Allied Land Forces Central Europe
Allied Land Forces Central Europe (LANDCENT) denotes two command authorities of NATO for the land forces in Central Europe . The first LANDCENT was created during the Cold War and existed from 1951 to 1966. A new LANDCENT was created in 1993 with headquarters in Heidelberg , which existed until 2000 when it was converted into the Joint Headquarters Center (JHQ CENT).
history
1951-1966
The establishment of the LANDCENT headquarters goes back to the founding time of NATO, which was brought into being in 1949 with the North Atlantic Treaty . At the beginning of 1951, US General Dwight D. Eisenhower , who had already led the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force during World War II , took up his post as the first Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and was entrusted with the planning of a command structure for the defense of Western Europe . Together with the planning group of his headquarters, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), he designed a structure of the areas of responsibility with three geographical regions: Northern Europe with the Scandinavian countries as well as the North and Baltic Seas, Central Europe with the western part of Central Europe and Southern Europe with Italy and the Mediterranean. While the two outer regions were each led by a Commander-in-Chief (CINC for short), namely the CINCNORTH and CINCSOUTH, three were for the central area, in which the bulk of NATO troops were stationed Commander-in-chief was deployed who, like CINCNORTH and CINCSOUTH, were directly subordinate to SACEUR: CINCAIRCENT for the air force, CINCLANDCENT for the land force and FLAGCENT for the naval force.
The Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) and the Central Army Group (CENTAG) would be subordinate to the CINCLANDCENT . The two army groups were based on the British Rhine Army (BAOR) and the United States Army Europe (USAREUR), supplemented by associations of other allies. The command as CINCLANDCENT was to be led by a Frenchman, the headquarters were set up in Fontainebleau near Paris.
Eisenhower's successor as SACEUR from 1952, Matthew B. Ridgway , enforced the appointment of a single CINCENT in 1953 instead of the previous tripartite division and thus the adjustment to the command structures of AFNORTH and AFSOUTH. Instead of a CINCLANDCENT, a COMLANDCENT was appointed, which was subordinate to the CINCENT. Originally this post was also held by a French ( Marcel Carpentier , 1953–1957), after the integration of the Bundeswehr into the alliance from 1957 to 1966 by a German (the two German COMLANDCENTs were Hans Speidel 1957–1963 and Johann Adolf Graf von Kielmansegg 1963-1966).
After France withdrew from the NATO command structures in 1966, the posts of COMLANDCENT and COMAIRCENT were abolished and their tasks were transferred to CINCENT (the NAVCENT command area had already been replaced by the Allied Command Baltic Approaches in 1962 ). The AFCENT headquarters moved to Brunssum in the Netherlands in 1967 .
1993-2000
The second headquarters, LANDCENT, was based in the Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg . It was created in 1993 and replaced the Central Army Group (CENTAG) and Fourth Allied Tactical Air Force (4 ATAF) of NATO. The superordinate authority was the Regional Command Allied Forces Northern Europe (RC AFNORTH ), which was renamed the Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum (JFC Brunssum) in 2004.
In 2000 LANDCENT was restructured into JHQ CENT ( Joint Headquarters Center Heidelberg ), in 2004 again into CC-Land HQ HD ( Component Command-Land Headquarters, Heidelberg ) and in 2010 into HQ FC HD ( Headquarters Allied Force Command Heidelberg ). The command was suspended on April 1, 2013.
literature
- Gregory W. Pedlow : The Evolution of NATO's Command Structure, 1951-2009. ( PDF on shape.nato.int )
- Forging the Weapon: The Origins of SHAPE. 2012. ( PDF on nato.int )
Individual evidence
- ^ Story on the NATO website. Retrieved April 30, 2016 .
- ↑ Entry on the NATO website. Retrieved April 30, 2016 .