Fritz Freitag (officer)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oberführer of the Waffen SS Fritz Freitag (1942)

Fritz Freitag (born April 28, 1894 in Allenstein ; † May 10, 1945 near Graz , Styria ) was a German officer , most recently an SS brigade leader and major general of the Waffen SS and police.

Life

Friday was the son of a railway chief secretary. He finished his school career in his hometown with the Abitur, took up a medical degree and at the same time entered the grenadier regiment "Kronprinz" (1st East Prussian) No. 1 of the Prussian Army on April 1, 1914 . Freitag belonged to this regiment throughout the First World War . Most recently he held the rank of lieutenant of the reserve and with both classes of the Iron Cross was also the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords and the Austrian Military Merit Cross III. Class has been awarded.

After the end of the war, Freitag briefly resumed his studies, but in January 1919 he joined a volunteer corps . In February 1920 he then joined the police force and was last lieutenant colonel in the police force. On May 1, 1933, Freitag joined the NSDAP ( membership number 3,052,501). From 1936 he taught tactics at the police officers' school in Berlin-Köpenick and became deputy commander there in 1938. On the invasion of Poland Friday took over as Ia part of the police regiment 3rd At the beginning of October 1939 he became chief of staff of the police group under the command of Udo von Woyrsch . In 1940 he returned to the police school.

On September 1, 1940, Freitag joined the SS (membership number 393.266), where in April 1944 he was promoted to SS-Brigadführer and Major General of the Waffen-SS and Police. In April / May 1941, he was as Ia Division I in the command staff realm leader SS commanded. He was on leave from June 19, 1941, and in August 1941 he became a commanding officer of the 1st SS Brigade. As commander of the Waffen SS , the 8th SS Cavalry Division "Florian Geyer" and the 4th SS Police Panzer Grenadier Division were in command . From 1943 until the end of the war, with a brief interruption in 1944, Freitag led the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (Galician No. 1) as commander . On April 30, 1942, he was awarded the German Cross in Gold and on September 30, 1944 with the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross .

On May 8, 1945, he fell in Radstadt in British captivity and was in an American POW camp in Graz spent where it for possible transfer to the Soviet Union in 1945 on May 10 suicide committed.

See also

literature

  • Martin Cüppers : pioneer of the Shoah. The Waffen-SS, the Reichsführer-SS command staff and the extermination of the Jews 1939-1945 . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2005.
  • Veit Scherzer : Himmler's military elite. The highly decorated members of the Waffen SS. An evaluation based on the files of the Federal Archives and the National Archives of the USA. Volume 1: A-Ka. Verlag Veit Scherzer, Bayreuth 2014, ISBN 978-3-938845-26-4 , p. 315.
  • Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr .: The German Defeat in the East, 1944-45. 2007, ISBN 0-8117-3371-8 , pp. 73ff. ( Online ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 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. 318.
personal data
SURNAME Friday, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently an SS brigade leader and major general of the Waffen SS and police
DATE OF BIRTH April 28, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Allenstein
DATE OF DEATH May 10, 1945
Place of death Graz , Styria