German Cross in Gold for his achievements . On March 6, 1942, Daniels gave up command of the regiment and temporarily joined the Führerreserve . On April 1, 1942, he was appointed commander of the 376th Infantry Division . From June 1942 his division was on the Donbogen and from August 1942 took part in Operation Blau , where it advanced towards Stalingrad as part of the 6th Army . In the following battle for Stalingrad the division was almost wiped out. In the meantime, Daniels was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on December 18, 1942 . The total surrender of the 6th Army and Daniel's Division took place on January 31, 1943.

In the Soviet captivity , Daniels joined the National Committee for Free Germany and was on the Presidium there, alongside Hans-Günther van Hooven as Vice-President. He was a founding member of the Association of German Officers . When his activities there became known to the German army command, Daniels was expelled from the Wehrmacht on December 23, 1944. His younger brother Herbert von Daniels , a member of the Waffen SS , was then supposed to remove this “shame” by proving himself at the front . But this did not happen.

literature

  • Dermot Bradley (Ed.): The Generals of the Army 1921-1945. The military careers of the generals, as well as the doctors, veterinarians, intendants, judges and ministerial officials with the rank of general. Volume 3: Dahlmann-Fitzlaff. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1994, ISBN 3-7648-2424-7 , pp. 18-19.
  • Wolfgang Keilig : The Generals of the Army 1939–1945. Podzun-Pallas-Verlag, Friedberg 1983, ISBN 3-7909-0202-0 , p. 64.
  • Franz Thomas, Günter Wegmann: The knight's cross bearers of the German Wehrmacht 1939–1945 . Biblio-Verlag, 2000, ISBN 978-3-7648-1153-2 , pp. 139 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reichswehr Ministry (Ed.): Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres. ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1930, p. 134.
  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. 266.
  3. ↑ Heike Bungert: The National Committee and the West . S. 24 ( elevation in Google Book search).
  4. ^ Rolf-Dieter von Müller, Hans-Erich Volkmann : The Wehrmacht . Military History Research Office , p. 614 ( elevation in Google Book search).
personal data
SURNAME Daniels, Alexander von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Lieutenant General in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH trier
DATE OF DEATH January 6, 1960
Place of death Bielefeld