Georg Pfeiffer (officer)

Georg Pfeiffer (after Jan. 1943)

Georg Pfeiffer (born May 5, 1890 in Wendessen near Wolfenbüttel , † June 28, 1944 at Mogilew in Belarus ) was a German artillery general in World War II .

Life

The son of the sugar factory director Karl Jean Pfeiffer and his wife Anna, née Brendal, joined the Prussian Army in 1908 after graduating from high school . During his service in the foot artillery regiment "Encke" (Magdeburgisches) No. 4 he was promoted to lieutenant . Pfeiffer spent the period up to the First World War in the Lauenburg Foot Artillery Regiment No. 20 . In 1914 he was the battery leader. During the First World War, Pfeiffer was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross and was promoted to captain on January 27, 1918 . During this time he married Käthe Fleck.

In 1920 Pfeiffer was released from the army and shortly afterwards joined the security police in Braunschweig . Here he went through the career in higher staff positions and was promoted to major in the police. At the beginning of the 1930s he was Lieutenant Colonel of the Police and in 1935 Chief of Staff of the Police Inspection North.

On October 1, 1935, he returned to the Wehrmacht as a lieutenant colonel . He was appointed commander of Division II of the 64th Heavy Artillery Regiment in Wroclaw . In August 1936, Pfeiffer became a colonel in command of the 23rd artillery regiment in Potsdam .

Second World War

The association took part in the attack on Poland in 1939. On the western front, Pfeiffer was promoted to artillery commander 105 (Arko 105) in spring 1940 and then promoted to major general. At the end of August 1940 he gave up his command and was given command of the 94th Infantry Division on September 1, 1940 . In the summer of 1941, his division took part in Operation Barbarossa as part of the 6th Army in southern Russia. Pfeiffer received the German Cross in Gold on January 16, 1942 . The promotion to lieutenant general took place on June 1, 1942. At the beginning of September the division was deployed in the south of Stalingrad and captured, among other things, the hard-fought grain silo. The division was almost completely wiped out in the industrial district of Stalingrad. On the orders of the Fuhrer , Pfeiffer was flown out of the boiler into the Donbogen in three Heinkel He 111 machines on December 11, 1942, together with the survivors of the divisional command department . Originally an appointment as commander of the 306th Infantry Division was planned, but it was decided to appoint him as deputy commander in chief of the 6th Army outside the fortress of Stalingrad .

The divisional staff was attached to the Romanian 3rd Army on December 23, 1942 , consisted of the combat groups Tzschöckell, von Burgsdorf, von Mathiesen and von Heinemann and moved into Morosovskaya quarters. During the pressure of the Red Army on the Romanian flank, his combat groups formed the western security section. When the 4th Panzer Army's relief attack in the direction of Stalingrad in January 1943 , its soldiers formed the "Pfeiffer Combat Group". On January 15, 1943, he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for this achievement . From January to March 1943 he briefly took over the 306th Infantry Division and later the completely reorganized 94th Infantry Division. In April 1943, this division rump unit was reorganized in Brittany and then relocated to Italy, where it was tasked with disarming the Italian army. In October 1943, the 94th Infantry Division was deployed in southern Italy to defend the Gustav Line . On January 1, 1944, Pfeiffer handed over command of the 94th Infantry Division to Lieutenant General Bernhard Steinmetz and was transferred to the Führerreserve . After a long home leave and completion of the course for commanding generals, Pfeiffer was on May 20, 1944 with the leadership of the VI. Army corps assigned to hold its front line southeast of the "permanent place" Vitebsk. At the same time Pfeiffer was promoted retrospectively to May 1, 1944 to general of the artillery.

The army corps belonging to the 3rd Panzer Army was hit particularly hard in the initial phase of the Soviet summer offensive Operation Bagration, which began on June 22, 1944, and in a few days lost two of its four divisions almost completely. Even in this critical situation, Pfeiffer led the units subordinate to him from a leading position. He fell on June 28, 1944. The circumstances of his death are not exactly known.

According to one version, his Kübelwagen was brought to a stop by machine gun fire and hand grenades were thrown at it. A second source describes his death by being hit by an aerial bomb. As a result of the bitter fighting there, attempts to retrieve his body were unsuccessful.

The official Wehrmacht report mentions Pfeiffer by name on July 3, 1944: “ In the heavy defensive battles, the commanding generals, General of the Artillery Martinek and General of the Artillery Pfeiffer as well as Lieutenant General Schünemann, fighting at the head of their corps, true to their oath , the hero's death. "

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Hans Horst Manitz; Memory book of the 94th Infantry Division on the war years 1939–1945 , Delivery 2: Deployment in Russia 1941 to the beginning of 1943, Hans Horst Manitz, ed. Kameradschaft der 94th Inf.Div., 1985. p. 4.
↑ Hans Horst Manitz: Memory book of the 94th Infantry Division on the war years 1939-1945. Delivery 2: Deployment in Russia from 1941 to early 1943. Hans Horst Manitz, Ed. Kameradschaft der 94th Inf.Div., 1985, p. 1.
↑ ^a ^b Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 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. 591.
↑ Hans Horst Manitz: Memory book of the 94th Infantry Division on the war years 1939-1945. Delivery 2: Deployment in Russia from 1941 to the beginning of 1943. Hans Horst Manitz, Ed. Kameradschaft der 94th Inf.Div., 1985. P. 2.
↑ Hans Horst Manitz: Memory book of the 94th Infantry Division on the war years 1939-1945. Delivery 2: Deployment in Russia 1941 to the beginning of 1943. Hans Horst Manitz, Ed. Kameradschaft der 94th Inf.Div., 1985. p. 3.

personal data
SURNAME	Pfeiffer, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German artillery general in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH	May 5, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wendessen
DATE OF DEATH	June 28, 1944
Place of death	Mogilev

[Manitz4-1] Hans Horst Manitz; Memory book of the 94th Infantry Division on the war years 1939–1945 , Delivery 2: Deployment in Russia 1941 to the beginning of 1943, Hans Horst Manitz, ed. Kameradschaft der 94th Inf.Div., 1985. p. 4.

[Manitz1-2] Hans Horst Manitz: Memory book of the 94th Infantry Division on the war years 1939-1945. Delivery 2: Deployment in Russia from 1941 to early 1943. Hans Horst Manitz, Ed. Kameradschaft der 94th Inf.Div., 1985, p. 1.

[Scherzer-3] Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 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. 591.

[Manitz2-4] Hans Horst Manitz: Memory book of the 94th Infantry Division on the war years 1939-1945. Delivery 2: Deployment in Russia from 1941 to the beginning of 1943. Hans Horst Manitz, Ed. Kameradschaft der 94th Inf.Div., 1985. P. 2.

[Manitz3-5] Hans Horst Manitz: Memory book of the 94th Infantry Division on the war years 1939-1945. Delivery 2: Deployment in Russia 1941 to the beginning of 1943. Hans Horst Manitz, Ed. Kameradschaft der 94th Inf.Div., 1985. p. 3.