Fritz Christians

This article deals with the SS member Fritz Christen. For the district administrator, see Fritz von Christen .

Fritz Christen (born June 29, 1921 in Wredenhagen , † September 23, 1995 in Neusorg , Upper Palatinate ) was an SS-Oberscharführer of the Waffen-SS in World War II . He was the first knight's cross bearer of the Waffen SS from among the ranks of the crew.

Life

The son of a forestry worker and trained blacksmith Christen joined the Waffen SS as a volunteer in 1940 . With the rank of SS storm husband Christians belonged to the attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 in the area of Army Group North to the 2nd Company of the SS tank destroyer department of SS Division Totenkopf , where he was a gunner of a 5-cm-PaK 38 was used. During the defensive battle near Lushno north of Demyansk (September 24 to September 29, 1941), he shot down six tanks in close combat on the first day of a Soviet offensive. In a renewed attack by ten Soviet tanks the next day, the entire remaining gun crew was killed. Christen survived badly wounded, put seven other tanks out of action and killed almost one hundred Soviet soldiers, which prevented the enemy units from breaking through to Demyansk. At the suggestion of the division commander Theodor Eicke , Christen was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on October 20, 1941. Adolf Hitler made the award personally. National Socialist propaganda showed the young bearer of the Knight's Cross in the 588th weekly newsreel (December 10, 1941) visiting his parents and staged Christians as models of the “heroic” and at the same time “down to earth” SS fighter. From November 1941 to February 1942 he completed an SS-Unterscharführer training at the SS-Unterführerschule Radolfzell . As SS-Oberscharführer he came to the SS-Unterführerschule Lauenburg and later returned to his main unit. As a member of the 3rd SS Panzer Division "Totenkopf" he was first taken prisoner by the Americans and later by the Soviets in May 1945, from which he was released in 1955.

literature

• Charles W. Sydnor: Soldiers of Destruction. The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1990.

German: Soldiers of Death. The 3rd SS Division "Totenkopf" 1933–1945. 4th edition. Schöningh, Paderborn 2001/2005, p. 164 f.