August Winter (officer)

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August Winter (born January 18, 1897 in Munich , † February 16, 1979 there ) was a German officer and employee of the Gehlen organization and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND).

Life

August Winter attended the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich . From high school he joined the Royal Bavarian Army in January 1916 and fought during the First World War, initially as a flagjunker in the 2nd Telegraph Battalion of the Bavarian Army , was promoted to lieutenant on February 1, 1917 and was awarded the Iron Cross for his services II. Class and the Order of Military Merit IV. Class awarded with swords.

After the end of the war he was transferred to the provisional Reichswehr , served in communications department 21 and when the Reichswehr was formed, he joined the 7th (Bavarian) communications department in Munich. Here he was employed as an adjutant and as a company officer. After completing his assistant leadership training on the staff of the 6th Division in Münster , Winter was transferred to Munich on the staff of the 7th (Bavarian) Division , where he was promoted to captain in 1933 and major in 1936 .

On April 1, 1939, he became a lieutenant colonel and, after being mobilized for World War II, was part of the Army General Staff in the summer of 1939 . In 1940 he became First General Staff Officer  (Ia) of Army Group A (later Army Group South and Army Group B ). On June 22, 1942, he received the German Cross in Gold for his achievements . In 1943 he was promoted to chief of the general staff of the 2nd Panzer Army and was appointed major general. From August 1943 he was chief of the general staff of Army Group E in Saloniki and in March 1944 of Army Group F in Belgrade . After a temporary promotion to the Führerreserve he served from December 1944 as Deputy Chief of Armed Forces Operations Staff in the High Command of the Wehrmacht . On May 1, 1945 he was promoted to general of the mountain troops . This made Winter one of the few army generals who had never led a force directly.

In June 1946, Winter was heard as a witness during the Nuremberg Trials . Later, Winter was part of the Gehlen organization in Pullach and then worked for the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) until his retirement , where he carried the service name “Wollmann”. In October 1948 he was head of the organization under Reinhard Gehlen . At the beginning of 1951, Winter became a “personal assistant for the intelligence service”, a kind of link between procurement and analysis . His deputy was Heinz Herre . During this time he was also responsible for the F-Netz, which trained radio operators who were supposed to be rolled over in the event of a Soviet attack in order to send enemy messages behind enemy lines. As early as the end of 1951, Winter lost his post as a personal employee and was given the management of the Psychological Warfare Office (camouflage code "60") as a special task . In October 1952, due to a car accident, he was barely fit for duty, and was replaced by Hermann Foertsch . Winter was a member of the BND until 1965.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Annual report on the K. Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Munich 1915/16.
  2. ↑ Ranking list of the German Imperial Army. Ed .: Reichswehr Ministry . Mittler & Sohn publishing house . Berlin 1924. p. 189.
  3. ↑ Klaus D. Patzwall , Veit Scherzer : The German Cross 1941-1945. History and owner. Volume II. Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall, Norderstedt 2001, ISBN 3-931533-45-X , p. 516.
  4. ↑ The Trial of German Major War Criminals Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany, 7th June to 19th June 1946: One Hundred and Fiftieth Day: Saturday, 8th June, 1946. The Nizkor Project, June 8, 1946, accessed October 30, 2011 .
  5. ↑ James H. Critchfield : Partners at Creation. The Men Behind Postwar Germany's Defense and Intelligence Establishments. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 2003, ISBN 1-59114-136-2 , pp. 106-107.
  6. ↑ Thomas Wolf: The emergence of the BND. Structure, financing, control (=  Jost Dülffer , Klaus-Dietmar Henke , Wolfgang Krieger , Rolf-Dieter Müller [eds.]): Publications of the Independent Commission of Historians for Research into the History of the Federal Intelligence Service 1945–1968 . Volume 9 ). 1st edition. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-96289-022-3 , pp. 50 f., 104, 116 f, 120, 122, 150, 223, 562 .
personal data
SURNAME Winter, august
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently general of the mountain troops; Employee of the Federal Intelligence Service
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH February 16, 1979
Place of death Munich