Friedrich Herrlein

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Friedrich Herrlein (born April 27, 1889 in Ehrenbreitstein ; † July 28, 1974 in Gießen ) was a German officer ( General of the Infantry since February 1944 ). He came from the Herrlein family of painters .

Life

The father of Friedrich Herrlein, Lieutenant Colonel Georg Benno Friedrich Herrlein, served as a Prussian officer in the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress near Koblenz until 1896 . That is why Friedrich Herrlein probably attended elementary school in Koblenz. After his father was transferred in 1896 as battalion commander to the Kaiser Wilhelm infantry regiment in Giessen , Friedrich attended the local grammar school. From there he went to the cadet corps Berlin-Lichterfelde , from where he joined the army as an ensign on March 3, 1910 and was appointed lieutenant in the 3rd Guards Regiment on foot on March 20, 1911 .

First World War

After his first assignment at the front, first at Namur , then in East Prussia , he became regimental adjutant in November 1914. As a participant in the First World War , he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords by Kaiser Wilhelm II on February 26, 1917 . At the end of the war in 1918 he was a captain and second general staff officer of the 22nd Infantry Division .

Between the world wars

At the beginning of January 1919 he was involved in the suppression of the Spartacus uprising in Berlin as commander of a volunteer corps , and then in fighting in Courland . In autumn 1919 Herrlein was accepted into the Reichswehr , where he served in Prenzlau , Potsdam , Ratzeburg , Lübeck , Bremen and Delmenhorst . After being promoted to lieutenant colonel on July 1, 1934, he became commander of the 116th Infantry Regiment on October 6, 1936. The next promotion was on January 1, 1937, to colonel .

Second World War

At the beginning of the war in 1939 Herrlein was deployed in France , where he was appointed major general on February 1, 1941 . Then he was given command of the 18th Infantry Division on March 28, 1941 , with which he was in action from June 22, 1941, first in East Prussia and then in the direction of Moscow . Because of the capture of a railway bridge near Kirishi by his division, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on September 22, 1941. Herrlein's illness in December 1941 led to a withdrawal from the front. After recovery, he was first assigned to the General Staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and promoted to Lieutenant General on September 1, 1942 . After being appointed Commanding General of the LV. Army Corps on October 6, 1943, Herrlein was on the Eastern Front until February 5, 1945 . During this time he was promoted to General of the Infantry on February 1, 1944 . In the last months of the war he was general for the special use of Army Group South in the west, where he was captured on April 18, 1945.

post war period

After the end of the war, Herrlein was in English captivity until May 17, 1948, from where he was released as unencumbered.

After the end of the Second World War , Friedrich Herrlein campaigned intensively for Franco-German reconciliation and cooperation. Because of his special way of "standing up for the preservation of peace through conciliatory, human coexistence, so that the community of the German and French people could form a cornerstone of the European structure on a solid basis of trust and respect" , he was awarded the Plaque of honor awarded by the French city of Chalon-sur-Saône .

From July 1955 to 1956 Herrlein was a member of the personnel appraisal committee for the new Bundeswehr .

In the post-war period, Herr was politically active in the German party , for which he ran unsuccessfully on the Hessian state list in the 1957 federal election.

Awards

literature

  • Messages from the comradeship of the former 116 Gießen , issue 55/56 from August 28, 1969 (special issue for the 80th birthday of Friedrich Herrlein).
  • Wolf Keilig: Die Generale des Heeres , Friedberg (Hessen), 1983, ISBN 3-7909-0202-0 , p. 138

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Proof of rank
  2. ↑ Historic.de
  3. ↑ Quotation from: Communications from the comradeship of the former 116 Gießen, issue 55/56 from August 28, 1969
  4. ↑ Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 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. 385.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Little gentleman, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German general during the Second World War
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Ehrenbreitstein
DATE OF DEATH July 28, 1974
Place of death to water