Fritz von Brodowski

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Friedrich "Fritz" Wilhelm Konrad von Brodowski (born November 26, 1886 in Köslin ; † October 28, 1944 in Besançon , France ) was a German officer , last lieutenant general in World War II , who was shot in Allied captivity in France at the end of 1944 under unexplained circumstances has been.

Life

Fritz was the son of the Prussian infantry general Fedor von Brodowski (1841–1923).

Brodowski occurred on 10 March 1904 as a cadet in the Cuirassiers "Emperor Nicholas I of Russia" (Brandenburg) no. 6 of the Prussian army in Brandenburg one. From November 6, 1904 to July 8, 1905, he was assigned to the Glogau War School and then promoted to lieutenant . Within his regiment, Brodowski served as a court officer from October 21, 1908 and was then transferred to the Guard Cuirassier Regiment on October 18, 1909 . For further training he was sent to the War Academy on October 1, 1912 , which he left as a first lieutenant when the First World War broke out .

After the mobilization , Brodowski initially acted as a squadron officer and then from August 6, 1914 as an orderly officer with the staff of the 3rd and 1st Cavalry Brigade . In the further course of the war Brodowski was promoted to Rittmeister on December 24, 1914 and served in various staffs. At the end of June 1917 he was transferred to the replacement squadon of the Guard Cuirassier Regiment and his command to the replacement battalion of Kaiser Franz Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 2 . A month later he came to the Queen Elisabeth Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 3 as a battalion leader . There he was charged with leading the fusilier battalion on August 4, 1917. In the coming months, its use within the regiment changed again and again. During the defensive battles on the western front between Cambrai and Saint-Quentin , Brodowski was wounded on September 30, 1918 and spent the end of the war in the hospital . For his services he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords, the Iron Cross II and I Class, the Wound Badge in Black and the Knight's Cross II Class of the Order of the Zähringer Lion with Swords and Oak Leaves and the Knight's Cross First class of the Albrechts Order awarded swords.

After his recovery, Brodowski was assigned to the Deputy General Staff of the Army in Berlin in December 1918. On January 18, 1919, he was transferred back to the Guard Cuirassier Regiment, which was being demobilized . Freikorps formations formed from parts of the regiment and Brodowski became leader of a volunteer squadron on February 1, 1919. He was then transferred to the Provisional Reichswehr on April 11, 1919 and transferred to the 3rd Reichswehr Cavalry Regiment on November 1, 1919. As squadron chief Brodowski was from February 24, 1920 to March 31, 1922 in the 4th (Prussian) cavalry regiment . He was then transferred to the Reichswehr Ministry in Berlin for a year . Brodowski was briefly back in service from March 12 to September 30, 1923. This time he was employed in the 10th (Prussian) cavalry regiment . He then returned to Berlin in the Reichswehr Ministry and was employed here in the Army Static Department (T 3). From October 1, 1926, he was transferred as a third general staff officer to the staff of the 1st Cavalry Division and promoted to major on February 1, 1927 . As such, Brodowski was from October 1, 1929 on the staff of the 16th Cavalry Regiment . After Brodowski had become lieutenant colonel on April 1, 1931, he was finally commander of the 16th Cavalry Regiment in Kassel on November 1, 1931, and in this position was promoted to colonel on October 1, 1933 . The regiment gave up Brodowski on September 30, 1934 and was then commander of the Reichswehr advertising office in Ulm . With the transition of the Reichswehr to the Wehrmacht, Brodowski was with the Wehr Ersatz-Inspektion Ulm on April 13, 1935, was promoted to major general on January 1, 1937 and as such was appointed inspector of the Wehr Ersatz-Inspektion Stuttgart on June 1, 1938.

During the war against the Soviet Union in mid-August 1941 he was given the command of field replacement division B and was promoted to lieutenant general. From September 1942 he was commander of the division e.g. V. 404 in Dresden , then deployed to the Netherlands and in 1943 again as commander of Oberfeldkommandantur 398 in the Ukraine . From April 1944 he was the military leader of Oberfeldkommandantur 588 in Clermont-Ferrand and ruled a sparsely populated area of ​​65,000 square kilometers, in which he met with a force of around 5000 soldiers, including units of the SS Panzer Division Das Reich , with activities of the Resistance had to deal.

Brodowski was therefore one of those responsible for the Oradour massacre in June 1944, shortly after the Allies landed in Normandy . With the "Kampfgruppe Brodowski" he got into French captivity on or after September 13, 1944. He was imprisoned in the fortress Besançon and was there as lieutenant general in solitary confinement of the FFI . He was shot dead by his guard on October 28th. According to the guard, von Brodowski had attempted to escape . Brodowski was buried with military honors by the French. The French military authorities launched an investigation into the guard, which concluded that Brodowski had attempted to escape. But there were unanswered questions.

The death of the lieutenant general was announced on November 8, 1944 by the French broadcaster Radio Londres and taken over by the Swiss dispatch agency the following day . Adolf Hitler had the captured French General Gustave Mesny murdered in retaliation . The circumstances of Brodowski's imprisonment and his death became the subject of political and historical controversy after 1945.

tomb

Fritz von Brodowski's grave is in the Wannsee II cemetery in Berlin-Wannsee .

literature

  • Dermot Bradley (Ed.): The Generals of the Army 1921-1945. The military careers of the generals, as well as the doctors, veterinarians, intendants, judges and ministerial officials with the rank of general. Volume 2: v. Blanckensee – v. Czettritz and Neuhauß. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1993, ISBN 3-7648-2424-7 , pp. 276-278.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Sebastian Weitkamp: Brown diplomats: Horst Wagner and Eberhard von Thadden as functionaries of the "final solution". JHW Dietz, Bonn 2008, pp. 331–333.
  2. ↑ Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Ed .: Reichswehrministerium , Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1924, p. 142.
  3. ^ Samuel W. Mitcham: German Order of Battle: 291st-999th Infantry divisions, named infantry divisions, and special divisions in World War II . Stackpole Books, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8117-3437-0 , pp. 202 ( google.de [accessed April 22, 2019]).
  4. ^ Samuel W. Mitcham: German Order of Battle: 291st-999th Infantry divisions, named infantry divisions, and special divisions in World War II . Stackpole Books, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8117-3437-0 , pp. 103 ( google.de [accessed on April 22, 2019]).
  5. ↑ Fritz von Brodowski, short biography ( memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , at the Institut d'histoire du temps présent (IHTP)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ihtp.cnrs.fr
  6. ↑ Commander Heeresgebiet Südfrankreich : Final report for the period from July 1st to September 2nd, 1944 ( Memento of the original from September 24th, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , BA-MA RW 36/1316, at Institut d'histoire du temps présent (IHTP) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ihtp.cnrs.fr
  7. ^ Sebastian Weitkamp: "Murder with a clean vest" The murder of General Maurice Mesny in January 1945. In: Timm C. Richter (Ed.): War and crime. Meidenbauer, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-89975-080-2 , pp. 31-40.
  8. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 659.
personal data
SURNAME Brodowski, Fritz von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brodowski, Friedrich Wilhelm Konrad von; Brodowski, Fritz von (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently lieutenant general in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH November 26, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Koslin
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 1944
Place of death Besançon , France