Alfred Schlemm

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Alfred Schlemm as General of the Aviators (1943)

Alfred Schlemm (born December 18, 1894 in Rudolstadt ; † January 24, 1986 in Ahlten ) was a German officer , most recently a general of the parachute troops during the Second World War .

Life

Schlemm joined the 2nd Posensche Field Artillery Regiment No. 56 in Lissa on March 8, 1913 as a flag junior . From October 1913 to June 1914 he attended the Danzig War School and was subsequently promoted to lieutenant on June 19, 1914 .

During the First World War he served as platoon and battery commander as well as regimental adjutant with his regiment on the western and eastern fronts and was promoted to first lieutenant in September 1917 .

After the war ended in the Reichswehr , he initially worked in Reichswehr Brigade 5 at the Eastern Border Guard . After the reduction to the 100,000-man army , he came to the 3rd (Prussian) Artillery Regiment . In 1921 he began his leadership assistant training , for which he was temporarily assigned to the 3rd Division in Berlin. He married in September 1921; the marriage resulted in a son. After he had been promoted to captain on June 1, 1925 , he remained in command of the Reichswehr Ministry and from 1928 worked in Department T 1 (Army Department) of the Troops Office. From March 1930 to September 1932 Schlemm was deployed as a battery chief in the 3rd Artillery Regiment. He was then transferred back to the Reichswehr Ministry, this time to the Army Training Department T 4, and there promoted to major on June 1, 1934 . From October 1934 he was the first general staff officer (Ia) in the commander's staff in military district III (Berlin) (from October 1935 general staff of the III army corps ) and was promoted to lieutenant colonel here on August 1, 1935 . In October 1936 Schlemm was transferred to the Wehrmacht Academy for a year . He was then assigned to the Reich Ministry of Aviation and on February 1, 1938, while being promoted to Colonel from the Army to the Air Force , which initially employed him in the General Staff of the Air Force . On June 1, 1938, he became Chief of the General Staff of the West Air Defense Zone . He held this position until October 4, 1939 and was then Chief of the General Staff of the Luftgaus XI in Hanover until December 14, 1940 (from March 1940 in Hamburg ). On June 1, 1940, he was promoted to major general .

Following this, Schlemm was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the XI. Fliegerkorps appointed under Kurt Student , which had been set up to lead the parachute formations of the Air Force. Here he was involved, among other things, in the planning and implementation of the Merkur company against the island of Crete . In February 1942 he took over command of the Schlemm Air Force Combat Group, which was deployed on the Eastern Front from April . On June 1, 1942, while being promoted to lieutenant general, he was appointed commander of the 1st Flieger Division, before taking over the leadership of the II. Air Force Field Corps from the Schlemm group on October 1, 1942 . With this he fought until the end of 1943 in the area of ​​the 9th Army and 3rd Panzer Army in the Velikije Luki - Vitebsk area . With seniority from March 1, 1943, he was promoted to General der Flieger .

In November 1943, his general command was withdrawn from the front and relocated to Italy, where it was renamed the I. Parachute Corps on January 1, 1944 . Schlemm was appointed Commanding General and with the appointment his name changed from General der Flieger to General der parachute force .

After the Allies landed in the rear of the German front at Anzio , the corps was involved in heavy defensive battles around the bridgehead. For his achievements in these battles Schlemm was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on June 11, 1944 . At the beginning of November 1944 he was replaced by Richard Heidrich to take command of the 1st Parachute Army deployed on the Western Front . With this he fought in the eastern Netherlands on the Waal and in the northern area of ​​the Western Wall before the Allied offensives forced him to return to the Rhine in February 1945 . On March 10, 1945 he ordered the Wesel railway bridge to be blown up .

On March 21, 1945, shortly before the start of the Allied Operation Plunder to cross the Rhine, he was wounded in a bomb hit in his command post near Erle and transferred to a hospital near Westerland . He was then transferred to the Führerreserve and remained without further command until the end of the war. From May 8, 1945 to March 22, 1948 he was a British prisoner of war .

After the war, he lived in the manor house of the Schlemm Family Foundation in Ahlten and published articles about the war. In it he took the view that it was wrong to call the sacrifice of soldiers' own lives in vain. Soldier bravery is an immortal value at all times. In 1969 he said that this willingness to make sacrifices was the measure of a people's right to exist.

Awards

literature

  • Franz Thomas, Günter Wegmann: The knight's cross bearers of the German Wehrmacht 1939–1945. Part II: Paratroopers. ISBN 3-7648-1461-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reinhard Stumpf: The Wehrmacht Elite. Rank and origin structure of the German generals and admirals 1933–1945. Harald Boldt Verlag. Boppard am Rhein 1982. ISBN 3-7646-1815-9 . P. 172.
  2. ↑ [1]
  3. ↑ Ralph Trost: A completely destroyed city. National Socialism, War and End of War in Xanten , Verlag Waxmann Münster, New York / Munich / Berlin 2004, ISBN 978-3-8309-1413-6 , p. 351 ( footnote 1267 )
  4. ↑ a b c Ranking list of the German Imperial Army. Mittler & Sohn publishing house. Berlin 1930. p. 141
  5. ↑ 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. 664.
personal data
SURNAME Schlemm, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently general of the parachute force in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Rudolstadt
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 1986
Place of death Ahlten