Erwin Jaenecke

Erwin Jaenecke (born April 22, 1890 in Freren , Lingen district , † July 3, 1960 in Kassel-Fasanenhof ) was a German officer , most recently Colonel General in World War II .

Life

Empire and First World War

Jaenecke passed his Abitur at the grammar school in Leer and then joined the Hanoverian Pioneer Battalion No. 10 of the Prussian Army in Minden on March 27, 1911 as a flag junior . From October 1, 1911 to July 30, 1912 he was assigned to the Hanover War School ( Waterlooplatz ). After his return he was promoted to lieutenant on August 18, 1912 . As such, he was deployed on the Western Front with the 2nd Company of his battalion after the outbreak of World War I and mobilization . From July 23, 1915, he acted as leader of the 5th Company, before he was appointed as an adjutant of the battalion from March 3, 1916 after his promotion to first lieutenant on January 27, 1916 . On October 23, he again took over the 5th Company and was then transferred to the staff of the 19th Division as an orderly officer on December 9, 1917 . At the same time, from May 13 to June 24, 1918, he was assigned to the 2nd Hanover Field Artillery Regiment No. 26 . From August 29, 1918 he was second general staff officer with the staff of the 26th Division . After the end of the war, Jaenecke was transferred back to his regular battalion on December 16, 1918.

Weimar Republic

After demobilization he joined on January 7, 1919 briefly a volunteer corps and served as leader of the 2nd Company of the mortar division of the Guard Cavalry Rifle Division . From there he was commanded to serve with the General Staff on February 20, and six months later he was transferred to the Reichswehr Infantry Regiment 30 . A short time later, on October 6, 1919, he was transferred to the staff of Military District Command VI in Münster . From there he came a year later as an auxiliary officer to the staff of the 6th Division and subsequently completed his training as assistant leader . Another year later he was transferred to the 9th (Prussian) cavalry regiment . There Jaenecke was promoted to Rittmeister on May 1, 1922 . In the following years Jaenecke worked in the Reichswehr Ministry and was responsible for special tasks such as B. supervised staff activities in Group Command 2 and intelligence activities. In 1925 he was transferred to Königsberg , where two years later he was given command of the 1st Company in Pioneer Battalion 4. On October 1, 1931, he was appointed major in the 2nd (Prussian) cavalry regiment . Later, in September 1932, he was given the position of course director at the War Academy in Berlin, whose activities were kept secret from the public until the armed forces began to arm themselves.

time of the nationalsocialism

Pre-war period

Erwin Jaenecke was promoted to lieutenant colonel on April 1, 1934 , and in October 1934 he was given command of the Pioneer Battalion 31 in Höxter on the Weser, which was under construction . On March 1, 1936, he was promoted to colonel . On April 26, 1937 Jaenecke was involved in the Condor Legion in the bombing of the town of Guernica in Spain as chief of the staff of the special staff W.

“ In and of itself, Guernica was a complete success for the Air Force. "

- Colonel Erwin Jaenecke

As chief quartermaster of the 8th Army, he accompanied the invasion of Austria and the Sudetenland . From November 10, 1938 he was chief of staff at the fortress inspector.

Second World War

As chief quartermaster in the 8th Army , he took part in the attack on Poland . On November 1, 1939, he was appointed major general .

From May 1, 1940 to January 31, 1942, he continued to serve as senior quartermaster in Belgium and Paris . As of October 16, 1940 as military commander for France , he was promoted to lieutenant general on November 1, 1941 .

This was followed by commands on the Eastern Front : From February 1, 1942, Lieutenant General Jaenecke commanded the 389th Infantry Division . During the Battle of Stalingrad , Kampfgruppe Jaenecke, a composite unit made up of the 389th and 305th Infantry Divisions , was deployed in the major attack on the Stalingrad tractor factory on October 14, 1942 ; after successful completion, the offensive was launched in the northern section on October 16, 1942 the gun factory "Barrikada" continued.

From November 1, 1942 to January 22, 1943 Jaenecke served as the commanding general of the IV Army Corps . On December 1, 1942, he was rarely promoted to General of the Pioneers . Jaenecke thus succeeded General of the Infantry Viktor von Schwedler , who was temporarily transferred to the Führer Reserve . At the end of November 1942, Jaenecke responded to the unstoppable advance of the Red Army towards the enclosure and the increasingly collapsing German defense lines with the following corps order:

“ With the onset of darkness, the corps sat down in the night of 22/23. November into the line Marinowka - Cybenko - Elchi - Volga, with the 29th Infantry Division (motorized) initially moving west of the Tschervlennaya in a line on both sides of Vypasnoj; All camps, troop facilities and equipment were to be pushed back behind the ordered line immediately, and goods that could no longer be salvaged were to be destroyed. "

- General of the pioneers Erwin Jaenecke

As a result of his previous staff functions, Jaenecke had extensive experience in logistics and the military supply of the army. So he believed that an air supply via Stalingrad was impractical. The model was General Litzmann from the First World War, who carried out a successful breakout attempt in the Lowitsch pocket . In Stalingrad it was planned to use the tanks with the last fuel reserves as a shock wedge and to infiltrate the infantrymen in narrow lines through the Soviet positions. According to his calculations, around 120,000 soldiers of the total of 358,000 trapped would be able to catch up with the German troops outside the pocket.

Paul's inability to make decisions led increasingly to conflicts. Jaenecke is said to have repeatedly urged Paul, with whom he was on friendly terms, to take action.

“ Put your radios together, act independently. You have to become the lion of Stalingrad. Your own head counts nothing against the lives of so many soldiers. "

- General of the pioneers Erwin Jaenecke

Before his evacuation, he had written a memorandum entitled “ The criminal madness of the greatest general of all time ”, which was sent to an unknown archive in Germany. He was the last high officer to be flown out of Stalingrad wounded before the collapse of the cauldron.

From April 1, 1943, Jaenecke took over the LXXXII as commanding general. Army Corps and from June 25th the supreme command of the 17th Army in the Caucasus and finally in the Crimea . In the autumn of 1943, he also ordered the use of the “ Taifun ” siege technique against partisans near Kerch . Combustible gases were blown into shelters and made to explode. Allied sources wrongly described the use after the war as - forbidden - use of poison gas. On January 30, 1944, he was promoted to Colonel General.

In a conversation with Hitler on April 29, 1944 in Berchtesgaden , Jaenecke urgently suggested evacuating Sevastopol in order to enable his severed army with 235,000 soldiers to be repatriated. On the return flight he was stopped in Galatz and brought before a court martial . He was supposed to be responsible for the loss of Crimea. By slowly handling the investigation, Colonel-General Guderian succeeded in dragging out the hearing and saving Jaenecke. Erwin Jaenecke was retired from military service on January 31, 1945.

On June 12, 1945 he was taken prisoner by the Soviets, where he was sentenced to death by a military tribunal, but then to 25 years of forced labor. In October 1955, Jaenecke was released from prison after Chancellor Adenauer's Moscow negotiations .

After his release from captivity, Jaenecke lived in Cologne-Lindenthal . In July 1956 he was elected first chairman of the German Pioneers' Ring of Arms . He held this position until his resignation for health reasons in June 1959.

Awards

• Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class
• Friedrich-August-Kreuz II. And I. Class
• Braunschweig War Merit Cross, 2nd class
• Lippe house order with swords
• Cross of honor for front fighters
• Wehrmacht service award IV. To I. class
• Medal in memory of March 13, 1938
• Medal in memory of October 1, 1938 with Prague Castle clasp
• Spain Cross
• Clasp for the Iron Cross, 2nd and 1st class
• Wound badge (1939) in black
• Infantry assault badge in silver
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on October 9, 1942
• German cross in gold on January 2, 1943
• Romanian military order Michael the Brave III. and II. class

literature

• Erwin Jaenecke , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 35/1960 from August 22, 1960, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
• Gerd F. Heuer: The Colonel General of the Army. Owner of the highest German command posts. Moewig Verlag, Rastatt 1988, ISBN 3-8118-1049-9 , pp. 133-137.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Death register of the registry office Kassel No. 1746/1960.
2. ↑ ^{a b} http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/people_jaenecke.html
3. ↑ ^{a b c} http://www.389id.de/Personen/Jaenecke/Jaenecke.htm
4. ↑ http://www.ohne-uns.de/archiv/97_2_3/gernika.shtml
5. ↑ The statement on www.389id.de: “General Jänecke, commander of the 389th ID receives the Iron Cross, which was bought with the blood of thousands upon thousands of soldiers in the battle for the tractor factory” , cannot be clearly proven.
6. ^ Manfred Kehrig: Stalingrad. Analysis and documentation of a battle. Stuttgart 1979, p. 37 ff.
7. ^ Manfred Kehrig: Stalingrad. Analysis and documentation of a battle. Stuttgart 1979, pp. 179-180.
8. ↑ In contradiction to this, Manfred Kehrig: Stalingrad. Analysis and documentation of a battle. Stuttgart 1979, pp. 419, 449 and 524 stated that, after assessing the situation on December 27, 1942, Jaenecke did not consider an attempt to break out in a westerly direction due to the critical supply situation. In his opinion, such a company would have little chance of success. Ultimately, Erwin Jaenecke blamed the Luftwaffe's inadequate supply performance mainly for the destruction of the 6th Army.
9. ↑ ^{a b c} "I ask to be shot". Report by Philipp Humbert . In: Der Spiegel . No.  5 , 1949, pp. 15-18 ( online - 29 January 1949 ).
10. ↑ ^{a b} Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 281.
11. ^ Chronicle of the Second World War, Chronicle Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-577-14367-3 . P. 386.
12. ↑ Norbert Scholz (Ed.): 90 Years Bund Deutsche Pioniere e. V. 1925-2015 . Association of German Pioneers V., Ingolstadt 2016 ( online ), pp. 48–52.
13. ^ ^{A b c d} Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin, p. 135.
14. ↑ ^{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. 416.