Edgar Röhricht

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Friedrich Edgar Röhricht (born June 16, 1892 in Liebau ; † February 11, 1967 in Linz am Rhein ) was a German officer , most recently a general of the infantry in World War II .

Life

Röhricht was the son of a postmaster . On October 1, 1912, he joined the Grenadier Regiment "King Wilhelm I" (2nd West Prussian) No. 7 as a one-year volunteer . With the outbreak of the First World War he came into the field with the 4th Silesian Infantry Regiment No. 157 and was employed as a company commander and regimental adjutant during the further course of the war. After the end of the war he was employed as a first lieutenant (since June 20, 1918) in the border guard in Silesia , before he was accepted into the Reichswehr in 1920 . Here he was u. a. in the 10th Company of the 3rd (Prussian) Infantry Regimentactive. After his general staff training, he was transferred as a captain to the press department of the Wehrmacht Department of the Reichswehr Ministry under Kurt von Schleicher . Röhricht remained for the next few years in the press department of the Wehrmacht Department of the Reichswehr Ministry.

Röhricht took a reserved stance towards the National Socialist regime. As one of the few German military officers, he clearly recognized the substance of Adolf Hitler's rule in the murder of Ernst Röhm and other unpopular people . Opposition to the Nazi regime increased further in 1935. At this time he became aware of his surveillance by the Gestapo because of allegedly suspicious relationships with emigrant circles. Röhricht applied to be transferred to the troops. In 1935 he was transferred to the 19th Division in Hanover . In 1936 he became Lieutenant Colonel First General Staff Officer at Military District Command IV in Dresden . There he became an employee of Major General Friedrich Olbricht . In Dresden he also met Carl Friedrich Goerdeler . Edgar Röhricht came into contact with two later leaders in the later assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 . Since Goerdeler knew Röhricht's political stance, he put forward his demand for the Wehrmacht to intervene immediately against the Nazis. Röhricht rejected the use of the Wehrmacht against the Nazi government because he assumed the troops would not obey this order. He viewed the officer corps as a loose conglomerate without close cohesion. The lieutenants all came from the Hitler Youth . The few active officers would also be faced with reactivated officers, reserve officers from the World War, police and supplementary officers. Edgar Röhricht remained with this assessment of the chances of a coup d'état against Hitler until the end of the war. The plans for a coup d'état that he saw during the Czech and Fritsch crises also strengthened his assessment.

In the summer of 1939 he was promoted to colonel. At the same time he became commander of the 34th Infantry Regiment in Heilbronn . He was then transferred from October 1939 to October 1940 as head of the training department in the Army High Command (OKH). Subsequently, Röhricht was Chief of Staff at the High Command of the 1st Army in occupied France from October 1940 to June 1942 and was promoted to Major General on January 1, 1942 . During this time he met again with Carl Friedrich Goerdeler to talk about the German situation.

From autumn 1942 to December 1943 he commanded the 95th Infantry Division near Rzhev on the Eastern Front . At the front he soon came to the realization that the war could no longer be won for the German Reich. He also shared this knowledge at officers' rounds. Edgar Röhricht found himself in a serious conflict because he saw little or no chance of success in a coup d'etat against Hitler. In the event of a coup, however, he feared chaos. At the same time he saw further material and moral destruction of his fatherland if he did not act. His traditional sense of duty to the fatherland and its leadership drove him to keep fighting. His conscience also made him think of active resistance against the Nazis. His memories, published in 1965 as a book, were then entitled Duty and Conscience . Röhricht could never decide to take part in preparations for a coup. In February 1942, General Olbricht tried to get his friend to participate in the preparations for the coup. In January 30, 1944, Colonel Henning von Tresckow tried to win Röhricht again for active resistance. The debate that developed at the meeting is documented in Röhricht's book Duty and Conscience . After the failure of the attack on Hitler on July 20, 1944, Röhricht's foster son Ulrich von Oertzen committed suicide as one of the active co-conspirators. For a moment, Röhricht thought about suicide and how he wrote to let go of the cart . Edgar Röhricht, however, continued to fight fatalism at the front.

From December 1943 to January 1944 he was the deputy leadership of the XX. Army Corps instructed. From March 1944 he was with the deputy leadership of the LIX. Army Corps entrusted. On May 15, 1944, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his services as division commander of the 95th Infantry Division. On September 1, 1944 he was promoted to general of the infantry and also to the commanding general of the LIX. Army Corps appointed. At the end of January 1945 he was relieved of his command and transferred to the Führerreserve . Together with Gerhart Hauptmann , Röhricht experienced the air raids on Dresden in mid-February 1945 . Röhricht fell into British captivity on April 1, 1945 on the edge of the Thuringian Forest . He was then imprisoned in England . After his discharge in September 1947, he worked for a time in the Historical Division and resumed his work as a writer of military-political topics.

Awards

Works

  • together with Paul Tiede and Kurt Himer : The 4th Silesian Infantry Regiment No. 157 . Stalling , 1922.
  • Defensive youth. Pre-military youth training in arms-free states. Leipzig 1934.
  • Pylar riddle (novel). Stuttgart 1949.
  • Problems of the Kesselschlacht, depicted in encirclement operations in World War II. Karlsruhe 1958.
  • Duty and conscience. Memories of a German General 1932-1944. Stuttgart 1965.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Ed .: Reichswehrministerium , Mittler & Sohn Verlag , Berlin 1924, p. 170
  2. ↑ a b Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 1939–1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 634.
personal data
SURNAME Reed, Edgar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Röhricht, Friedrich Edgar (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, general of the infantry
DATE OF BIRTH June 16, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Liebau
DATE OF DEATH February 11, 1967
Place of death Linz on the Rhine