Military commander

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Command flag of a military commander

Military commander (official abbreviation MilBfh. ) Was a high- ranking official in countries occupied by the Wehrmacht during World War II . The position was usually taken by an Army or Air Force general .

task

As the head of the military administration, the military commander was the highest representative of the occupying power in the occupied country and, as the de facto military governor , exercised control over the occupied country. He had his own staff for this purpose . Depending on the size of the occupied area, it was divided into military administrative districts, Oberfeldkommandanture and Feldkommandanture.

The military commanders were appointed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Army (OBdH) and exercised executive power in his name. OBdH during the war was von Brauchitsch until December 1941 , then Hitler until his death in April 1945 . In day-to-day business, the military commander received his instructions from the army quartermaster general .

Differentiation from other posts in occupied countries

The operational combat units of the Wehrmacht stationed in the occupied area were not subordinate to the military commander, but to the supreme commander (OB) of the area, who was directly subordinate to the high command of the armed forces (OKW) or, on the eastern front, to the high command of the army (OKH). The only exception to this separation was the southeast area (roughly the area of Yugoslavia ), in which the function of military commander and commander-in-chief in the Wehrmacht commander-in- chief was combined.

In the countries and areas under civil administration (Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, Channel Islands) there was no military commander. There a Wehrmacht commander in chief (WBF) exercised the military sovereignty, but was not responsible for the administration.

Command areas of the military commanders

Belgium and Northern France

On May 20, 1940, the command of the Belgian Military Commander was created; on May 28, 1940 it was renamed 'Military Commander Belgium and Northern France' and expanded. The command area consisted of the territory of occupied Belgium together with the two French departments Pas-de-Calais and Nord . The headquarters were in Brussels . Commanders were:

France

The command post of the Military Commander in France (MBF) was created on October 16, 1940 in Paris. Before that, a head of the military administration (General Alfred Streccius ) had been the head of administration since the end of June . The area of ​​command encompassed all of occupied France except for the two departments of Pas-de-Calais and Nord, which were assigned to the military commander of Belgium-Northern France. The headquarters of the MBF and its central departments were in the Hotel Majestic on avenue Kléber ; the management reports of the MBF are online. Military commanders were:

Greece

Commander-in-Chief of Southern Greece, then from August 25, 1943, Military Commander-in-Chief Greece (MBGR). The command post was disbanded on October 15, 1944. In August 1944 the command area included the staff command, the commandant of the fortress of Crete and the commandant of the East Aegean Sea. Commanders were:

Serbia

The military commander in Serbia was deployed in 1941. With the instruction OKH 48, 48a and 48b of July 1943 (“Restructuring for the command and defense of the southeast area”): the command was renamed to Military Commander Southeast. Commanders were:

Web links

literature

  • Anestis Nessou: Greece 1941–1944. German occupation policy and crimes against the civilian population - an assessment according to international law. V & R Unipress, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89971-507-1 ( Osnabrück writings on legal history 15), (At the same time: Osnabrück, Univ., Diss., 2008).
  • Robert Bohn (ed.): The German rule in the "Germanic" countries 1940-1945. Steiner, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-515-07099-0 ( Historical Communications Supplement 26).
  • Walter Lukan (Ed.): Serbia and Montenegro. Space and population - history - language and literature - culture - politics - society - economy - law. LIT Verlag, Vienna et al. 2006, ISBN 3-8258-9539-4 ( Österreichische Osthefte 47, 1/4, 2005 = special volume 18).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Werner Röhr: System or organized chaos? Questions of a typology of the German occupation regime in the Second World War . In: Robert Bohn (ed.): "The German rule in the" Germanic "countries 1940-1945". Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997, pp. 24-25.
  2. ↑ www.ihtp.cnrs.fr (Center national de la recherche scientifique) ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ihtp.cnrs.fr
  3. ↑ the day Mussolini was deposed; shortly afterwards, the Badoglio government concluded the Cassibile armistice with the Western Allies
  4. ↑ Anestis Nessou: Greece 1941- 1944: German occupation policy ... , S. 105th
  5. ^ Michael Portmann , Arnold Suppan : Serbia and Montenegro in World War II . In: Walter Lukan (Ed.): Serbia and Montenegro. LIT Verlag, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-8258-9539-4 , p. 268, footnote 12.