Georg Klein (General)

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Georg Klein (born July 26, 1961 in Bendorf ) is a Brigadier General of the Army of the Bundeswehr and has been Head of the Armed Forces Training Department (General Armed Forces Joint Training) in the Armed Forces Command in Bonn since March 1, 2019 . Klein became known to the general public in 2009 as the commander of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) Kunduz in Afghanistan . He ordered the air strike near Kunduz in 2009 , in which numerous Taliban fighters and civilians, including children, died when a tanker truck was bombed .

Life

Klein is one of six children of an officer in the water police . An older brother became a professional soldier before him . Georg Klein made in 1980 at the Wilhelm-Remy-Gymnasium in Bendorf High School . He began his service on July 1, 1980 in the 144 tank battalion in Koblenz. As part of his officer training, he studied economics and organizational sciences at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg with a degree in business administration. He was then employed from 1986 to 1991 as an armored platoon leader, S2 officer and company commander of the 4th Company in Panzer Battalion 143 in Stadtallendorf Hessen. From 1991 to 1993 he was Adjutant to the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander (DSACEUR) General Dieter Clauss at the SHAPE headquarters in Mons / Belgium. From 1993 to 1995 he was a participant in the 36th Army General Staff Course at the Command Academy of the Bundeswehr and then served as a staff officer in the command staff of the armed forces in the Federal Ministry of Defense . From 1999 to 2000 he was a G3 staff officer in Panzerbrigade 34 in Diez / Lahn. During this time, Klein was deployed as a staff officer at SFOR headquarters in Sarajevo / Bosnia-Herzegovina . In 2000 he became Lieutenant Colonel Commander of the 154th Panzer Battalion in Westerburg in the Westerwald and prepared this unit for its deployment in Bosnia and Herzegovina .

From 2002 to 2004 he was a consultant at the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to NATO (DNV) in Brussels . This was followed from 2004 to 2006 as a staff officer and staff leader of the army general staff in the personnel office of the Bundeswehr in Cologne. In 2006 Klein G3 planning / deployment / organization was promoted to the Army Command in Koblenz and promoted to colonel. From 2008 he was Chief of Staff of the 13th Panzer Grenadier Division in Leipzig . From March to October 2009 he served as part of the 19th German ISAF contingent and from April 5, 2009 as commander of the Provincial Reconstruction Team Kunduz. On April 5, 2009, under Klein's personal command, Sergej Motz became the first German soldier to be killed in an act of war in Kunduz since the Second World War.

From 2010 to 2012 he was Deputy Head and Chief of Staff at the Bundeswehr headquarters in Cologne. In 2012, Klein was appointed Head of Department IV - Personnel Management of NCOs and Teams in the new Federal Office for Personnel Management of the Bundeswehr . This was linked to the appointment to Brigadier General, which took place on March 27, 2013. The Ministry of Defense also confirmed that Klein was "well suited" for the future job and that he met all professional requirements. The announcement was met with controversy in the press.

On April 1, 2017, he was appointed as the successor to Brigadier General Friedhelm Tränapp as Managing General in the Federal Office for Personnel Management of the Bundeswehr. On March 1, 2019, Klein was transferred to his current position as Head of Armed Forces Training (General Armed Forces Training) in the Armed Forces Command in Bonn as the successor to Brigadier General Markus Kurczyk .

Air raid near Kunduz

Course of events

On April 5, 2009, Klein took over the leadership of the PRT Kunduz with around 1000 German soldiers and 200 soldiers of other nationalities. From the end of April 2009, the security situation for the soldiers deployed in the Kunduz region worsened. Four German soldiers died between April and June and dozen were injured, some seriously. Up until September 2009 there were battles with German participation in the Kunduz region almost every day

The aim of the air attack near Kunduz on September 4, 2009 was to prevent the security forces deployed in Kunduz from being endangered by two tankers hijacked by the Taliban . In the run-up to the bombing, according to the Ministry of Defense, there were indications that "the insurgents wanted to use such tankers as bombs against the regional reconstruction team (PRT) of the ISAF Afghanistan protection force or against the Afghan security forces in Kunduz." In addition, an attack occurred on August 25 Kandahar 39 people were killed and 64 injured using a tanker truck.

Strongly different numbers of victims were published on the consequences of the bombing. After evaluating all reports in May 2010, the Federal Prosecutor at the Federal Court of Justice came to the conclusion that a total of around 50 people were probably killed or injured, including two Taliban leaders known by name, fighters as well as civilians and children.

Legal processing

The circumstances of the bombing were investigated in an investigative committee of the German Bundestag chaired by SPD politician Susanne Kastner . The public hearing of the investigative committee ended on February 10, 2011 with the questioning of Angela Merkel and Frank-Walter Steinmeier . The final report was submitted to the German Bundestag on October 25, 2011 and finally debated in plenary on December 1, 2011.

The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (GBA), which had initiated an investigation against Klein and Hauptfeldwebel W. on suspicion of a war crime , closed the investigation on April 16, 2010 according to Section 170 (2) sentence 1 StPO, as neither the provisions of the International Criminal Code nor the provisions of the Criminal Code are met. Colonel Klein was "aware of the obligation" to "avoid civilian casualties as far as possible" and had "failed to provide any practical clarification that was offered to him."

This decision of the GBA provoked criticism in some media, with the then politician of the Left Party and lawyer Wolfgang Nešković and the war-critical former Bundeswehr soldier Jürgen Rose . The latter, however, confirmed that “the violent hijacking of the two tankers carrying fuel for the ISAF was undoubtedly a hostile act by the opposing guerrillas.” He also stated: “This hostile act was by no means over at the time of the bombing - on the contrary Taliban local with the assistance of village relatives busy flottzukriegen the stalled tanker again and draw off for this purpose, among other fuel from this. "and" After military logic both actors were allowed according to the rules of international law be fought at this time. "the international law Hans- Peter Folz defended the bombing order as "not in itself unlawful."

In February 2011, the attempt to compel murder charges was also rejected as inadmissible by the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court .

The preliminary investigations into disciplinary proceedings initiated by the inspector of the army checked whether Klein had violated the national and international rules of action applicable at the time of deployment. The investigation against Klein was concluded after around four months in August 2010 with the result that there were no indications of a breach of duty.

The claims for damages by survivors of the Kunduz bombing, which were still being negotiated more than four years after the incident before the Bonn Regional Court , led again to media attention and open hostility against Georg Klein.

The Federal Court of Justice confirmed on October 6, 2016 that Germany did not have to pay any compensation for the bombing of two tanker trucks near Kunduz. The lower court assumed without legal error that Klein could not see that there were civilians in the target area of ​​the air strike. In addition, the German official liability law is not applicable to military combat operations abroad. The plaintiffs' attorney, relatives of two civilians killed in the attack, announced that a constitutional complaint would be filed. The plaintiffs had asked for € 90,000 for each of the two victims. In advance, the federal government paid the victims' families € 5,000 each, but this was explicitly linked to the exclusion of an admission of guilt.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Afghanistan. The three lives of Georg Klein. mz-web.de, September 3, 2010
  2. ^ Tank truck bombardment in Kunduz: Retrieved December 17, 2018 .
  3. ↑ mit-nrw.de ( Memento from February 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF)
  4. ↑ a b Bernhard & Graefe Verlag (Ed.): Handbook of the Bundeswehr and the Defense Industry 2018 . 2018, ISBN 978-3-7637-6294-1 , pp. 167 .
  5. ^ A b Colonel Georg Klein promoted to Brigadier General
  6. ↑ Tom Tom: Training as a lone fighter 2v2. Retrieved December 17, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Operation in Afghanistan: The Death of Sergej Motz - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Video . In: Spiegel Online . December 7, 2009 ( spiegel.de [accessed December 17, 2018]).
  8. ^ Majid Sattar: Colonel Georg Klein becomes Brigadier General. In: faz.net. August 8, 2012, accessed December 11, 2014 .
  9. ↑ Dirk Kurbjuweit: Rewarded bombs . In: Der Spiegel . No. 33 , 2012, p. 23 ( online ).
  10. ↑ Personnel changes in top military and civilian positions - April 2017. In: bundeswehr.de. Retrieved March 21, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Personnel changes in top military and civilian positions - March 2019. In: https://www.personal.bundeswehr.de/ . Press and Information Office of the Federal Ministry of Defense, March 1, 2019, accessed on March 1, 2019 .
  12. ↑ German Bundestag 17th electoral period, printed matter 17/7400 of October 25, 2011 p. 39 . October 25, 2011, p. 39 .
  13. ↑ German Bundestag 17th electoral period, printed matter 17/7400 of October 25, 2011 p. 40 . October 25, 2011, p. 40 .
  14. ↑ German Bundestag 17th electoral period, printed matter 17/7400 of October 25, 2011 p. 39 . October 25, 2011, p. 39 .
  15. ↑ Steffen Hebestreit: The night of death in Kunduz . In: Berliner Zeitung , December 23, 2009.
  16. ↑ ISAF rules of engagement apparently not observed. In: faz.net. September 7, 2009, accessed December 11, 2014 .
  17. ^ German Bundestag 17th electoral term, printed matter 17/7400 of October 25, 2011 p. 42 . October 25, 2011, p. 42 .
  18. ^ The Federal Prosecutor General at the Federal Court of Justice - S 3 BJs 6 / 10-4 - from April 16, 2010, p. 40 . April 16, 2010, p. 40 .
  19. ^ German Bundestag: Inquiry committee on Kunduz constituted . ( Memento from May 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) bundestag.de, December 16, 2009; Retrieved February 3, 2011
  20. ^ German Bundestag: Merkel and Steinmeier in front of the Kunduz Committee . bundestag.de; Retrieved February 3, 2011
  21. ↑ Bundestag debates final report on Kunduz
  22. ↑ Investigative proceedings against Colonel Klein and Hauptfeldwebel W. on suspicion of criminal liability under the VStGB and other offenses here: termination of the proceedings in accordance with §170 (2) sentence 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. (PDF) Retrieved September 2, 2018 .
  23. ↑ generalbundesanwalt.de
  24. ^ Rüdiger Göbel: Legally secure in the war . In: Junge Welt , May 4, 2010.
  25. ↑ Otto Köhler : O berst Klein - Not a murderer? In: Ossietzky , 18/2010, sopos.org ( Memento from September 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  26. ↑ To wage war means to kill with impunity . In: Neues Deutschland , April 20, 2010
  27. ↑ Wolfgang Nešković : Next to the track - Not only in the case of Bundeswehr Colonel Georg Klein has the Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms violated legal standards . In: Friday , May 8, 2010
  28. ↑ a b c d Jürgen Rose : Trace of Devastation: The bitter lesson from the Kunduz bombing exactly one year ago reads: The war is crushing law . In: Friday , September 3, 2010.
  29. ↑ Kunduz attack: international lawyer defends Colonel Klein. In: Focus Online. December 15, 2009, accessed December 11, 2014 .
  30. ↑ OLG Düsseldorf decision of February 16, 2011, file number III-5 StS 6/10 . February 16, 2011.
  31. ^ No new proceedings against Colonel Klein. In: faz.net. February 18, 2011, accessed December 11, 2014 .
  32. ↑ Press and Information Center of the Army - press release 13/2010 from August 19, 2010. (PDF) Retrieved September 1, 2018 .
  33. ↑ Bundeswehr waived disciplinary proceedings against Colonel Klein. In: Spiegel Online . August 19, 2010, accessed December 11, 2014 .
  34. ↑ Marcel Bohnert : On the need for situation-specific rules of engagement for soldiers in missions abroad . In: Fabian Forster, Sascha Vugrin, Leonard Wessendorff (Ed.): The age of the Einsatzarmee. Challenges for Law and Ethics . Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-8305-3380-1 , pp. 139f.
  35. ^ Judgment of October 6, 2016, file number III ZR 140/15. (PDF) Federal Court of Justice (BGH), October 26, 2017, accessed on October 25, 2017 .
  36. ↑ Federal Court of Justice does not grant compensation to Kunduz victims , FAZ, October 6, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Klein, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German military, officer in the Bundeswehr
DATE OF BIRTH July 26, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Bendorf