Alfred Gause

Alfred Gause (born February 14, 1896 in Königsberg , † September 30, 1967 in Bonn ) was a German officer , last lieutenant general in World War II .

Life

Promotions

• 5th October 1914 Ensign
• 3rd January 1915 lieutenant
• October 18, 1918 First Lieutenant
• 1st November 1927 Rittmeister
• May 1, 1934 Major
• October 1, 1936 Lieutenant Colonel
• April 1, 1939 Colonel
• June 1, 1941 Major General
• April 1, 1943 Lieutenant General

Gause was the older brother of Fritz Gause . On March 14, 1914, he joined the Samland Pioneer Battalion No. 18 as a flag junior . With this he served during the entire First World War . At the beginning of 1918 he was assigned to the Lockstedter Lager Infantry School and to Pioneer School 1 . At the end of the war he was adjutant of his battalion .

Reichswehr

Admitted to the Reichswehr , he worked as an adjutant of Reichswehr Pioneer Battalion 1 from October 1, 1919. On October 1, 1921 to offset Gause in the first (Prussian) Reiter Regiment and commanded him to guide agents training to the staff of the 1st Division . After a year he was transferred back to the now renamed 1st (Prussian) Pioneer Battalion. On November 1, 1925, he was transferred to the 1st battery of the 1st (Prussian) Artillery Regiment in Insterburg . He was sent to the Munich Pioneer School for nine months . On February 1, 1927, he became chief of the 2nd company of his pioneer battalion in Königsberg, where he was promoted to captain . On October 1, 1930 he came to the training squadron of the 16th Cavalry Regiment in Hofgeismar . In 1931 he was transferred to the Reichswehr Ministry, where he was employed in the "Troops Office" .

On October 1, 1931, he joined the staff of the 5th Division in Stuttgart for six years , where he was promoted to major in 1934 . When the Reichswehr was expanded on October 1, 1934, it was renamed to Commander of Military District V and unmasked in the spring of 1935. This staff became the General Command of the V Army Corps .

Wehrmacht

On October 15, 1935, Gause became First General Staff Officer in the Stuttgart General Command (Ia). Since October 1, 1936, Lieutenant Colonel i. G., Gause became a year later Ia of the V Army Corps . On October 12, 1937, he was transferred to the Wehrmacht Office in the Reich Ministry of War in Berlin. After the RKM was renamed, from the beginning of 1938 it belonged to the National Defense Department (L) in the Wehrmacht High Command . As Colonel i. G. he stayed in this position even when the mobilization in the summer of 1939. On November 1, 1939, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the X Army Corps . As such, he took part in the western campaign in the spring of 1940 . On June 1, 1940, he was transferred to the Führerreserve and then appointed head of the demobilization department in the OKH . On October 1, 1940 he became Chief of the General Staff in the XXXVIII. Army Corps . At the end of January 1941 he was again transferred to the Führerreserve.

On June 1, 1941, he was promoted to major general and appointed German liaison officer at the Italian High Command in North Africa. On September 1, 1941, he became Chief of Staff of Panzer Group Africa . Since December 13, 1941 , he has been awarded the Knight's Cross , and by renaming the staff at the end of January 1942, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Panzer Army Africa , and on October 1, 1942, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the German-Italian Panzer Army . At the beginning of December 1942 he was replaced by Lieutenant General Fritz Bayerlein and transferred to the Fuehrer's reserve. He was then used in various functions, in January / February 1943 as chief of the special staff in Libya and Tunisia . Since March 1, 1943, Chief of Staff of Army Group Africa and promoted to Lieutenant General, he was transferred to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's staff in May 1943 , where he worked out the Alaric plan for the occupation of northern Italy.

With the renaming of the staff, Gause became Chief of the General Staff of Army Group B in mid-July 1943 . In mid-April 1944 he was transferred again to the Führerreserve and at the beginning of June 1944 at short notice with the deputy leadership of the LXVII. Corps instructed. In mid-June 1944 he became Chief of the General Staff of Panzer Group West , which was renamed the 5th Panzer Army in early August 1944 .

On September 14, 1944, he became Chief of the General Staff of the new 6th Panzer Army . At the end of November 1944 he was reassigned to the Führerreserve and at the beginning of January 1945 he was assigned to the course for commanding generals . On April 5, 1945 he was commissioned to lead the II Army Corps in Courland . There he was taken prisoner by the Soviets in the Kurland Kessel after the capitulation on May 10, 1945 . In the course of Konrad Adenauer's return home of the ten thousand , he was released on October 10, 1955 from the prisoner-of-war camp 5110/48 Woikowo .

Awards

• Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class
• Wound badge (1918) in black
• Service award (Wehrmacht) (IV-I)
• Cross of Honor of the World War
• Medal in memory of March 13, 1938
• Medal in memory of October 1, 1938 with Prague Castle clasp
• Clasp for the Iron Cross, 2nd and 1st class
• Tank battle badge in silver
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on December 13, 1941
• Arm band Africa
• Kurland cuff

literature

• Dermot Bradley : Die Generale des Heeres 1921–1945 Volume 4: Fleck-Gyldenfeldt , Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1996, ISBN 3-7648-2488-3 , pp. 191–193.

Web links

• Image (Africa Corps)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Manfred Zeidler: Stalin Justice contra Nazi crimes. The war crimes trials against German prisoners of war in the USSR from 1943 to 1952. State of knowledge and research problems. Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism, Dresden 1996. ISBN 3-93164-808-7 , p. 70 "Transport list for returnees from October 1955 with those released from the Vojkovo general camp."
2. ↑ ^{a b} Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Ed .: Reichswehrministerium , Mittler & Sohn Verlag , Berlin 1930, p. 146
3. ↑ 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. 328.