August Schmidhuber

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August Schmidhuber (far right, front) and other SS officers on a visit to the Mauthausen concentration camp in April 1941

August Schmidhuber (born May 8, 1901 in Augsburg , † February 19, 1947 in Belgrade ) was a German officer in the Waffen-SS , most recently an SS Brigade Leader and Major General of the Waffen-SS. As the commander of various SS divisions, he was responsible for numerous war crimes in the Balkans .

Life

Schmidhuber was the son of a government official. After a three-year apprenticeship as a brewer, he signed up for twelve years with the Reichswehr on May 5, 1919 , where he was assigned to the 42nd Rifle Regiment after basic training. In the same year he was also a member of the Epp Freikorps . Within the Reichswehr, Schmidhuber later moved to the 11th Company of the 19 Mountain Infantry Regiment , where he was promoted to Sergeant Major by November 1, 1926 .

After the end of twelve years of service, Schmidhuber left the army on May 4, 1931 and resumed his work as a brewer. He also joined the Bavarian People's Party and ran for office as district administrator for the Lindau district . On July 16, 1933, he joined the SA , where from October 1934 to May 1935 he commanded the SA school "Seeon". In the same month he joined the SS disposable troops as SS-Obersturmführer and held the post of company commander . From February 1936 to May 1938 he also served as a company commander in the “Germania” regiment and was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer on September 13, 1936 . After his appointment as SS-Sturmbannführer on January 30, 1939, Schmidhuber took over command of the 1st Battalion of the "Germania" regiment from Werner Dörffler-Schuband in May of that year . With the battalion he took part in the raid on Poland and the campaign in the west and earned both classes of the Iron Cross . Next, he was on 1 January 1941 commander of the II. Battalion of the SS Infantry Regiment 11, which he had already performed at this time a month in representation and took over on October 14, 1941 finally for eight days the entire regiment which due to heavy losses it was disbanded on October 22nd and was distributed to the regiments “Der Führer” and “Deutschland” of the division “Das Reich” . Schmidhuber continued to command the remnants of the regiment's staff until the division was relocated to France in April 1942 to refresh .

In the same month Schmidhuber was assigned to the "Prinz Eugen" division, where he became the commander of the SS-Gebirgsjäger-Regiment 2 (later SS-Freiwilligen-Gebirgsjäger-Regiment 14). In this function he was promoted to SS-Standartenführer on April 20, 1943 and was awarded the German Cross in Gold in August . On April 17, 1944, Schmidhuber was appointed commander of the "Skanderbeg" division, which was being set up , and was promoted to SS-Oberführer on June 21, 1944 . Like the "Prinz Eugen" division, the division, consisting largely of Albanian volunteers and German support personnel , proceeded extremely brutally against alleged and actual partisans , and it was not uncommon for excesses of violence to occur, some of which were targeted against the civilian population. In the further course of the war, the division broke up, among other things through desertions, and practically ceased to exist at the turn of the year 1944/45, whereupon it was dissolved and the remnants of the "Prinz Eugen" division were placed under.

Schmidhuber was last appointed commander of the "Prinz Eugen" division on January 20, 1945 as the successor to Otto Kumm, and in this function he was appointed SS Brigade Leader and Major General of the Waffen SS. When the war ended he got into Slovenia in Soviet prisoner of war and was transferred to Belgrade, where he because of his role in war crimes in the Balkans sentenced to death , and on February 19, 1947 executed was.

Awards

See also

literature

  • Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The generals of the Waffen SS and the police. Volume 5: Schlake-Turner . Biblio-Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-7648-3209-9
  • Mark C. Yerger : Waffen-SS Commanders: The Army, Corps and Divisional Leaders of a Legend: Krüger to Zimmermann (v. 2). Schiffer Military History, Atglen, PA 1997, ISBN 0-7643-0769-X .
  • Chris Bishop: SS - Hitler's Foreign Divisions. Foreign Volunteers in the Waffen SS, 1940–45. Spellmount, Staplehurst 2005, ISBN 1-86227-289-1 .
  • Laurent Latruwe, Gordana Kostic: La division Skanderbeg. Histoire des Waffen-SS albanais des origines idéologiques aux débuts de la guerre froide. Godefroy de Bouillon, Paris 2004, ISBN 2-84191-172-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas Schulz, Dieter Zinke: Germany's Generals and Admirals. Part V / Volume 5: The generals of the Waffen SS and the police. Schl-T. Biblio, 2011, ISBN 978-3-7648-3209-4 .
  2. ↑ Mark C. Yerger: Waffen-SS Commanders: The Army, Corps and Divisional Leaders of a Legend: Krüger to Zimmermann (v. 2) , Schiffer Military History, Atglen, PA 1999, ISBN 0-7643-0769-X , p 200-203.
personal data
SURNAME Schmidhuber, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, SS brigade leader and major general of the Waffen SS
DATE OF BIRTH May 8, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH augsburg
DATE OF DEATH February 19, 1947
Place of death Belgrade