Eduard Dietl

Eduard Dietl in April 1943

Eduard Wohlrath Christian Dietl (* July 21, 1890 in Aibling ; † June 23, 1944 near Waldbach , Styria ) was a German officer , most recently colonel general in World War II and commander of mountain troops in various theaters of war.

Life

Bavarian Army and First World War

Eduard Dietl was the son of the finance councilor Eduard Dietl and his wife Lina, née Holzhausen. He passed his Abitur in 1909 at the Rosenheim grammar school .

Dietl joined the 5th Infantry Regiment "Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig von Hessen" of the Bavarian Army in Bamberg on October 1, 1909 as a flag junior .

From October 1910 to August 1911 he attended the Munich War School and was promoted to lieutenant on October 26, 1911 . Since October 1911, he was platoon leader in the MG - Company of the 5th Infantry Regiment, and in August 1914 adjutant of the First Battalion. During World War I he was deployed on the Western Front and wounded in October 1914 and October 1918. In January 1915 Dietl came to the replacement battalion of the 1st Bavarian Infantry Regiment and in March 1915 to the replacement battalion of the 5th Infantry Regiment. He then stood in the field as an adjutant of the 1st Battalion. On July 9, 1915, he was promoted to first lieutenant . In November 1916 he was assigned to the 7th Bavarian Infantry Brigade as 2nd adjutant . In October 1917 he became adjutant of the 5th Infantry Regiment and in December 1917 an adjutant of the 7th Infantry Brigade.

Dietl was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class on September 16, 1914 and the Iron Cross 1st class on September 3, 1916.

Weimar Republic

In February 1919 Dietl was reassigned to the 5th Infantry Regiment. In April 1919 he joined the Epp Freikorps as a company commander and in May 1919 took part in the smashing of the Munich Soviet Republic . After the Freikorps Epp had been taken over in the provisional Reichswehr , Dietl was promoted to captain on August 19, 1919 .

According to a very uncertain oral tradition, it is said to have been Dietl who recommended Hitler for use as an "education officer" in the Reichswehr. In fact, Captain Karl Mayr from Group Command 4 had installed Hitler. At least Hitler stated in his eulogy for Dietl on July 1, 1944 that Dietl had enabled him to speak to his company.

Dietl became one of the first 160 members of the German Workers' Party (DAP) (membership number 524). In September 1920 he became chief of the 1st company in the III. ( Mountain Infantry ) Battalion of the 19th Infantry Regiment . He resigned from the party in the same year because, according to his own statements, “as an active officer he was not allowed to be a party member”. However, he remained connected to the party and Hitler.

Dietl was involved in various conspiracies to overthrow the republic and putsch companies. It was planned that he should lead the "officers' block" in the Kapp Putsch in Munich in 1920 . However, the attempted coup no longer came to fruition in Munich. After the occupation of the Rhineland , plans were developed according to which Dietl's company should form a battalion together with two companies from the Hermannsbund and a company from the Sturmabteilung (SA). Since the spring of 1923 Dietl therefore trained the Munich SA militarily.

Dietl was not involved in the preparations for the Hitler-Ludendorff putsch . On the evening of November 8, 1923, he was to lead night training for units of the SA, the federal Oberland and the Hermannbund. Although he approved measures intended to prevent the SA from being armed, he refused to use his Reichswehr unit against the putschists. An investigative committee of the regiment did not want to detect disobedience later, as there was no operational order. But Dietl was transferred to the Ohrdruf military training area .

In April 1924 Dietl became an inspector and tactics teacher at the Munich Infantry School . From October 1924 to March 1925 and from October 1925 to March 1926 he was in command of the 19th Infantry Regiment. In October 1928 he came to the staff of III. Battalion of the 19th Infantry Regiment On February 1, 1930 Dietl was appointed major and in February 1931 commander of the III. Battalion of the 19th Infantry Regiment. In 1930/31 he took part in the first German military mountain guide course and was appointed army mountain guide on April 1, 1931 . On February 1, 1933 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel . Since 1926 he was married to Gerda-Luise Hannicke, with whom he had four children.

time of the nationalsocialism

Pre-war period

From April 1934 he was a member of the staff of the 19 Infantry Regiment and in November 1934 Dietl became the commander of the 20 Infantry Regiment in Regensburg. On January 1, 1935 Dietl was promoted to colonel and in October 1935 he took over as commander of the Mountain Infantry Regiment 99 in Füssen . On April 1, 1938 Dietl rose to major general and in May 1938 was appointed commander of the 3rd Mountain Division in Graz , with which he a. a. 1938 invaded the Sudetenland .

Second World War

Eduard Dietl (left) and Albert Speer February 1944

As the commander of this division, he took part in the attack on Poland in 1939 . On April 1, 1940, he was promoted to lieutenant general. He received the order to occupy the ore port of Narvik as part of the "Weser Exercise" company on personal intervention by Hitler. At the beginning of April 1940 he and 2,000 men from his division were brought to Narvik by ten destroyers of the Kriegsmarine . After the invasion of neutral Norway on April 9, 1940, he was involved in heavy fighting with the Allies for three months . In the Battle of Narvik , 2,000 mountain troops and 2,500 marines fought against around 25,000 Allied soldiers until the western campaign in June caused the Allies to withdraw their troops.

On May 9, 1940 Dietl was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and on June 15 was appointed Commanding General of the Mountain Corps Norway . On July 19, 1940, Hitler promoted him to General of the Infantry (later: General of the Mountain Troops ) and awarded him the Knight's Cross as the first officer in the Wehrmacht.

Eduard Dietl (left) and Oiva Willamo, Finland 1943

During the attack on the Soviet Union , Dietl's association crossed the Finnish-Soviet border on the northern Arctic Ocean. His mission was to secure the Finnish nickel mines at Petsamo and then to attack further east. In losing battles, however, several offensives on the Sapadnaya Liza failed . It did not succeed in severing the land connection from Murmansk to the Soviet Union . The historian Winfried Heinemann attests Dietl's ability to lead people directly, but sees his operational skills as limited. From June 4, 1941, Dietl led one after the other the "command post Finland", which was renamed on January 14, 1942 in "Army High Command Lapland" and from June 22, 1942 in "High Command 20th Mountain Army ".

Promotion to Colonel General

When Hitler traveled to Finland on June 4, 1942 for the 75th birthday of the Finnish Commander-in-Chief from Mannerheim , he promoted Dietl to Colonel General. According to Jakob Knab , Dietl did not disappoint the trust of his "Führer":

"We have to believe in our supreme commander out of deepest conviction and with holy enthusiasm fulfill the task that the leader of the armed forces has set - the achievement of the final victory."

When Goebbels announced the “ total war ” after the surrender of Stalingrad on February 18, 1943 in the Berlin Sportpalast , Dietl telegraphed him the “unlimited sympathy of the front”. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Hitler putsch, Dietl announced on November 9, 1943:

“On November 9th, the German people will commemorate the day on which the Führer undertook the great risk of seizing the leadership of the Reich with a handful of determined men and thereby turning German fate decisively for the better. [...] We celebrate [...] the day of unconditional loyalty to the Führer, to the idea of ​​the Reich, to the honor of the nation and to the national community of the German people. "

At the center of the event was the persistent speech that Dietl gave on the steps of the Feldherrnhalle in Munich:

“The soldier at the front knows that this is a battle for fate of the German people, that the Jews of the whole world have come together to destroy Germany and Europe. [...] War is the relentless purifier of providence. I solemnly declare: I believe in the Führer! "

death

On June 23, 1944, Dietl was ordered to meet Hitler at the Berghof . His suggestion to strengthen the Eastern Front with his soldiers in Norway angered Hitler so much that the meeting was broken off. On the return flight his Junkers 52 plane crashed on the Styrian side of the Hochwechsel , in Waldbach-Breitenbrunn. Generals Karl Eglseer , Franz Rossi and Thomas-Emil von Wickede died with Dietl . His death was kept secret for a week out of fear that the ongoing negotiations with Finland could be strained. The funeral service with Hitler's speech on the "type of National Socialist officer" using Dietl as an example was broadcast on the radio. National Socialist command officers in military units arranged for the communal reception of this propaganda speech, for example at the 253rd Infantry Division . In this speech Hitler, according to the historian Winfried Heinemann, stated literally that he had lost an “dear and loyal friend” in Dietl, who was always a “National Socialist [...] not of the phrase, but of the will, the deliberation and yet also that Heart to “stayed. The swords for the Knight's Cross were awarded to Dietl posthumously on July 1, 1944, and the Mountain Rifle Brigade 139 was named "Colonel General Dietl". In Hitler's daily order from the Wehrmacht for July 1, 1944, it was stated: "As a fanatical National Socialist, Colonel-General Dietl has personally campaigned for the Greater German Reich with unchanging loyalty and passionate faith since the beginning of our movement's struggle."

Even during the Second World War there were rumors that the crash could have been caused by Hitler's sabotage, which however turned out to be untenable.

Dietl was buried in the north cemetery in Munich . His gravestone shows his last name and the " Narvik shield ".

Alignment, racism, ideology

Dietl's racist sentiment, according to Jakob Knab, shows his “very serious warning to superiors of all ranks”, in which, shortly before Christmas 1942, he wanted to tighten the generally applicable provisions on the marriage of German soldiers with women from Nordic countries. He categorically rejected marriages between German soldiers and Norwegians, on the one hand because "they [...] are only very inferior representatives of the neighboring peoples" and "racial driftwood", on the other hand because there are "hundreds of thousands of fresh German girls back home and unfortunately many young war widows would wait for our returning soldiers ”.

Dietl was considered very popular; the good relationship with his subordinates was strongly emphasized by the propaganda, and that is why he undoubtedly became one of the most popular German military leaders and the "Nazi model general".

War Crimes Entanglement

On the basis of several incidents, Dietl's involvement in war crimes or crimes against humanity has been proven: The first concerns the transmission of the "Commissar Order", which was drawn up in June 1941 on the initiative of the army command. In a speech on March 30, 1941, Hitler had bluntly called for war crimes against the USSR; He had declared that in this "battle between two worldviews (...) the army had to move away from the standpoint of soldierly comradeship". The order was passed on to General Dietl through the Mountain Corps of Norway under Colonel General von Falkenhorst and made known there. Even in the command area of ​​Dietl's 20th Mountain Army, prisoners of war were passed on to the notorious Security Service (SD) to be shot. These murders were the subject of public prosecutor investigations from 1968 to 1978. There was no conviction because the offenses could not be clearly assigned, but the public prosecutor had no doubts about the facts themselves.

The second offense concerns the field punishment camps in Finland and Northern Norway known as "concentration camps for the Wehrmacht". In Norway, Dietl had retreat paths built. Units of prisoners ("moor soldiers" from the Emsland camps ) of the Todt Organization were used. Further units were set up in Fort Zinna / Torgau ; it was work slaves from the field penal camps I and II in Finland and Norway, for which Colonel General Dietl was responsible for the troops. These field prison camps were the military variant of extermination through labor . Part of the so-called probation program was the walk from Rovaniemi to Petsamo on the Arctic Ocean, on which under-weak criminal soldiers were repeatedly killed with shots in the neck. From the summer of 1942 onwards, there were arbitrary shootings and sadistic abuse of German criminal soldiers by Wehrmacht guards in Finland and Northern Norway. In a speech on June 16, 1942, Dietl himself threatened the murder of the criminal soldiers if they were not to go on the marches.

Dietl as namesake

In May 1964 was the barracks of the Bundeswehr in feet after Dietl named. A year later, his military rank of “Colonel General” was added to the name.

In January 1982, on the occasion of the renaming of a street in Dietl's birthplace Bad Aibling, the public war of opinion began. In July 1987 a citizens' initiative in Kempten (Allgäu) called for the renaming of "General-Dietl-Straße". In February 1988 Pax Christi demanded the renaming of the "Generaloberst-Dietl-Kaserne" in Füssen.

Angry reactions followed: Anyone who took a public position in favor of the renaming encountered resistance in the form of anonymous calls, letters and death threats. The Petitions Committee of the Bundestag, however, recommended that the troops should understand the renaming of the barracks. Renaming would also be a contribution to “coming to terms with the recent German past”. The local CSU deputy Kurt Rossmanith opposed this: "Colonel-General Dietl was and is still a role model for me in human and military action."

On November 9, 1995, the then Federal Minister of Defense Volker Rühe finally decided to rename the Colonel General Dietl barracks in Füssen and the General Kübler barracks in Mittenwald. The barracks in Füssen were named Allgäu barracks , while those in Mittenwald were named Karwendel barracks . This decision met with severe criticism from the group of comrades in the mountain troops .

In March 1990 Dietl's honorary citizenship was canceled by the provincial capital Graz (Styria). General-Dietl-Strasse in Kempten (Allgäu) was renamed in January 1993 (new: Prälat-Götz-Strasse). In Bad Aibling , the former General-Dietl-Straße has been called "Am Sonnenfeld" since January 1996 after much discussion. However, some of them are still calling for a renaming. In January 1997, the City Council of Füssen voted to rename Dietlstrasse (new: Baumeister-Fischer-Strasse). General-Dietl-Strasse in Freyung was renamed Ahornöder Strasse in January 1998. The Dietl memorial plaque in Ringelai (Bavarian Forest) - a memorial for Albert Leo Schlageter until 1977  - was dismantled in the summer of 1997. In Harthausen, a district of Bad Aibling, there is still a Dietl memorial plaque.

"Dietl Cross" monument

A bizarre memorial for Dietl is located in the middle of a tourist attraction, the miniature world "Wiedner's water games" in Waldbach , Hartberg-Fürstenfeld district , Styria . However, it is only a model of the so-called “Dietl Cross” at the crash site of the plane in the Waldbach district of Breitenbrunn, which can be reached via a 500 meter long, marked footpath off the road to the Rablkreuz hut. Until 2002, a commemorative mass was held every year on a Sunday around the date of the crash at Dietl-Kreuz. In a critical report in the Kleine Zeitung , the pastor of Waldbach, Franz Rechberger, is quoted with a justification: "It was never a Dietl mass, but always a Sunday mass with prayers for peace and the fallen."

Awards (selection)

• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross , May 9, 1940
  • Oak leaves, July 19, 1940
  • Swords, July 1, 1944
• Iron Cross 1st Class, September 3, 1916
• Iron Cross, 2nd class, September 16, 1914

literature

• Otto Freiherr von Waldenfels:  Dietl, Eduard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 674 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Jakob Knab : Colonel General Dietl. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. Volume 2: From the beginning of the war to the end of the world war. Primus, Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 3-89678-089-1 , pp. 28-36; Also reprinted in: Gerd R. Ueberschär (Hrsg.): Hitler's military elite. 68 CVs . Primus, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-89678-727-9 , pp. 299-307.
• Winfried Heinemann: Eduard Dietl. Favorite general of the "Führer" . In: Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.): The military elite of the Third Reich. 27 biographical sketches . Berlin 1995, pp. 99-112.

Web links

Commons : Eduard Dietl  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Eduard Dietl in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Eduard Dietl in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Arnulf Scriba: Eduard Dietl. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
• Works by and about Eduard Dietl  in the German Digital Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Johannes Hürter: Hitler's Army Leader. The German commanders-in-chief in the war against the Soviet Union in 1941/42 . 2nd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58341-0 , p. 624.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Johannes Hürter: Hitler's army leader. The German commanders-in-chief in the war against the Soviet Union in 1941/42 . 2nd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58341-0 , p. 625.
3. ^ Winfried Heinemann: Eduard Dietl. Favorite general of the "Führer". In: Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.): The military elite of the Third Reich. 27 biographical sketches . Berlin 1995, pp. 99-112, here p. 99 f.
4. ↑ ^{a b} The list of members begins with number 501. Winfried Heinemann: Eduard Dietl. Favorite general of the "Führer" . In: Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.): The military elite of the Third Reich. 27 biographical sketches . Berlin 1995, p. 100.
5. ^ Winfried Heinemann: Eduard Dietl. Favorite general of the "Führer". In: Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.): The military elite of the Third Reich. 27 biographical sketches . Berlin 1995, p. 101.
6. ^ Winfried Heinemann: Eduard Dietl. Favorite general of the "Führer". In: Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.): The military elite of the Third Reich. 27 biographical sketches . Berlin 1995, p. 101 f.
7. ^ List of names of the mountain guides of the former mountain troops, Fritz Hengstler, Munich 1980, p. 20
8. ^ ^{A b} Winfried Heinemann: Eduard Dietl. Favorite general of the "Führer" . In: Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.): The military elite of the Third Reich. 27 biographical sketches . Berlin 1995, p. 103.
9. ^ Winfried Heinemann: Eduard Dietl. Favorite general of the "Führer" . In: Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.): The military elite of the Third Reich. 27 biographical sketches . Berlin 1995, pp. 103-105.
10. ↑ Jakob Knab: Colonel General Dietl . In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. 68 CVs . Primus, Darmstadt 2011, pp. 299–307, here p. 301.
11. ↑ BA-MA Freiburg, RH 20-20 / 34: Command of the 20th Army - Commander in Chief on September 14, 1942; quoted here from Jakob Knab, Colonel General Eduard Dietl , In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (Ed.), Hitler's military elite. From the beginning of the war to the end of the war , Darmstadt 1998, vol. II, p. 30.
12. ↑ Jakob Knab: Colonel General Dietl . In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. 68 CVs . Primus, Darmstadt 2011, pp. 299–307, here p. 303.
13. ↑ Jakob Knab: Colonel General Dietl . In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. 68 CVs . Primus, Darmstadt 2011, pp. 299–307, here p. 303; Knab refers in footnote 32 to Roland Kaltenegger , Colonel General Dietl. The hero of Narvik. Eine Biographie , Munich 1997, p. 372 f.
14. ↑ Quoted from Jakob Knab, Colonel General Eduard Dietl , In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (Ed.), Hitler's military elite. From the beginning of the war to the end of the world war , Darmstadt 1998, vol. II, p. 32: Knab refers in footnote 33 to the reports In: Donaubote (Ingolstadt) of November 15, 1943; Daily Mail ( Graz - city of popular uprising ) of November 17, 1943; Rosenheimer Anzeiger of November 14, 1943; Munich Latest News from November 15, 1943.
15. ^ Winfried Heinemann: Eduard Dietl. Favorite general of the "Führer" . In: Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.): The military elite of the Third Reich. 27 biographical sketches . Berlin 1995, p. 107.
16. ↑ Christoph Rass: "Menschenmaterial": German soldiers on the Eastern Front. Interior views of an infantry division 1939–1945 . Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, ISBN 978-3-506-74486-9 . P. 323, note 432 ( online ).
17. ^ Winfried Heinemann: Eduard Dietl. Favorite general of the "Führer" . In: Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.): The military elite of the Third Reich. 27 biographical sketches . Berlin 1995, pp. 99–112, here p. 108.
18. ↑ Quoted from Winfried Heinemann: Eduard Dietl. Favorite general of the "Führer" . In: Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.): The military elite of the Third Reich. 27 biographical sketches . Berlin 1995, p. 108.
19. ^ Winfried Heinemann: Eduard Dietl. Favorite general of the "Führer" . In: Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring (eds.): The military elite of the Third Reich. 27 biographical sketches . Berlin 1995, p. 108.
20. ↑ Jakob Knab, Colonel General Eduard Dietl , In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (Ed.), Hitler's military elite. From the beginning of the war to the end of the world war , Darmstadt 1998, vol. II, p. 31; Knab refers to BA-MA RH 20-20 / 185: High Command of the 20th Mountain Army IIa No. 1234/42 of December 23, 1943 and cites it.
21. ↑ Jakob Knab: Colonel General Dietl . In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. 68 CVs . Primus, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-89678-727-9 , pp. 299–307, here p. 302.
22. ↑ BA-MA Freiburg, RH 20-20 / 34: Command of the 20th Army - Commander in Chief on September 14, 1942; quoted here from Jakob Knab, Colonel General Eduard Dietl , In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (Ed.), Hitler's military elite. From the beginning of the war to the end of the world war , Darmstadt 1998, vol. II, p. 30 f.
23. ↑ ^{a b c} Jakob Knab: "Timeless Soldier Virtues" - Maintenance of Tradition in the Bundeswehr . In: Die Zeit , No. 46/2005.
24. ↑ Kleine Zeitung , district edition Hartberg, July 15, 2003, p. 19.
25. ↑ Also on the following orders Johannes Hürter : Hitler's Army Leader. The German Supreme Commanders in the War against the Soviet Union 1941/42 , Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-57982-6 , p. 625 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).