Artur Schmitt

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Artur Schmitt (born July 20, 1888 in Albersweiler , † January 15, 1972 in Munich ) was a German officer, most recently lieutenant general of the Wehrmacht and Bavarian politician of the NPD .

Life

Schmitt graduated from the Humanist High School in Landau in the Palatinate and joined the 18th Infantry Regiment "Prince Ludwig Ferdinand" of the Bavarian Army in Landau in 1907 as a flag junior . After attending the Munich War School, promoted to lieutenant , Schmitt joined the Schutztruppe in 1912 and was deployed in German South West Africa . There he took part in the fighting of the First World War, was captured, transferred to England after an attempt to escape and exchanged for Germany in 1918. Schmitt was re-employed in the Bavarian Army and served in July 1918 as a captain in the Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 1 in Munich.

After the war he joined the Eulenburg Freikorps in 1919 and fought with them in Lithuania and Upper Silesia . In 1920 he was employed by the Bavarian police and deployed in Aschaffenburg and Munich. In 1923 he married Annemarie Hartmann, with whom he had four children.

In 1935 he was reactivated as a colonel in the army of the Wehrmacht and used in the 38th Infantry Regiment, first in Göttingen , then in Mainz and Wiesbaden . Before the outbreak of World War II , he was promoted to major general in Feldzeug-Kommando XI in Hanover .

At the beginning of the war he was used as commander of the 626 Infantry Regiment on the Upper Rhine Front and took Strasbourg with a combat group on June 19, 1940 . After that he was commander of Oberfeldzeugstab 2 in Poland and Russia. In September 1941 he was transferred to Panzer Group Africa , where he was initially commander of the rear army area and in November leader of the Sollum front . When the fortress of Bardia was captured, he was captured by the British in early January 1942. He spent this in Cairo, South Africa, Canada and England until he was released in 1948. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to him on February 5, 1942.

After his release he lived briefly in Germany until he was recruited by the Arab League in 1949. In Cairo he was known as “Mr. Goldstein ”quartered in a hotel in the center. On behalf of the Egyptian King Faruk I , his cousin Adel Sabit and the Arab League , he was to build an all-Arab army. However, Egyptian generals intrigued against him, whereupon he resigned in 1950 and went back to Germany.

In 1966 he was elected to the Bavarian state parliament for the NPD . On an election campaign paper he presented himself with a Wehrmacht uniform, a Nazi eagle and a knight's cross with a swastika. During the same period he strongly opposed the use of the knight's cross by Willy Brandt's sons in the film Cat and Mouse .

Ulrich de Maizière tried to influence the selection of those attending his funeral.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Géraldine Schwarz : The Nazis and the Middle East . In: Welt am Sonntag . No. 7 , February 15, 2015, p. 15 ( welt.de/print/wams/ [accessed on December 28, 2015]). Géraldine Schwarz: The Nazis' Secret Mission in the Middle East. In: static.apps.welt.de. February 15, 2015, accessed on December 28, 2015 (article with the same text with images. With graphic “Artur Schmitt's travel route”).
  2. ↑ Bavaria. Three letters . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1966, pp. 58-61 ( Online - Nov. 14, 1966 ). Right off to the fatherland . In: Der Spiegel . No.
     17 , 1967 ( online - 17 April 1967 ).
  3. ↑ John Zimmermann : Ulrich de Maizière. General of the Bonn Republic, 1912–2006. Oldenbourg, Munich 2012. p. 377.
personal data
SURNAME Schmitt, Artur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German military, lieutenant general of the Wehrmacht, politician (NPD), MdL
DATE OF BIRTH July 20, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Albersweiler
DATE OF DEATH 15th January 1972
Place of death Munich