Artur Phleps

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Artur Phleps (1943)

Artur Martin Phleps (born November 29, 1881 in Birthälm ; † September 21, 1944 in or near Schimand near Arad , Banat ) was a Romanian-German officer in World War II . Since 1941 he was a member of the Waffen SS , corps commander with the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer and general of the Waffen SS (since 1943).

Life

Artur Phleps was born on November 29, 1881 in Transylvania (then Austria-Hungary ) as the son of the doctor Gustav Phleps and his wife Sofie, née. Born proud.

Phleps rose quickly as a professional officer in the military hierarchy of the Habsburg monarchy . In the First World War many awards, he was in 1918 with the rank of imperial lieutenant colonel of the General Staff of the active army of Austria-Hungary excreted. In 1919, when his home Transylvania fell to Romania , Phleps was taken over by the new Romanian army and he played a key role in the reorganization of the former Romanian army and the parts of the Austro-Hungarian army that remained in Transylvania into the country's national army. Phleps finally had the post of a consultant at the Military Academy in Bucharest and in 1940 received his appointment as commanding royal lieutenant general of the Romanian army ( mountain troops ).

The successful Romanian officer left in 1941 at the age of almost 60 to join the German armed forces . Phleps was assigned by the Wehrmacht (initially under his mother's maiden name) on June 30, 1941 as Colonel Martin Stolz of the Waffen-SS as an additional officer in the staff of the SS division "Wiking" . He quickly gained the division leadership's trust. After Hilmar Wäckerle's death, Phleps became the commander of the “Westland” regiment and the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler accepted Artur Phleps into the SS (SS no. 401.214).

Phleps stood out for his excellent organizational work, and so the German Wehrmacht became aware of him again. Eberhard von Mackensen , to which the SS division "Wiking" was subordinate, even tried to recruit Phleps to the Wehrmacht by assuring him a post as division commander . Himmler then promoted Phleps to SS-Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the Waffen-SS in spring 1942 and authorized him to set up a new SS unit from ethnic German minorities from Yugoslavia , Hungary and Romania . Phleps called this new unit "Prinz Eugen" and now ran it under his own name. According to Himmler's will, "Prinz Eugen" was to be used in the Balkans , and there mainly in northern Serbia . From this SS unit “Prinz Eugen” the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen” was to emerge in 1942 , which from 1943 often carried out cruel operations against the Serbian civilian population as part of the so-called “fight against gangs and partisans”. Numerous war crimes of this division are documented.

For his services as a division commander, Artur Phleps was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS on June 21, 1943 and received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on July 4 . Phleps was now withdrawn as division commander of the "Prinz Eugen" division and entrusted with the formation of the 5th SS Mountain Corps . He was not only subordinate to his own division, but also parts of the armed forces and the notorious 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS "Handschar" .

Phleps had great difficulties in cooperation with the Croatian puppet state and expressed in a memorandum to Himmler , in which he criticized the Croatian administration: Concentration camps, labor columns and the death penalty must hand in hand the culprits because the Balkan people do not have the mild hand tolerates. He must feel the whip.

Phleps took part in the group leader conference in Poznan on October 4, 1943, at which Heinrich Himmler gave the first speech in Poznan .

From September 1944, the situation of the German occupying power deteriorated more and more: Tito's partisans were attacking them more and more in Yugoslavia , the Red Army was advancing rapidly towards the west and was already near the Romanian border. In September 1944 Phleps was deployed in his Romanian homeland as “ Higher SS and Police Leader Transylvania” (according to the seniority list of the Waffen-SS (as of July 1, 1944) ) as an advance of the 2nd Ukrainian Front under Rodion Jakowlewitsch Malinowski to Hungary began: Phleps and his adjutants wanted to get an idea of ​​the situation and set out on a reconnaissance trip on September 21. However, near the city of Arad in what is now the western Romanian Banat , they were surprised by the Red Army and taken prisoner. But the Soviets had no idea who they had caught. So they shot Phleps and his adjutants at 5.30 p.m. during a German air raid.

For the German Army Command and the SS Command Main Office, Phleps was initially considered missing. In the end, Himmler even assumed that Phleps was deserting. An arrest warrant was issued at Himmler's instigation. But when his knight's cross and other items belonging to him were found in the village of Schimand near Arad, it was assumed that he would be dead there too, although his body was never found. The "Seniority List of the Waffen-SS" (status: July 1, 1944) then also bears the handwritten note "fallen on 9/21/44" - the day of Phleps' disappearance.

On November 24, 1944, Artur Phleps was posthumously awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross, which was presented to his son, Reinhart Phleps (1917–2001) on his behalf. He also fought as a soldier in the Waffen-SS and was employed as a doctor in the units III./SS-Birgsjäger-Regiment 14 "Prinz Eugen" and in the "Feldkommando Stab RFSS".

The SS-Freiwilligen-Gebirgsregiment 13 received the honorary name "Artur Phleps" and was allowed to wear a special sleeve strip with the name Phleps'.

Awards

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Volksbund Deutscher Kriegsgräberfürsorge: Grave site in Zimandcuz / Romania .
  2. ↑ a b Andreas Schulz, Dieter Zinke: Germany's Generals and Admirals - Part V: The Generals of the Waffen SS and the Police 1933–1945 . Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 2008, Volume 3, p. 501.
  3. ↑ according to the proof of identity "Artur Martin Phleps (called pride)" , whereby the name Martin is underlined. When he joined the Waffen SS, his name was Martin Stolz .
  4. ↑ quoted from Klaus Schmider : A detour to a war of extermination? The partisan war in Yugoslavia, 1941–1944 . In: RD Müller, HE Volkmann (Ed. On behalf of MGFA ): The Wehrmacht: Myth and Reality . Oldenbourg, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-486-56383-1 , p. 918.
  5. ^ Romuald Karmakar : The Himmler project . DVD, 2000, Berlin, ISBN 3-89848-719-9 .
  6. ↑ Hagen Berger: Walter Girg : on Hitler's behalf behind the enemy lines: secret operations in the uniform of the enemy: a bearer of oak leaves between Skorzeny, CIA and BND . Verlag für Wehrwissenschaften, 2014, ISBN 978-3-9816037-1-2 , pp. 100 ff . ( google.de [accessed on June 8, 2019]).
  7. ^ A b c Andreas Schulz and Dieter Zinke: Germany's Generals and Admirals - Part V: The Generals of the Waffen-SS and the Police 1933–1945 , Biblio-Verlag Bissendorf 2008, Volume 3, p. 511.
  8. ^ Gordon Williamson: The Waffen SS 1933-1945. A manual , p. 222.
  9. ↑ Bayerisches Zahnärzteblatt of September 17, 2001, p. 72 (PDF; 28 kB).
  10. ↑ 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. 593.
personal data
SURNAME Phleps, Artur
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Phleps, Artur Martin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian-German officer in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH November 29, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Biertan ( Transylvania ), Romania
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1944
Place of death Arad ( Banat ), Romania