Ernst Volckheim

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Lieutenant Volckheim (arrow) with his tank crew 560 "Alter Fritz" shortly before the end of the war in 1918

Ernst Volckheim (born April 11, 1898 in Bornheim ; † September 1, 1962 ) was a German colonel and is considered a co-creator of the German armored force. His concepts for the use of tanks, developed in the early 1920s, formed the basis for the later theories of General Oswald Lutz , Colonel-General Heinz Guderian and General Walther Nehring .

Life

Volckheim joined the Prussian Army as a volunteer during the First World War in 1915 and received an officer's license as a lieutenant on April 1, 1916 . In 1917 he was leader of a machine gun - company on the Western Front . As a member of a heavy combat vehicle division , Volckheim fought in April 1918 in the Battle of Villers-Bretonneux . Shortly before the end of the war, he was seriously wounded in combat with his A7V assault armored car . For his achievements during the war, he was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross and the Wound Badge in silver. Later he also received the combat vehicle commemorative badge .

After the end of the war , Volckheim was taken over by the newly established Reichswehr and served in the motor vehicle troop. With the transfer to the inspection of the Breslau-Süd transport troops in February 21, 1919, his theoretical work on the use of the armored car as an element of combat management began. In 1925, Volckheim was transferred to the infantry school in Dresden as a first lieutenant to teach tank combat and the combat of motorized troops.

Between 1923 and 1927 he published numerous articles and books on the subject of tank combat in the military weekly newspaper . Thereby he attracted the attention of Lieutenant General a. D. Constantin von Altrock , the editor of this newspaper, who won Volckheim as chief author of the monthly magazine Der Kampfwagen . In these he made the demand for a radio equipment of the tanks as well as the improvement of mobility and armor. It should be used in closed associations.

From 1932 to 1933 Volckheim was a tactics teacher for German and Russian students at the secret German-Soviet tank school Kama , which was a secret project of the Reichswehr and the Soviet Army, and which served the development of armored cars in the Kazan tractor factory, and thus against the prohibition of the Versailles Treaty violated. In the late 1930s he was busy drawing up regulations for the armored forces .

During the Second World War , Lieutenant Colonel Volckheim initially served as commander of the tank division z. b. V. 40 in Norway and in 1941 took over the post of commander of the armored troop school in Wünsdorf. He was used by the Supreme General Staff for secret operations and tactics. So u. a. to search for a port suitable for landing tanks in Albania .

Works

Books

  • The German chariots in the world war. Berlin 1923; later republished: German chariots attack! Experiences of a combat vehicle driver on the Western Front in 1918. Berlin 1937.
  • The chariot in today's warfare. Berlin 1924.
  • The chariot and defense against it. Berlin 1925.
  • Our new tank force. Bernard & Graefe, Berlin 1938.

items

  • About chariots in war of movement. In: Military weekly paper. Issue 3, Berlin 1924.
  • Chariot use in war of movement. In: Military weekly paper. Issue 10, Berlin 1924.
  • Caterpillars or wheel drives in chariots. In: Military weekly paper. Issue 5, Berlin 1924.
  • Use of French chariots in battle. In: Konstantin von Altrock: The chariot. 1925.
  • The German tank weapon . In: Georg Wetzell (Ed.): The German Wehrmacht. Berlin 1939, pp. 293-338.

literature

  • James S. Corum: The Roots of Blitzkrieg. Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1992.
  • Markus Pöhlmann: The tank and the mechanization of war: a German story from 1890 to 1945. Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 2016.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reichswehr Ministry (Ed.): Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres. ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1924, p. 187.
  2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZlQyA2ujS0 Dr. Roman Töppel: Guderian and the German tank weapon - legend and reality
personal data
SURNAME Volckheim, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer and military theorist
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Bornheim
DATE OF DEATH September 1, 1962