Dieter Clauss

Dieter Clauss (born September 2, 1934 in Leipzig ) is a retired German general . D. the Bundeswehr .

Life

Dieter Clauß grew up in Berlin as the son of a colonel (who has been missing in Romania since late autumn 1944) . Here he was bombed out with his mother and brother. In 1947 they traveled together through the Soviet occupation zone to Lower Saxony . He completed his humanistic Abitur and was employed in the Federal Border Police in 1955 , most recently as a sergeant . After the partial integration of the Federal Border Police into the Bundeswehr, he was taken over as a flag junior in the Bundeswehr.

Military background

In 1956/57 he graduated from the Army Officer School I in Hanover and the Infantry School in Hammelburg. His first assignment was as a platoon leader and personnel officer in Panzergrenadierbataillon 21 in Hanover, after which Lieutenant Clauss was deployed in 1959 as the first youth officer in the I. Corps in Münster . Since 1961 the promoted to captain led an armored infantry company of the Panzer Grenadier Battalion 182 in Boostedt and attended the 8th General Staff Course (H) from October 1965 to September 1967 at the command academy of the Bundeswehr in Hamburg . Now he was employed as a consultant in the command staff of the armed forces in Bonn. In his superior, General Franz-Joseph Schulze, the meanwhile major i. G. an accomplished nuclear strategy expert and mentor .

Troop leaders and international general staff training

The staff service activity was now followed by a deployment of troops, initially in the Lüneburg Panzer Brigade 8 as General Staff Officer G 3. This was followed by a one-year general staff training at the Canadian Army Command and Staff College in Kingston, in order to take over command of the 82 Panzer Grenadier Battalion in Lüneburg . In 1974/75 Lieutenant Colonel i. G. participated in a six-month course at the NATO Defense College in Rome .

NATO headquarters

General Schulze, of the post of Deputy Chief of Staff at NATO - HQ SHAPE held took the staff officer to Mons . Here Colonel Clauss first became an adjutant to the American chief of staff and later became the office manager of General Schulze. He then became an adjutant to the General Inspector of the Bundeswehr General Harald Wust , after his resignation in 1978 he also became an adjutant to the new General Inspector of the Bundeswehr General Jürgen Brandt . After three months Clauss submitted his request for transfer to the troops.

Commander times

From March 1979 to September 1980 the Colonel commanded the 20 Panzer Brigade in Iserlohn and on October 1, 1980 , with a simultaneous promotion to Brigadier General , became the commander of the Inner Guidance Center in Koblenz . On April 1, 1983, as major general, he took command of the 6th Panzer Grenadier Division in Neumünster . In 1984 he followed Rear Admiral Dieter Wellershoff as commander of the command academy of the Bundeswehr in Hamburg . In 1986 he took over the I. Corps in Münster as commanding general and led it for two years. Defense Minister Manfred Wörner appointed him on April 1, 1988 to head the personnel department.

Signature Dieter Clauß

Four star general

On October 1, 1990, Dieter Clauss was promoted to general and succeeded General Eberhard Eimler as deputy commander in chief of NATO troops in Europe. He was retired in October 1993 and ended his military career.

General a. D.

In his active career, the general set clear accents in leadership, his support of the Catholic military chaplaincy in the Bundeswehr and his active participation in the community of Catholic soldiers led to his being elected to the Central Committee of German Catholics as a member and expert on military security issues . As commanding general of the 1st Corps, he took over the patronage of the Dr. Colonel Helmut Korn Academy .

From 1995 to 1999 he was President of the Clausewitz Society .

At the ceremony “50 years of military pastoral care in Maria Laach” in 2006, based on his own biography as an officer, he gave a vivid picture of the Catholic military pastoral care that had always stood by him and his family even in the most difficult times.

Clauß became a member of the German Justitia et Pax Commission , Federal Commissioner of the Malteser Aid Services and Chairman of the Catholic Working Group for Soldiers Care .

He is married and has three children.

Honors

• 1979: Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon
• 1983: Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class
• 1988: Large Federal Cross of Merit
• 1998: Knight of the Order of the Holy Pope New Year's Eve

Fonts (selection)

• Staff officer training today - a position assessment . In: Detlef Bald , Gerhild Bald-Gerlich, Eduard Ambros (eds.): Tradition and reform in military education. From the Prussian general war school to the command academy of the Bundeswehr. A tradition from 1810–1985 . Nomos, Baden-Baden 1985, ISBN 3-7890-1116-9 , p. 7 ff.
• The Koenigsteiner Officers - a contemporary community? . In: Catholic Military Bishop's Office (ed.): Catholic Christians in the Bundeswehr . Bachem, Cologne 1987, ISBN 3-7616-0912-4 , p. 135 ff.

literature

• Dermot Bradley , Heinz-Peter Würzenthal, Hansgeorg Model : The generals and admirals of the Bundeswehr 1955–1999. The military careers . Volume 1: Adam – Fuhr . Biblio-Verlag, Osnabrück 1998, ISBN 978-3-7648-2492-1 , pp. 332-333.
• Viktor Toyka , Rüdiger Kracht: Clausewitz Society. Chronicle 1961–2011 . Edited by the Clausewitz Society, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-9810794-6-3 , p. 84.
• Dieter Clauß , in Internationales Biographisches Archiv 07/1991 from February 4, 1991, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

• Germans at NATO

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dieter Clauß , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 07/1991 of February 4, 1991, in the Munzinger Archive , accessed on April 29, 2014 ( beginning of the article freely accessible)
2. ↑ Ceremony 50 years of military pastoral care in Maria Laach ( Memento of the original of September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ AAS 91 (1999), n.5, p. 487.