Edwin von Rothkirch and Trach

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Rothkirch (second from left) in 1938 when three Wehrmacht officers met with a Hungarian officer

Edwin Graf von Rothkirch and Trach (born November 1, 1888 in Militsch , Silesia ; † July 29, 1980 at the Rettershof near Kelkheim (Taunus) ) was a German cavalry general during the Second World War . As a show jumper , he took part in the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Military background

Edwin Graf von Rothkirch und Trach comes from the Silesian noble family of those von Rothkirch . He joined the 1st Grand Ducal Mecklenburg Dragoon Regiment No. 17 as a cadet . On March 1, 1908, he was promoted to lieutenant with an officer's license on June 19, 1908. He had various staff and troop assignments during the First World War . He was promoted to Rittmeister on September 16, 1917 and was in the 91st Infantry Division at the end of the war . For his work during the war he was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross , the Hanseatic Cross Hamburg, the Mecklenburg Military Merit Cross 1st Class and the Reussian Honor Cross III. Class excellent.

In the Reichswehr he first served in the 16th Cavalry Regiment and took over the 6th Squadron in Kassel in October 1924 . On November 3, 1929, he moved to the staff of the 14th Cavalry Regiment in Ludwigslust , where he was promoted to major .

An assessment from 1933 by Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg , the commander of the 14th Cavalry Regiment, has been preserved in the Federal Archives-Military Archives . Geyr wrote in the assessment:

“Man is cold, except for women, clans and property. Language skills modest. Socially excellently suited. As a soldier sufficient for practical questions of the day. Not enough for general staff. "

Immediately after the National Socialists came to power in the Reich, he was posted to training SA and SS officers in weapons and riding. Close contact with the NSDAP and SS seems to have been maintained from this time .

He was promoted to lieutenant colonel on May 1, 1934 . On October 1, 1934, Rothkirch was appointed commander of the 15th Cavalry Regiment . In 1935 his wife Albertine died of blood poisoning ; afterwards he raised his son Leopold, born in 1923, called Poldi, alone.

On April 1, 1936, Rothkirch was promoted to colonel , and on March 1, 1938, he became the commander of the 2nd Rifle Brigade. With this he was involved in the invasion of the Wehrmacht in Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939 , the " smashing of the rest of the Czech Republic ".

After the beginning of the Second World War, he was Chief of Staff of the XXXIV from September 12, 1939 . Army Corps , an association of the reserve army. Promoted to major general on March 1, 1940 , Rothkirch became commander of the 442nd Landess Rifle Division on April 25, 1940, which was deployed as an occupation force in Poland . From October 11, 1940, he was in command of Oberfeldkommandantur 365 in occupied Poland. The staff of Oberfeldkommandantur 365 was only stationed in Tarnow and from November 1941 in Lemberg. The Oberfeldkommandantur 365 was subordinate to the military commander in the Generalgouvernement .

After initial efforts to maintain a front command had failed, he was given command of the 330th Infantry Division on January 10, 1942 . With this division, which at that time was stationed as an occupying force in occupied Poland, he carried out the transfer to the front of Army Group Center in January 1942 . During the relocation, the winter climate resulted in the loss of 50% of the division's vehicles. Immediately after taking over a section of the front, Rothkirch was surrounded with part of his troops. This encirclement could be broken after a short time. For this mission he received the Iron Cross clasp for both classes. On March 1, 1942, he was promoted to lieutenant general . For his service at the front he was awarded the German Cross in Gold on November 5, 1942 . From August 1943 to July 1944, Rothkirch was in command of the rear Army Area Center and commanding general of the security forces in the area behind Army Group Center. From October 15, 1943, Rothkirch was also the Wehrmacht commander-in-chief in White Ruthenia .

On January 1, 1944, he was promoted to general of the cavalry. His command ended with the loss of Belarus after Operation Bagration in late June 1944.

Rothkirch's capture by the US Army in March 1945

From July 1944 Rothkirch was deployed as the deputy commanding general of various corps on the Eastern Front. On November 3, 1944 he was commanding general of the LIII. Army Corps on the Western Front . On March 6, 1945, he fell in Neunkirchen in the Eifel in American prisoner of war when the Americans as part of Operation Lumberjack advancing. The US forces handed him over to the British and he was admitted to the Trent Park general camp near London on March 9, 1945 .

Attitude to the National Socialists

There are very different statements about his attitude towards the National Socialists. After the attack on Poland , Rothkirch openly railed against Philipp von Boeselager , then a young lieutenant, about "filthiness" for which the National Socialists were responsible. Boeselager judged Rothkirch: "At least internally he belonged to the resistance, even if he had no opportunity to actively participate."

In eastern Poland, Rothkirch fell in love with the married Polish noblewoman Klementyna Mankowska (1910-2003). This belonged to the resistance group "The Musketeers", which was mainly recruited from the Polish nobility . Mankowska, highly honored as a resistance fighter and agent, only revealed this love story in the 1990s in her book Odyssey of an Agent , although the love story is only mentioned in the German-language edition. Rothkirch's last letter to Mankowska, dated November 16, 1941, was published in the book. In it he wrote:

“I have been ordered to Berlin and have to fly to Germany this evening. The evil that was on the horizon has arrived. The SS and Gestapo have taken power in the province of Lemberg. The reign of terror will begin. We are accused of being too lenient. ... I ask you to return to France immediately. I will wait for our paths to cross a third time. I dream of it ... With all my heart with you forever your ER ”. As Postscript: "Destroy this letter immediately after reading it!"

Rittmeister Eberhard von Breitenbuch , Ordonnanzoffizier with Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge , the commander in chief of the Army Group Center , informed Rothkirch in the summer of 1943 about the murder of 1200 to 1500 Jews daily at the railway junction Malkinia (meant id the extermination camp Treblinka ) in his area of ​​command. Rothkirch initially thought this was out of the question, but his research showed that it was. Rothkirch wrote reports about the murders and turned to Kluge several times. Kluge did nothing, because he feared for his position in a protest, as he explained to his orderly officer Eberhard von Breitenbuch. The Malkinia railway junction is known today as the Treblinka extermination camp.

Field Marshal Ernst Busch assessed von Rothkirch on March 1, 1944 as follows:

“Character with peculiarities. In the winter of 43/44, it managed to organize the newly assigned area tightly, despite considerable difficulties, to eliminate contradictions and to ensure a trusting cooperation with the numerous departments in its area. He waged the gang fight, which was very extensive, especially in his area, carefully, hard and bravely in personal engagement. His nat.soz. Posture is impeccable. "

In a wiretapped conversation in the Trent Park camp, Lieutenant General Friedrich von Broich said that he considered Count von Rothkirch and Trach to be an extremely unscrupulous person who had been closely linked to the party and SA , so that "we" (meaning the army) him couldn't get rid of.

Use as a show jumper

Edwin von Rothkirch and Trach was an excellent rider. As a show jumper , he took part in the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. During the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, he was in charge of the Japanese show jumping team. In the post-war period he was involved in the rebuilding of equestrian sport in West Germany.

family

On September 16, 1922, he married Albertine von Schaumburg (1902–1935) in Oberurff , the older of the two daughters of Count Karl August Friedrich Felix von Schaumburg (1878–1905), a granddaughter of Prince Philipp von Hanau-Hořovice and great-granddaughter of the last Elector of Hesse-Kassel , Friedrich Wilhelm . The marriage came from the son Leopold Graf von Rothkirch and Trach (1923–2009).

At the age of 71, Rothkirch married on October 21, 1959 the recently widowed Hertha von Richter-Rettershof, born vom Rath (1899–1990), widow of the major a. D. and owner of the Rettershof estate near Kelkheim (Taunus) , Felix von Richter-Rettershof (1877–1958). Rothkirch spent the last years of his life at the Rettershof. In 1975 he received the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st Class.

Private films

Von Rothkirch filmed his private and military career from 1932 to 1945. The recordings, some even in color, usually achieve the quality of newsreel recordings of the time . The recordings, also in private life, were even rehearsed beforehand if possible. During the war Rothkirch can usually be seen in the picture. He seems to have had a subordinate who did the recordings. Although he was only deployed in the Reich and occupied territories until the beginning of 1942, he was filmed like a commander of troops at the front on victory parades and other occasions. The private films were made available to the NDR by his son Leopold and, with documentary processing, were used in the 2005 NDR production “Graf Rothkirchs Krieg - Privatfilme eines Wehrmachtsgenerals”.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels , Adelslexikon Volume XVIII, Volume 139 of the complete series, CA Starke Verlag , Limburg (Lahn) 2006, ISSN  0435-2408 , pp. 361-362.
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Keilig: The Generals of the Army 1939-1945. Podzun-Pallas-Verlag, Friedberg 1983, p. 285. Other sources incorrectly state March 1, 1908 as the date of entry into the army.
  3. ↑ Reichswehr Ministry (Ed.): Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres. Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin 1924, p. 130
  4. ↑ Count Rothkirch's War - Private Films of a Wehrmacht General
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Keilig: The Generals of the Army 1939-1945. Podzun-Pallas-Verlag, Friedberg 1983. p. 285
  6. ↑ Jörn Hasenclever: Wehrmacht and Occupation Policy in the Soviet Union: The Commanders of the Rear Army Areas 1941–1943. Schöningh, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-76709-7 , p. 13.
  7. ↑ Dieter Pohl: The rule of the Wehrmacht. 2011, pp. 321-322.
  8. ↑ Peter Neu, Hubert Orth: At the end of the chaos; The last days of the 2nd World War in the Bernkastel-Wittlich area. Archive for culture and history of the district of Bernkastel-Wittlich, Volume 4, Weiss-Druck + Verlag, Monschau 1982, p. 83.
  9. ↑ Matthias Thömmes: The Americans are coming; The conquest of the Eifel by the Americans in 1944/1945. Helios, Aachen 2000, ISBN 3-933608-22-8 , p. 122.
  10. ↑ Count Rothkirch's War - In the film archive of a Wehrmacht general (44 min., NDR 2006)
  11. ↑ Eberhard von Breitenbuch: Memories of a reserve officer 1939–1945. Pp. 210-212.
  12. ↑ Eberhard von Breitenbuch: Memories of a reserve officer 1939–1945. Pp. 86-87.
  13. ↑ Count Rothkirch's War - In the film archive of a Wehrmacht general
personal data
SURNAME Rothkirch and Trach, Edwin von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rothkirch and Trach, Edwin Graf von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cavalry general during World War II
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Militsch , Silesia
DATE OF DEATH July 29, 1980
Place of death Rettershof near Kelkheim (Taunus)