Fridolin von Senger and Etterlin

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General von Senger and Etterlin (1944)

Fridolin Rudolf Theodor Ritter and Edler von Senger and Etterlin (born September 4, 1891 in Waldshut , † January 4, 1963 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German officer , most recently a general of the tank troops in World War II and co-author of the Himmeroder memorandum in 1950 .

Life

Military career until 1945

Senger and Etterlin came from a family of the Upper Franconian imperial nobility , completed his military service as a one-year volunteer in October 1910 in the 5th Baden Field Artillery Regiment No. 76 and then studied law in Freiburg im Breisgau and Oxford . In Oxford he was a member of the “Hanover Club” , a German-British debating club that existed from 1911 to 1913 under the leadership of Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff , which was supposed to promote mutual understanding.

When the First World War broke out , he was called up as a lieutenant in the reserve and deployed with his regiment on the western front. Shortly before the end of the war, he was promoted to first lieutenant on June 20, 1918 , later accepted into the Reichswehr and assigned to the 5th (Prussian) cavalry regiment in Belgard . He then joined the staff of the 18th Cavalry Regiment in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt in 1921 , was entrusted with command of the squadron in Ludwigsburg from April 1924 and promoted to Rittmeister on May 1, 1924 . Senger and Etterlin took over the training department of the regiment, became major on August 1, 1932 and, after being promoted to lieutenant colonel (from August 1, 1936), chief of Cavalry Regiment 3 in Göttingen on November 10, 1938 .

Senger and Etterlin, promoted to colonel on March 1, 1939 , took part with his regiment in the attack on Poland at the beginning of the Second World War and took over Cavalry Brigade 1 on February 7, 1940 before the campaign in the west . After the fighting was over, Senger and Etterlin were from July 1940 to July 1942 head of the German liaison delegation in Turin at the Italian-French armistice commission and was promoted to major general in this function on September 1, 1941 .

Senger and Etterlin (2nd from right) with the abbot of the Monte Cassino monastery (center)

On October 10, 1942, he received command of the 17th Panzer Division and led the unit in the fighting around Rostov, before being relieved after his promotion to Lieutenant General on May 1, 1943, and to Wehrmacht commander in Sicily and in August 1943 to Wehrmacht commander in Sardinia and Corsica . In October 1943 Senger and Etterlin were entrusted with the leadership of the XIV. Panzer Corps , promoted to General of the Panzer Force on January 1, 1944 and appointed General of the Corps in command . As such, he was instrumental in the Battle of Monte Cassino . From October 5 to 23, 1944, he was briefly assigned to command the 14th Army .

post war period

As part of the surrender of the German troops , Senger and Etterlin came with the remnants of his tank corps as part of Army Group C in northern Italy on May 2, 1945, as a US prisoner of war , from which he was released in mid-1947.

In the post-war period Senger and Etterlin played a key role in drafting the Himmeroder memorandum in 1950 , which led to the establishment of the Bundeswehr and the rearmament of Germany. From July 1955 to 1956 he was a member of the personnel appraisal committee for the new Bundeswehr. From 1956 to 1958 he was a member of the leading "Control Group" of the Operational History (German) Section of the "Historical Division" of the US Army and repeatedly traveled to the United States to give lectures in American military schools on the strategy of the Wehrmacht against the Red Army Keep army. Senger and Etterlin were also members of the working group for military research , in which former Wehrmacht generals and civil historians wrote on the history of the Second World War. From 1958 he was a member of the Advisory Board for internal management issues in the Bundeswehr.

He was the father of Ferdinand von Senger and Etterlin , who later became General of the German Armed Forces and NATO Commander in Chief Central Europe .

Awards

literature

Web links

Commons : Fridolin von Senger and Etterlin  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reventlow (Ed.), Contribution by Harald Mandt, p. 26
  2. ^ Karsten Plöger: The Hanover Club, Oxford (1911-13): Student Paradiplomacy and the Coming of the Great War. In: German History Volume 27, No. 2, pp. 196-214.
  3. ↑ Esther-Julia Howell: Learn from the vanquished? The war-history cooperation between the US Army and the former Wehrmacht elite 1945–1961. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin 2015, p. 227 u. P. 342 (there compilation of his biographical data as "biogram")
  4. ↑ a b c Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Ed .: Reichswehrministerium , Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin 1930, p. 139.
  5. ↑ 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. 702.
personal data
SURNAME Senger and Etterlin, Fridolin von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Senger and Etterlin, Fridolin Rudolf Theodor Ritter and Edler von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German General of the Armored Force in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH September 4, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Waldshut
DATE OF DEATH 4th January 1963
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau