Anton Leeb

Anton Leeb (born February 8, 1913 in Vienna ; † April 5, 2008 there ) was an Austrian infantry general and the third general troop inspector of the Federal Army of the Second Republic.

Life

After passing his Matura and a semester of law on March 20, 1933, Leeb moved to the Vienna Infantry Regiment No. 4 (high and German master) of the Federal Army . From December 1, 1933 officer training followed at the Army School in Enns and at the reopened Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt . On September 1, 1936, he was retired as a lieutenant in the Vienna Alt-Starhemberg Infantry Regiment No. 2 . In November 1937 he came to the military academy as a teaching officer .

After the Anschluss he was transferred to the German Wehrmacht and initially served with the Mountain Infantry Regiment 98 of the 1st Mountain Division , with which he participated in the attack on Poland in 1939 and the campaigns in France in 1940, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in 1941. Promoted to captain on December 1, 1941 , he was commanded from 1942 for practical general staff training with numerous assignments at the front. After a course at the War Academy in Berlin on December 1, 1943 to become a major i. G. appointed, he was then employed in several general staff assignments. From January 1945 he was First General Staff Officer (Ia) of the 1st Mountain Division . The shortly before to lieutenant colonel i. G. promoted officer fell into American captivity in early May .

After returning home in 1946, he was a civil servant in the Lower Austrian provincial government. On March 13, 1956, he entered the service of the Office for National Defense and, after its conversion to the Ministry of Defense, became head of the border protection department. From 1960 Colonel dG and head of the border protection group, he was appointed head of the defense policy group by Federal Minister Schleinzer in mid-1961.

On October 6, 1965, an L-20 “Beaver” of the Federal Army crashed in Waldegg, Lower Austria, which was supposed to drop off parachutists from the Theresian Military Academy in Dürnbachtal. Both pilots and four cadet officers were killed, including Leeb's 22-year-old son Gerald.

On December 1, 1971, he became General Inspector of the Troops and, with effect from January 1, 1973, General of the Infantry . One of his successors, General Tauschitz, described him as a “ highly qualified and as taciturn as serious thinker ”. And in fact, Leeb rarely spoke up - which was all the more important. Towards the end of the Graf era, he caused a sensation with a critical lecture in the old officers 'mess on Schwarzenbergplatz and received lively approval from the officers' corps . His wise assessment of certain aspects of “total spatial defense” was also remarkable and gave more realistic features to the concept that was now called “spatial defense” at his suggestion. His courageous criticism of plans from the Karl Lütgendorf era led to a kind of "cold position". The general countered this by increasing his concentration on his military-political tasks, especially maintaining relations with neighboring countries and other important states. With these contacts the general was able to arouse understanding for the problems of the Austrian national defense, respect for the professional skills of their military command and confidence in Austria's will to defend. He retired on December 31, 1977.

literature

• Stefan Bader, At the highest point, The Generals of the Federal Army of the Second Republic , Vienna 2004, p. 192 ff.