Friedrich-August von Brühl

Maria Friedrich-August Franziskus Hubertus Benedikt Johannes von Nepomuk Graf von Brühl (born May 13, 1913 in Pförten ; † November 5, 1981 in Bramsche-Sögeln ) was a German officer in the armored forces of the Wehrmacht in World War II , most recently a lieutenant colonel in the Bundeswehr and porter of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross .

Life

origin

Brühl came from an old Saxon-Thuringian noble family with ancestral home on Gangloffsommern in Thuringia , which had come to power and influence especially in Saxony . As a result of the Seven Years' War, the state rule of Pförten came into Prussian territory, but remained in the family's possession and established the right to a hereditary seat in the Prussian manor house .

Friedrich-August was the son of Friedrich-Joseph von Brühl (1875-1949) and his wife Mathilde, née Freiin von Twickel (born March 30, 1877 - October 23, 1957) and thus a direct descendant of Heinrich von Brühl .

His son is Friedrich Leopold Graf von Brühl , who later was mayor of Werl in North Rhine-Westphalia. He is still the boss of the Brühl house today.

Military career

Reichswehr and Wehrmacht

After completing his Abitur in 1934, Brühl joined the Reichswehr as a soldier and completed his basic infantry training there , which he completed as a private (sergeant candidate). He then returned to his former bourgeois life as a reservist in the Wehrmacht, where he was promoted to lieutenant in the reserve on March 23, 1937 . In the course of the general mobilization , Brühl was reactivated on August 1, 1939 and assigned to the 2nd Division of Panzer Regiment 2 ( 16th Panzer Division ). With this company, which had crossed the Polish border at Grunsruh on September 1, 1939 , von Brühl took part in the attack on Poland with an attack in the direction of Warsaw . After the end of the Blitzkrieg, he was promoted to first lieutenant in the reserve with effect from November 1, 1939 . Subsequently, he was deployed in the same company on the western campaign .

With effect from June 22, 1941, the day Operation Barbarossa began , Brühl was deployed as chief of the 8th Company of Panzer Regiment 2 as part of Army Group South in the Black Sea section, where he became captain on May 30, 1942 the reserve is promoted to seniority . On July 2, 1942, he received the German Cross in Gold. In the Battle of Stalingrad, Brühl and his subordinate armored forces destroyed more than 100 Soviet tanks, so that an important high altitude area north of Stalingrad could be occupied. As a result, Brühl received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on November 3, 1942. After the complete annihilation of Panzer Regiment 2 in Stalingrad in January 1943, von Brühl, who was able to escape the boiler, returned to Germany, where he was immediately transferred to Italy after a short home leave .

Shortly thereafter, Brühl returned to the Eastern Front, where on September 10, 1943 he was again promoted to Captain of the Reserve with a different seniority. On March 20, 1944, Brühl was appointed commander of the 2nd Division of the 16th Panzer Regiment, which was deployed on the Western Front . Brühl and his company were then involved in fighting in the Normandy area and moved eastward. On November 30, 1944, Brühl received his promotion to major in the reserve. On August 26, 1944, his son Friedrich Leopold was born to his wife Marie Elisabeth Countess von Korff in Breslau . As part of the Ardennes offensive , Brühl was involved in the unsuccessful company with his tank department at the turn of the year 1944/45. He withdrew in renewed retreat battles as far as the Kleve - Wesel area, was trapped in the Ruhr basin in April 1945 and there became a British prisoner of war.

armed forces

In 1956 Brühl joined the newly founded Bundeswehr , where he was deployed at the armored troop school in Munster from 1958 and promoted to lieutenant colonel. From October 1, 1958 to September 30, 1962, Brühl was then the first commander of the newly established Panzer Battalion 83 in Lüneburg (established on October 1, 1958) before he was appointed site commander in Hanover on November 1, 1962 . From 1967 until his retirement he was in command of Defense District Command 211, based in Bückeburg . He was responsible for the districts of Schaumburg-Lippe , Grafschaft Schaumburg , Neustadt am Rübenberge, Hameln-Üyrmont, Springe and Hanover and at the same time location elder in Bückeburg, Achum and Bad Eilsen . He retired on September 30, 1969 at the age of 56.

Web links

• Internet presence of the Panzer Battalion 83

literature

• Manfred Dörr: The knight's cross bearers of the German Wehrmacht. Part VIIIa: Armored Force. Volume 1: A-E. Pp. 212-213.
• Walther-Peer Fellgiebel : The bearers of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. 1939-1945. Podzun-Pallas, ISBN 3-7909-0284-5 .
• Anthony Read: The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle. WW Norton 2004, ISBN 9780393048001 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Anthony Read: The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle. WW Norton 2004
2. ↑ Commanders of the 83rd Panzer Battalion