Georg Stumme

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Georg Stumme (1940)

Georg Stumme (born July 29, 1886 in Halberstadt ; † October 24, 1942 at El Alamein ) was a German officer , most recently a general of the tank force and commander in chief of the German-Italian tank army in World War II .

Military life

Stumme joined the 2nd Upper Silesian Field Artillery Regiment No. 57 on March 19, 1906 as a flag junior . At the outbreak of the First World War he was first lieutenant and was promoted to captain on October 18, 1915 . As such, he was used as a battery chief and general staff officer.

After the end of the war, Stumme was accepted into the Reichswehr . There he was on the staff of the 3rd Cavalry Division, initially in Kassel , and then in Weimar from May 1925 after its relocation . Here Stumme was promoted to major on October 1, 1926 . On February 10, 1930 he was transferred to the staff of the 2nd (Prussian) cavalry regiment in Osterode . On February 1, 1931, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel with the transfer of command on October 1 via the 1st (Prussian) cavalry regiment in Tilsit .

After 1933 he continued to serve in the cavalry and from 1938 in the armored armor, as commander of the newly established 2nd light division , which he commanded during the attack on Poland . In early 1940 he became the commanding general of the XXXX. Army corps , which he led in the Western campaign , the Balkan campaign and in the war against the Soviet Union . Silent Corps was motorized in late 1940 and reclassified to Panzer Corps in 1942.

Stumme was promoted to General of the Cavalry on June 1, 1940 . The rank was renamed General der Panzertruppe in 1941 . On July 19, 1940, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross .

In July 1942, after the plans to attack the Blau case , for which he was held responsible, became known, Stumme was relieved of his corps command and transferred to the Führer Reserve . According to statements by the adjutant of the 6th Army , Colonel Wilhelm Adam , on June 19, 1942, an aircraft was shot down by the Soviet armed forces in which, among other things, the 1st General Staff Officer of the 23rd Panzer Division , Major Reichel, was. Reichel carried secret commands, orders and maps relating to a planned offensive that fell into the hands of the Soviet armed forces. As a result, Stumme, his chief of staff, Colonel i. G. Gerhard Franz "and the commander of the 23rd Panzer Division, Lieutenant General von Boineburg , relieved of their position and brought before a court martial chaired by Hermann Göring " . Stumme was sentenced to five years imprisonment convicted. After the intervention of Field Marshal von Bock , Stumme was released from imprisonment a few weeks later and was given a new assignment in Africa.

On September 20, 1942, on behalf of Field Marshal Rommel , he assumed command of the Panzer Army Africa, which was renamed the German-Italian Panzer Army, and supreme command of the Panzer Army on September 22nd. Rommel flew to Rome the following day.

As a substitute and as the new Commander-in-Chief, he immediately started to reorganize the defense organization in the interests of the absent Commander-in-Chief, and tried to improve the dialogue with the Italian command authorities and to solve very detailed problems, including regulating road traffic .

Shortly after the start of the second battle of El Alamein , Stumme drove to the front on October 24 with the army news leader Colonel Büchting to get an overview of the situation. Unlike Rommel, he did without escort security and a radio car. On the way to the command post of the 90th Light Division , his command vehicle was ambushed and shot at. Büchting was killed by a shot in the head, Mute died of a heart attack. It could not be recovered until the following day.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wilhelm Adam: The difficult decision . 17th edition. Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1976, license number 400/34/76, p. 39 .
  2. ↑ Erwin Rommel, Lucie Maria Rommel, Fritz Bayerlein: War without hatred. African memoir. P. 233. Quoted from Reinhard Stumpf: The war in the Mediterranean region 1942/43 - The operations in North Africa and the central Mediterranean. P. 692.
  3. ↑ Erwin Rommel, Lucie Maria Rommel, Fritz Bayerlein: War without hatred. African memoir. P. 239. Quoted from Reinhard Stumpf: The war in the Mediterranean region 1942/43 - The operations in North Africa and the central Mediterranean. P. 692.
  4. ^ Siegfried Westphal: Memories. P. 170. Quoted from Reinhard Stumpf: The war in the Mediterranean region 1942/43 - The operations in North Africa and the central Mediterranean. P. 692.
  5. ^ Albert Kesselring: Soldier until the last day. P. 180 f. Quoted from Reinhard Stumpf: The war in the Mediterranean region 1942/43 - The operations in North Africa and the central Mediterranean. P. 692.
  6. ^ Siegfried Westphal: Memories. Mainz, 1975, p. 174.
  7. ↑ a b c Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Ed .: Reichswehrministerium , Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin 1930, p. 121.
  8. ↑ 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. 733.
personal data
SURNAME Mute, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer and general of the tank force in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Halberstadt
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 1942
Place of death at El Alamein