Alexander von Pfuhlstein

Alexander von Pfuhlstein (born December 17, 1899 in Danzig , † December 20, 1976 in Bad Homburg in front of the height ) was a German lieutenant general in World War II .

Life

Military career

Pfuhlstein joined the Prussian Army on March 29, 1917 as an ensign in the 4th Guards Regiment . On December 14, 1917, he became a lieutenant and took part in the First World War. For his achievements he received both classes of the Iron Cross and the Wound Badge in Black. After many years of service in the Reichswehr , he was promoted to captain on July 1, 1933 . Between November 1, 1933 and August 1, 1935, he served as a captain in the Air Force. Back in army service, he joined the General Staff of the XI. Army Corps and was promoted to major on January 1, 1937 . On November 3, 1938 he was first general staff officer of the 19th Infantry Division and in this position was promoted to lieutenant colonel on June 1, 1939 .

After participating in the invasion of Poland , he became first general staff officer of the 58th Infantry Division on January 10, 1940 . After participating in the French campaign , he took over the 2nd Battalion of Infantry Regiment 18 on April 1, 1941. In June 1941 his regiment was part of the 6th Infantry Division East Prussia and took part in the attack on the Soviet Union . In July 1941 he took over the command of the 77th Infantry Regiment of the 26th Infantry Division , was promoted to colonel on February 1, 1942 and received the German Cross in Gold two weeks later . On May 1, 1942, he became the commander of the 154th Infantry Regiment, which was assigned to the 58th Infantry Division on Volkhov . In this function he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on August 17, 1942 . Pfuhlstein led the "Brandenburg" division from February 12, 1943 to April 10, 1944. On July 1, 1943, he was promoted to major general. On April 14, 1944, he was transferred to the Führerreserve and had to surrender his division. From May 9, 1944, he led the 50th Infantry Division in the retreat fighting on the Romanian border. Pfuhlstein was wounded on July 18, 1944. From August 9, 1944, he received a new command in Hohenstein / Ortelsburg in East Prussia to build defensive trenches. There he was arrested for high treason on September 1, 1944, following the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 , and imprisoned and interrogated in Berlin in the dungeon of the Reich Security Main Office .

The SS counted Pfuhlstein among the suspect officers. In the main Gestapo prison on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse in Berlin he is sitting with the chief of staff Halder, the last ambassador in Moscow, Count von der Schulenburg, with Carl Goerdeler , the former mayor of Leipzig and head of the civil conspiracy, the Prussian finance minister Johannes Popitz , the army judge Karl Sack and other conspirators. His former superiors, Wilhelm Canaris and Hans Oster are also imprisoned here. They were all tied up in the small cells, and most of them were executed. Pfuhlstein's file was also submitted to the People's Court, but Himmler did not consider an execution to be useful. He was a knight's cross, wounded three times, had six children. He was expelled from the Wehrmacht on September 14, 1944 and transferred as a political prisoner to the Küstrin fortress detention center on November 24 .

End of war

Because of the rapidly advancing Red Army, the Küstrin fortress detention center was evacuated on January 30, 1945 and Pfuhlstein was sent to a probation battalion as a major. If he fell, his wife would get a widow's pension. If he survived, he would be sent to a camp after the war for "parole". He had been sent home completely exhausted from imprisonment in order to be fed out for Hitler. He came to live with his family, who he had lodged with his cousin the Prince of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg at Kreuzwertheim Castle. Instead of making himself available to the Wehrmacht again in Würzburg, as his orders were, he went into hiding and with the help of his cousin, hid in a forester's house in the Spessart . He had no intention of falling pointless to Hitler's criminal war in the final weeks of the war. On April 2, 1945 he made himself available to the Americans in Wertheim am Main and was taken prisoner by them. From April 20, 1945 to August 30, 1945 he was in Trent Park , a stately home north of London that was used as a prisoner of war camp for German and Italian generals and staff officers .

Role in the military resistance against National Socialism

The historian Sönke Neitzel writes: Pfuhlstein had close contacts with the military opposition. He was selected by Wilhelm Canaris at the suggestion of Hans Oster as an officer loyal to the opponents of the regime for the commanding post of the Brandenburg Division, so that parts of the unit could be used in the event of a coup. In 1943 it was planned to have Pfuhlstein's troops occupy western Berlin and the SS artillery school in Jüterbog .

The historian Peter Hoffman writes: The conspirators counted on the parts of the Brandenburg Division located in Brandenburg near Berlin, originally a domestic force of the Foreign Office / Defense in the OKW. On April 1, 1943, the knight's cross bearer Colonel Alexander von Pfuhlstein, who sympathized with the conspirators, was appointed commander and placed under his command, Captain dR Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld and Lieutenant Colonel Heinz; Heinz set up a regiment. In the meantime, the head of the Foreign / Defense Office, Admiral Canaris , who tolerated the revolutionary movement, gradually lost control through the operation of the SS secret service and the penetration of the secret state police into the conspiratorial group around Oster and Dohnanyi . When arrests in the vicinity of the conspiracy at the end of 1943 and in January 1944 and the efforts of a court judge named Manfred Roeder brought acute danger, Canaris let Colonel von Pfuhlstein know that Roeder had named the Brandenburg slackers, whereupon Pfuhlstein flew to Morszyn near Lemberg on January 18, 1944 , confronted him and slapped him. Roeder was removed from his position, which was so dangerous for the conspiracy, but Pfuhlstein was also replaced on April 1, 1944.

Hans Bentzien writes: The new commander Alexander von Pfuhlstein comes from the 1st Guards Division on foot in Potsdam, the elite unit of the imperial army. When he was a captain on the staff of the XI. Army Corps meets the Abwehr officer Hans Oster in Hanover, the latter wins him over for a critical attitude towards Hitler's military doctrine. Both get on well and Oster, as the responsible deputy, has now proposed Pfuhlstein as division commander. It is urgent to assume that Canaris and Oster promise each other for the impending overthrow after the assassination attempt on Hitler von Pfuhlstein that he will loyally participate in the task that is set for the Brandenburgers towards the planned military government. For the plan to occupy Berlin, the most difficult task is to eliminate the Leibstandarte "Adolf Hitler" in Berlin-Lichterfelde and also to reserve the SS artillery school in Jueterbog for the Brandenburgers. But they have the most important function in the occupation and security of Wolfsschanze near Rastenburg in East Prussia, the Führer headquarters. On February 1, 1944, Oster met Pfuhlstein in his private apartment and held several meetings with him over the next few days. This resulted in a briefing on the views and concrete plans of the military opposition, which was expecting an assassination attempt, organized by Tresckow, at Army Group Center, which Hitler considered with a lightning visit. During the return flight, a load of English plastic explosives, hidden in two cognac bottles, was supposed to explode and tear Hitler to his death. But the low temperature prevented a proper ignition, the triggering mechanism did not react. But the hope that after Stalingrad the person responsible for the debacle would be eliminated and that a ceasefire should be sought, dominated the conspirators around Ludwig Beck in February . Pfuhlstein received a double order. The division should be set up both as a task force of the OKW and also be suitable for the coup.

family

Alexander von Pfuhlstein was the eldest of three children of the later Prussian infantry general Franz Friedrich von Pfuhlstein (1847-1926) and his wife Margarethe, née Freiin von Fabrice (born June 26, 1862 in Grimma ; † January 12, 1922 in Eberswalde ) . She was a former grand ducal Hessian noble lady and daughter of the royal Saxon cavalry master Bernhard Freiherr von Fabrice and the Countess Ida von Schönburg-Glauchau and Waldenburg. His mother was the dear friend of Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt (1872-1918), the later and last Empress of Russia Alexandra Feodorowna / Fjodorowna, daughter of Grand Duke Ludwig IV and Grand Duchess Alice of Hesse and near Rhine , daughter of Queen Victoria of England .

On August 12, 1930 he married Gerda Freiin von Frydag (born April 1, 1909 in Höxter an der Weser; † April 21, 1997 in Bad Homburg in front of the height). She was the daughter of the Grand Ducal Oldenburg Chamberlain and Prussian government councilor a. D. Haro Freiherr von Frydag from House Daren and Swede and Erika Edle von Rappard from House Sögeln. The marriage had six children.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Edmund Glaise von Horstenau : A general in the twilight: the memories of Edmund Glaise von Horstenau. Volume 3, pp. 294, 385, 478, 534. (For a limited preview on Google Book Search, see [1] ).
2. ↑ ^{a b} Veit Scherzer : The 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 , pp. 592 .
3. ^ "Die Brandenburger" commando force and front association ( Memento from January 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ).
4. ↑ Heinz Höhne: We will end up on the gallows! In: Der Spiegel . No. 25 , 1969 ( online - 16 June 1969 ).
5. ^ Hans Bentzien: Brandenburg Division, The Rangers of Admiral Canaris . Das neue Berlin Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-360-01058-2 , p. 218, 219 .
6. ^ Pfuhlstein, Alexander von: 12 treatises on personal experiences . Ed .: Masch.mimeogr. Kreuzwertheim am Main June 24, 1946 (ifZ ZS 592).
7. ↑ Seventh Army Interrogation Center, US Army, April 10, 1945, http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/n/nur/pdf/nur01259.pdf
8. ^ Sönke Neitzel : bugged. German generals in British captivity 1942–1945 , p. 464, Propylaen, Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-549-07261-5
9. ^ Peter Hoffmann: Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and his brothers . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt GmbH, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-421-05774-5 , pp. 404 ff .
10. ^ Hans Bentzien: Brandenburg Division, The Rangers of Admiral Canaris . Das neue Berlin Verlagsgeschallschaft mbH, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-360-01058-2 , p. 216 ff .