Friedrich Foertsch

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Friedrich Foertsch, around 1961

Friedrich Albert Foertsch (born May 19, 1900 in Drahnow, district of Deutsch Krone / West Prussia ; † December 14, 1976 in Goslar ) was a German officer , general of the Wehrmacht (most recently lieutenant general ) and from 1961 to 1963 the second general inspector of the Bundeswehr .

He was the younger brother of General of the Infantry Hermann Foertsch .

Life

Friedrich Foertsch was the son of an employee of the State Administration of the Prussian Settlement Commission for Posen and West Prussia.

He attended the grammar schools in Hohensalza and Graudenz and passed the final exams there in May 1918 .

Foertsch joined the 8th West Prussian Infantry Regiment No. 175 in Graudenz on May 21, 1918 as a flag junior and, after his recruit training, witnessed the last battles of the regiment on the Scheldt, northeast of Lille.

After the end of the First World War , he joined the Hindenburg Freikorps and was then taken over as an ensign in the Reichswehr on January 1, 1921 . He was used in the 17th Infantry Regiment in Braunschweig and promoted to lieutenant on April 1, 1922 . As a first lieutenant (from February 1, 1927) he was transferred to Goslar on October 1, 1927 and was employed as adjutant to III. Hunter battalion of his regiment. From October 1, 1932 to April 14, 1935, Foertsch was trained as a general staff officer at the Army War Academy and in the meantime was promoted to captain on April 1, 1934 . This was followed by a command to the staff of the Königsberg command, before he became company commander in the 81st Infantry Regiment on October 1, 1937 . A year later, Foertsch was transferred to the general staff of III. Army Corps in which he was employed as 2nd General Staff Officer (Quartermaster) with supply issues.

Foertsch was considered hardworking, meticulous and analytically gifted, so he was only used in staff assignments.

After the beginning of the Second World War , he came on October 25, 1939 as first general staff officer in the general staff of the 60th Infantry Division and took part in the French campaign. Immediately after the end of the campaign, he was appointed General Staff Officer for demobilization issues at the Deputy General Command III in Berlin, and on October 1, 1940, he was appointed Group Leader I at the Head of Army Armament and Commander of the Replacement Army. As such, he had to deal with organizational and training matters, in particular for the reorganization of divisional associations and army troops.

On June 1, 1942, he was promoted to colonel and was transferred to the staff of the 18th Army on the Eastern Front ( Army Group North ) as First General Staff Officer (Ia) . He was promoted to Chief of Staff of the 18th Army on December 1, 1943, and to Major General on June 1, 1944 .

After the Red Army's breakthrough to the Baltic coast near Memel , Army Group North was included in the Kurland basin from October 10, 1944 . On January 25, 1945, Army Group North was renamed Heeresgruppe Kurland and Foertsch rose to become Chief of Staff of Army Group Kurland in January 1945. At the end of the war he went as a lieutenant general with his soldiers in Soviet captivity .

In the Soviet war crimes trials in 1949, Foertsch was charged with the fact that "the troops and units subordinate to him destroyed the cities of Pskov, Novgorod and Leningrad and destroyed historical art monuments in the cities of Gatchina, Peterhof, Pavlovsk and Pushkin" . Foertsch admitted to having given these orders, but pleaded not guilty as he considered the orders (artillery fire, etc.) to be necessary in order to wage war against the Soviet Union.

On June 29, 1950, the Soviet military tribunal sentenced him to 25 years of forced labor as a war criminal .

After the Soviet Union had officially ended the state of war with Germany in January 1955, Chancellor Adenauer traveled to Moscow and achieved the release of the last German prisoners of war ( "Homecoming of the Ten Thousand" ), who were still in Soviet captivity. Among them was Friedrich Foertsch, who was released from prisoner-of-war camp 5110/48 Woikowo in autumn 1955 .

Foertsch weighed 46 kilograms when he returned home and was blind in one eye while in captivity. It took him a year to recover, but as one of the few generals who returned home late, he quickly decided to join the newly created Bundeswehr.

Foertsch was found suitable by the personnel appraisal committee to join the Bundeswehr. The fact that he was never a member of the NSDAP and had kept his distance from Nazi leaders during the war enabled him to pursue an appropriate career.

On November 2, 1956, Foertsch entered the Bundeswehr with the rank of major general and became the commanding general of the II Corps in Ulm, which was under construction . After completing this construction, it began the use for which it was originally intended and on April 5, 1957, was commander of the 2nd Grenadier Division in Giessen.

In his work as corps and division commander, Foertsch had proven himself to be a good partner to the French, British and above all American armed forces and was therefore earmarked for a NATO assignment. After six months of preparation (which also included a language course) for this new role in the Bundeswehr, he was promoted to lieutenant general in 1958 and served from January 1, 1959 to the end of March 1961 as deputy chief of the "Plans and Policy" staff (planning and fundamental questions ) at the NATO headquarters SHAPE in Paris.

Also because of this activity, Foertsch was appointed Inspector General of the Bundeswehr on April 1, 1961 . He succeeded Adolf Heusinger and was promoted to general a little later .

The Soviet Union protested because of his service in the Wehrmacht and his o. G. Conviction against his appointment. This protest and the associated allegations were firmly rejected by the federal government.

During Foertsch's term of office, the controversies surrounding Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss and the discussions about the role, size and nuclear armament of the Bundeswehr, as well as the production of the first prototype of the Leopard 1 battle tank . On December 31, 1963, Friedrich Foertsch was retired; Heinz Trettner became his successor.

He spent his twilight years in his old garrison town of Goslar .

Awards

literature

  • Dermot Bradley: The Generals of the Army 1921-1945, Volume 4: Fleck-Gyldenfeldt . Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1996, ISBN 3-7648-2488-3 , pp. 24-25
  • The unknown (portrait) . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1961 ( online ).
  • Conditionally ready for defense . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1962 ( online ).
  • Friedrich Foertsch . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1962 ( online - cover story, together with "Conditionally ready for defense").

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Foertsch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Friedrich Foertsch . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1962 ( online - cover story).
  2. ^ Andreas Hilger: Soviet Justice and War Crimes . (PDF) In: Soviet War Criminal Trials 1941–1949 , Institute for Contemporary History , 2006, p. 465 ff., Accessed on February 22, 2019.
  3. ↑ To this end, Der Spiegel wrote in its edition 17/1961: “During the preliminary investigation, Friedrich Foertsch did not get involved without military logic:“ I admit that I gave the orders mentioned (artillery fire on Leningrad), but I do not plead guilty, because the orders I gave were necessary to wage war against the Soviet Union. ""
  4. ↑ The Unknown . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1961 ( online ).
  5. ↑ Manfred Zeidler: Stalin Justice contra Nazi crimes. The war crimes trials against German prisoners of war in the USSR in 1943–1952. State of knowledge and research problems. (PDF) Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism, Dresden 1996, ISBN 3-931648-08-7 , p. 70: "Transport list for returnees from October 1955 with those released from the Vojkovo general camp."
  6. ^ Friedrich-Christian Stahl: Foertsch, Friedrich. In: East German biography. Kulturportal-west-ost, 2019, accessed on March 5, 2019 : “After its review, the personnel appraisal committee decided:“ The personal suitability of GL aD Friedr. Foertsch for a position in the armed forces is affirmed. "(BA-MA, Pers 1/14126)"
  7. ^ Friedrich-Christian Stahl: Friedrich Foertsch. In: East German biography. Kulturportal West-Ost, 2019, accessed on March 5, 2019 : “How much he was valued by his American superiors can be seen from the following assessments. General CVR Schuyler ruled on October 15, 1959: "With his confident and clear, but also binding demeanor, he brought about the harmonious cooperation of the departments subordinate to him and earned the respect and admiration of his superiors and subordinates alike". General Norstad added: 'I am happy to be able to rely on his experienced judgment at SHAPE headquarters.' "
  8. ↑ The Unknown . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1961 ( online ). There it says: (...) The official Bonn comment that Foreign Office press officer von Hase gave after this meeting did not quite hit the biting tone of the Moscow complaint: the Soviet Union had "no say" in the appointment of Bundeswehr officers. The character and professional qualities of General Foertsch are "beyond any doubt". And with a roar: "Instead of worrying about the appointment of officers of the Bundeswehr, the Soviet Union should direct its attention to the staffing of the so-called People's Army stationed in its zone of occupation." wanted to set the day, it is in fact incomprehensible why they did not use the war criminal law, which was overused in the Foertsch case, against those generals from Hitler's armed forces who serve in the People's Police and in the People's Army. In addition, the Foertsch charge of war crimes through artillery shelling and bombing defended cities in the operational area even hit the attacking leaders of the Soviet Army against Breslau, Koenigsberg or Berlin, and last but not least the commanders of the British-American air forces, who carefully planned residential areas in the cities of the German hinterland bombed. (...)
  9. ↑ Conditionally ready for defense . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1962 ( online ).
  10. ↑ 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. 313.
personal data
SURNAME Foertsch, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Foertsch, Friedrich Albert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, lieutenant general in World War II, inspector general of the Bundeswehr (1961–1963)
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Drahnow , West Prussia
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 1976
Place of death Goslar