Fritz Witt

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Fritz Witt (center) in discussions with Max Wünsche and Kurt Meyer on the French front (1944)
Protected by an armored personnel carrier , the regimental commander SS-Standartenführer Fritz Witt and his men advance along Sumskaya Street in Kharkov . Photo taken on March 1, 1943

Fritz Witt (born May 27, 1908 in Hohenlimburg ; † June 14, 1944 in Venoix near Caen ) was a German SS brigade leader and major general of the Waffen SS in World War II .

Life

Witt was the son of a salesman and worked for a textile company for several years. After he lost his job in June 1931, he joined the NSDAP (membership number 816.769) and became a candidate for the SS (membership number 21.518). First he served in the SS staff guard in Berlin , in 1934 he was promoted to SS-Obersturmführer with command of the 3rd company of SS-Standarte 1 "Germany" .

Witt was in 1939 in the Second World War the invasion of Poland with the Iron Cross awarded II. And First Class.
In October 1940 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . He was transferred to the new Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler . With the standard he took part in operations in the Balkans in 1941 and then in the Russian campaign.
In 1943 he received the oak leaves for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, which Adolf Hitler personally presented to him at the Fuehrer's headquarters . After his promotion to SS-Obersturmbannführer in June 1943, he became commander of the newly established 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" . In 1944 Witt became SS-Brigadführer and Major General of the Waffen-SS , at the age of 35 the second youngest officer in the rank of general after Adolf Galland .

The Champigny St. André 2000 military cemetery

In June 1944 the Hitler Youth Division was assigned to the battle against the Allied landings in Normandy . During the fighting, members of the division killed more than 150 Canadian prisoners of war . When Witt found out about these crimes, he ordered an investigation and requested a written report from the responsible SS Standartenführer Kurt Meyer . Witt died shortly afterwards when his headquarters in Venoix came under heavy shell fire from the battleship HMS Rodney during the Battle of Caen on June 14, 1944 . His grave is in the Champigny St. André military cemetery near Evreux in Normandy.

Witt was married and had three sons and two daughters.

Awards

See also

swell

Web links

Commons : Fritz Witt  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Samuel W. Mitcham : The Desert Fox in Normandy: Rommel's defense of Fortress Europe . Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997, p. 100
  2. ^ D-Day. The Battle for Normandy ("D-Day. The Battle for Normandy"), Antony Beevor ; Bertelsmann, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-570-10007-3 .
personal data
SURNAME Witt, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS brigade leader in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Hohenlimburg
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1944
Place of death Venoix