Burkhart Müller-Hillebrand

Burkhart Müller-Hillebrand (until 1921 Burkhart Müller ; born December 26, 1904 in Dieuze , Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine , † February 16, 1987 in Freudenstadt ) was a lieutenant general in the army of the Bundeswehr . He had previously served in the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht , most recently in the rank of major general .

Military career

Training and first uses

Müller-Hillebrand was a son of the Prussian officer Hermann August John Eustace Müller (1859-1914) and Catherine (Cate) Margaret Jane Seliger (1865-1949) and brother of the professor of electrical engineering Dietrich Müller-Hillebrand . After passing the Abitur , Müller-Hillebrand joined the Reichswehr in 1923 with the 16th Cavalry Regiment in Hofgeismar . After officer training, he was promoted to lieutenant in 1926 and was a cavalry officer and regimental adjutant until 1934 . From 1934 to 1936 he completed general staff training at the War Academy in Berlin and then worked in the 2nd Division of the General Staff of the Army in the Army High Command (OKH) with army organization and mobilization until the outbreak of World War II .

Second World War

From 1939 to mid-1940, Müller-Hillebrand was the first general staff officer ( Ia ) in the staff of the newly established 93rd Infantry Division under the command of Lieutenant General Otto Tiemann . After the French campaign , Müller-Hillebrand was transferred to Berlin, where he served as adjutant to the Chief of the Army General Staff until the spring of 1942, Colonel General Franz Halder . Subsequently, he was also on the General Staff of the Army as a lieutenant colonel for six months as head of the organization department. During this time, Major Ulrich de Maizière , whom he would later meet again in the Bundeswehr , and Major Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg served under him.

After these staff assignments he received training at the armored troop school in Wünsdorf and with Panzer Regiment 1. From March to May 1943 he was briefly commander of the 16th Panzer Division , then until the end of 1943 as colonel commander of the 24th Panzer Regiment and thus also in the war involved against the Soviet Union . On February 11, 1944, he was awarded the German Cross in Gold. In 1944 Müller-Hillebrand became XXXXVI. Panzer Corps and served there from April to September under several commanding generals , including General of the Panzer Force Smilo Freiherr von Lüttwitz , as chief of the general staff.

On September 1, 1944, until the end of the war in May 1945, he took over the post of Chief of the General Staff of the 3rd Panzer Army on the Eastern Front under the command of Colonel General Erhard Raus and subsequently General of the Panzer Troop Hasso von Manteuffel . The promotion to major general took place on February 1, 1945. After fighting in retreat, the 3rd Panzer Army surrendered on May 3, 1945 in the Schwerin- Wismar area.

Captivity and civil life

Müller-Hillebrand was a British prisoner of war in England from mid-May 1945 to January 1947 , and was then a US prisoner in Germany until January 1948. In the course of the denazification process he became a member of the Operational History (German) Section of the Historical Division of the United States Army in Karlsruhe from April 1948 and wrote several war history studies.

Reinstatement in military service

Some of the former German officers working for the Historical Division were taken over into active service in the newly founded Bundeswehr from 1955/56, in addition to Müller-Hillebrand for example Hellmuth Reinhardt , Herbert Büchs , Friedrich Ruge , Gerhard Wagner and Alfred Zerbel .

Müller-Hillebrand himself was put back into active service as a colonel in 1955 and took over the post of deputy head of the personnel department or head of subdivision III C (military personnel) in the Federal Ministry of Defense under Ministerialdirektor Karl Gumbel . In this capacity he was appointed Brigadier General on December 1, 1955 .

Disagreement with the Minister of Defense

After Franz Josef Strauss ( CSU ) took over the post of Federal Minister of Defense in 1956, the two clashed several times. In the spring of 1957 Müller-Hillebrand spoke out against the appointment of Max-Josef Pemsel as commanding general of the II Corps , thereby questioning the minister's authority. In addition, Müller-Hillebrand refused to accept the unscheduled promotion of his personal advisor, Lieutenant Colonel i. G. Dr. Heinrich Bucksch, and the head of his ministerial office, Major Dr. Rolf Acker, to support it. As the military personnel manager, Müller-Hillebrand referred to the existing and justified claims for promotion of some senior troop officers. Strauss had initially wanted to promote Major Acker, which Müller-Hillebrand refused, partly because the required post was occupied by Lieutenant Colonel Buksch. Although Strauss had previously stopped the procedure initiated by his predecessor Theodor Blank for the promotion of Buksch, in 1957 he proposed Buksch for promotion, apparently in order to vacate the post for Major Acker. Müller-Hillebrand suspected ministerial arbitrariness and spoke out against the promotion , citing the principle of anciency . Strauss ordered Müller-Hillebrand to meet with the Defense Ministry on Hardthöhe , but left the Brigadier General waiting in the anteroom. Half an hour later, Miiller-Hillebrand told the officer on duty in the anteroom that the Minister could not deal with him that way, and left the Ministry of Defense furious. Strauss, for his part, felt snubbed and had Miiller-Hillebrand look for police officers who took him to the ministry. After a brief argument, Strauss suspended the general on September 21, 1957 from his post as sub-department head. Müller-Hillebrand then demanded disciplinary proceedings against him in order to have the matter investigated. Due to the outrage among officers of the Bundeswehr and the later announcement of the background to the suspension in the press, Strauss decided to limit the damage on his own behalf and lifted the suspension. Disciplinary proceedings have not been initiated.

Other uses

Following this episode, Müller-Hillebrand was transferred to Hanover at the beginning of December 1957 , where he was to serve as deputy commander of the 1st Grenadier Division under the command of Major General Paul Reichelt until 1959 . On April 1, 1959, he finally took over the command as commander of what was now the 1st Panzer Grenadier Division and was appointed major general until March 15, 1961. Subsequent to this troop command, the next to Graf Kielmannsegg was named the "most important operational head" Müller-Hillebrand, who served in the Bundeswehr , was transferred to Paris in 1961 , where he was appointed Lieutenant General as Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Strategies at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) of NATO under the command of US Generals Lauris Norstad and Lyman L. Lemnitzer served.

On March 31, 1965, Müller-Hillebrand finally retired. He died on February 6, 1987, leaving behind his wife Bärbel geb. Weschke (1913–2003) and a son and a daughter.

Works

• The Army 1933–1945. Development of the organizational structure.
  • Volume I: The Army up to the start of the war. Middle. Darmstadt 1954.
  • Volume II. The lightning campaigns 1939-1941. The army in the war up to the beginning of the campaign against the Soviet Union in June 1941. Mediator. Frankfurt am Main 1956.
  • Volume III. The war on two fronts. The army from the beginning of the campaign against the Soviet Union to the end of the war. Middle. Frankfurt am Main 1969.

literature

• Burkhart Müller-Hillebrand , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 29/1970 of July 6, 1970, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

• Cabinet minutes October 9, 1957
• CV in tabular form

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 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. 322.
2. ↑ The Hillebrand Song , Der Spiegel 40/1957, October 2, 1957
3. ↑ Axel F. Gablik: Conflicts about the primacy of politics. Information for the Troops (IFDT). December 1995. p. 65.
4. ^ Matthias Molt: From the Wehrmacht to the Bundeswehr. Personnel continuity and discontinuity in the development of the German armed forces 1955–1966. (Diss.) Heidelberg 2007. p. 97.
5. ↑ Bonn im Widerstreit, Der Spiegel 15/1963, April 10, 1963