Gerd von Rundstedt
Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt (born December 12, 1875 in Aschersleben , Province of Saxony , † February 24, 1953 in Hanover ) was a German officer , most recently Field Marshal General in World War II , and led large military units ( army groups ) on several fronts throughout the war . His most important position was that of Commander-in-Chief West , which he held - with several interruptions - between 1940 and 1945. Von Rundstedt was charged with war crimes after the war . Because of his poor health, the trial was never brought to a conclusion.
Life
Empire and First World War
The son of the same name of the Rittmeister and squadron chief of the Magdeburg Hussar Regiment No. 10 stationed in Aschersleben and later Major General of the Prussian Army Gerd von Rundstedt came from the Altmark noble family von Rundstedt . The family moved in December 1882 on the occasion of the transfer of their father to the Hussar Regiment "King Humbert of Italy" (1st Kurhessisches) No. 13 to Hesse. After attending school in Mainz (1884–86) and Frankfurt am Main (most recently Oberrealschule ), he entered the Oranienstein cadet institute in 1890 and switched to the Prussian main cadet institute in Groß-Lichterfelde in 1890 , where he graduated from primary school in 1892.
On March 22, 1892, Gerd von Rundstedt joined the infantry regiment "von Wittich" (3rd Kurhessisches) No. 83 in Kassel as an ensign . After being assigned to the Hanover War School , he was promoted to lieutenant on June 17, 1893 . After ten years of army service, including as a battalion and regimental adjutant , he visited since 1902 lieutenant , from 1903 to 1906, the Prussian Military Academy in Berlin and was on probation in after successful completion in 1907 the General Staff ordered into which one it in 1909 as a captain finally took over. In 1912 he was given a troop command for the first time as a company commander in the 2nd Upper Alsatian Infantry Regiment No. 171 .
During the First World War , von Rundstedt was used as a general staff officer in Turkey and France . Shortly after the beginning of the war, he was promoted to major .
Weimar Republic
After the end of the empire , Gerd von Rundstedt was accepted into the reorganized Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic . In 1920 he was promoted to Chief of Staff of the 3rd Cavalry Division in Kassel as Lieutenant Colonel and in 1923 to Colonel . From 1925 he was in command of the 18th Infantry Regiment in Münster . In 1927 he was appointed major general . In 1928 von Rundstedt was given command of the 2nd Cavalry Division in Breslau , and in 1929 another promotion to Lieutenant General . In 1932 von Rundstedt was promoted to general of the infantry and at the same time commander in chief of Group Command I in Berlin .
time of the nationalsocialism
Pre-war period
During the seizure of power by the National Socialists , the end of the Weimar Republic and the conversion of the Reichswehr into the Wehrmacht , he was Commander-in-Chief of Group Command I in Berlin. On March 1, 1938, he was appointed Colonel-General conveyed. During the Sudeten crisis in 1938, at the general meeting on August 4, he supported the general opinion of the generals that the armed forces and the country were not yet ready for war. After the occupation of the Sudetenland in October 1938, von Rundstedt retired from the army on October 31st at his own request. On November 4, 1938 he was appointed chief of the 18th Infantry Regiment in Bielefeld ; this appointment was carried out on April 25, 1939 with a large parade.
In April 1939 he was reactivated as head of the secret "Rundstedt Working Staff", which was supposed to serve as Army Group Command of Army Group South during the planned invasion of Poland (code name: "Fall Weiß") and to draft plans for deployment and operations. At first he was assisted by only Lieutenant General Erich von Manstein as chief of staff and Colonel Günther Blumentritt as operations officer. On August 23, 1939, the expanded "Rundstedt Working Staff", now referred to as AOK 12 , was relocated to Neisse in Upper Silesia and on August 25 took over command of the three subordinate armies.
Second World War
attack on Poland
With the start of the attack on Poland on September 1, 1939 von Rundstedt was appointed Commander in Chief of Army Group South . With this unit comprising 886,000 soldiers, he marched into Poland from Silesia and Slovakia and, together with Army Group North, defeated the Polish armed forces completely within a month.
On September 9, the troops led by von Rundstedt had reached the suburbs of Warsaw . After initial attacks on the densely built-up urban area were unsuccessful, he had the city bombed by air force and artillery for 19 days until the remaining defenders surrendered on September 28. About 26,000 civilians were killed in this bombardment; large parts of the historic city were destroyed.
Western campaign
After the surrender of Poland, Gerd von Rundstedt's troops were renamed Army Group A and relocated to the German western border for the planned western campaign . After eight months without major combat operations in the so-called seat war , the German Wehrmacht attacked the Netherlands , Belgium , Luxembourg and northern France ( yellow case ) on May 10, 1940 using the sickle-cut plan . In essence, this envisaged advancing to the Channel coast through the Ardennes, which were considered impassable by the French and Belgian military and therefore poorly defended , and encircling large Allied forces in Belgium. This was achieved by Rundstedt's troops within two weeks. In the Battle of Dunkirk, after disputes among the German generals, Gerd von Rundstedt gave the now famous stop order that enabled the Allies to evacuate around 370,000 trapped soldiers from Dunkirk to Great Britain in Operation Dynamo , who later formed the core of the Allied invading army .
The German troops then quickly conquered the northern half of France ( Fall Rot ), until the French government asked for an armistice on June 17th . The quick victory was hailed by German propaganda as a breakthrough to a new, revolutionary tactic that was given the name Blitzkrieg . For his success, von Rundstedt was promoted to the highest military rank of General Field Marshal at the same time as eleven other officers on July 19, 1940 .
Gerd von Rundstedt was to be the commander in chief of the planned invasion of Great Britain ( Operation Sea Lion ). After the German defeat in the Battle of Britain , this plan was postponed several times and finally dropped, and the Field Marshal General was transferred to the German Eastern Front in 1941.
War against the Soviet Union
In the war against the Soviet Union , which the Germans began on June 22, 1941 , von Rundstedt was at the head of Army Group South, which was supposed to conquer the Ukraine and the Caucasus . For his armed forces, however, the planned advance to the Volga and the Caspian Sea turned out to be illusory due to the personnel and material inferiority; the offensive of the south-eastern wing of the German Eastern Army stagnated at Crimea , as two kettle battles had to be fought at Uman and Kiev . On September 24, 1941, in view of the murders of Sonderkommando 4a belonging to Einsatzgruppe C , he gave the following orders to the soldiers under him:
"Unauthorized action by individual members of the Wehrmacht [...] against the Jews is prohibited, as is watching or photographing the actions of the special commandos."
Contrary to Hitler's instructions not to consider a withdrawal, von Rundstedt thought of a tactical withdrawal of his logistically and physically overstretched units shortly after his troops had captured Rostov .
Von Rundstedt was therefore one of the generals who were relieved of their posts on the Eastern Front during the winter crisis of 1941 due to strategic and tactical differences with Hitler. Nonetheless, on December 12, 1941, on the occasion of Hitler's birthday, he received an endowment of 250,000 Reichsmarks.
Defense in France
A few months later he was again given a new command as Commander in Chief West with headquarters in Paris , to which, from April 15, 1941, the command of Army Group D was coupled in personal union. In this role he successfully repulsed Operation Jubilee , a British-Canadian commando company at Dieppe . Contrary to international law , he had the British prisoners of war extradited to the Gestapo .
As the head of the Western Army, which was mainly stationed in north and south-west France, he now had a defensive task after leading Hitler's lightning wars. Together with the Nazi construction team Organization Todt (OT), he was supposed to organize the construction and expansion of the fortifications of the Atlantic Wall in order to ward off the invasion of the Allies that was already expected by the Wehrmacht leadership. Von Rundstedt had no illusions about the chances of success of the German defensive measures and already expected months before the actual invasion that the Allied forces would be successful if they landed again on French soil. His tactical simulation games aimed at destroying the landing forces after landing with heavy armored units, while Field Marshal Erwin Rommel prevailed against Hitler and pushed ahead with the expansion of the Atlantic Wall.
As the highest military authority, von Rundstedt was responsible for maintaining order in the areas of Vichy France occupied on November 11, 1942 (" Company Anton ") . The initiative for the destruction of large parts of the old town of Marseille in January 1943 and the resettlement or deportation of parts of its residents is primarily due to Heinrich Himmler . This led to cooperation between Himmler's SS and local Wehrmacht commanders.
When the Allied troops landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944 as part of the amphibious operation Overlord , von Rundstedt's options for reaction were severely limited, as the main mobile reserves for a concentrated counter-attack in the Paris area could only be used with Hitler's express permission (" Führer's reservation " ), which was issued too late to be able to successfully carry out the counter-attack (details here ).
After the destruction of the Allied bridgehead failed due to the massive material and personal inferiority of the Wehrmacht and the lack of air sovereignty, von Rundstedt saw no more opportunities for a military turnaround. After open criticism of the top leadership in a conversation with OKW boss General Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel ("... end the war, you idiots!"), Hitler had him replaced on July 2, 1944 by General Field Marshal Günther von Kluge as Commander in Chief West. Even after that, the situation on the western front did not improve.
Chair of the Wehrmacht's Court of Honor
Among other things, in order to rehabilitate himself in terms of his career, von Rundstedt then took over the chairmanship of the Wehrmacht courtyard, which was built on August 2, 1944 . In this capacity he came on behalf of the Nazi regime, numerous with the assassination on 20 July 1944 compromised the Wehrmacht from the army out, so that the Reich Court was no longer responsible for their trial and the People's Court , chaired by Roland Freisler in show trials sentenced could become.
On October 18, 1944, on the occasion of the state act in Ulm, von Rundstedt gave the official funeral speech for Field Marshal Rommel, who was driven to suicide by the Nazi regime on October 14, 1944, whereby the true background of Rommel's death was not discussed.
Retreat on the Western Front
By early September 1944, Hitler reinstated him as Commander-in-Chief West; In this function, Gerd von Rundstedt headed the rapid withdrawal movement of the German western forces to Belgium and Alsace - Lorraine from Koblenz . In this role, he and the Commander in Chief of Army Group B , Field Marshal Walter Model , achieved one of the last German victories on the Western Front near Arnhem , where Allied paratroopers wanted to liberate the Netherlands as part of Operation Market Garden by creating a wedge between the Ruhr area and the Dutch River areas intended. The allied route to the north German lowlands would then have been possible.
After the precarious situation of the German troops on the western front was able to stabilize for a short time due to the slowed Allied advance, von Rundstedt led the last major German offensive in the Second World War in December 1944 on Hitler's orders. The attack on the Ardennes , led by 250,000 soldiers and 600 tanks, failed in the initial phase, as Hitler had designed it to be much too large, and led to the wear and tear of the last German troop reserves and a substantial decimation of the Western army. Von Rundstedt had argued for a smaller offensive, but could not prevail and carried out the oversized operation according to Hitler's plans. The Commander-in-Chief West was no longer able to prevent the Allied advance, which was then resumed, and the successive annihilation of his remaining troops, weakened by supply problems, as the Ardennes offensive had resulted in excessive losses.
On February 18, 1945, Hitler von Rundstedt awarded the swords to the Knight's Cross. After US troops had crossed the Rhine over the Ludendorff Bridge in Remagen (from March 7th), Hitler deposed Field Marshal General in 1945 and replaced him with Field Marshal Albert Kesselring , who took over command on March 12th. His long service time made von Rundstedt the oldest officer in the Wehrmacht in World War II.
At the end of the war, von Rundstedt was at Bad Tölz for a cure , which was saved from major damage due to his influence. On the night of May 2nd and 3rd, 1945, the 36th Infantry Division ("Texas Division") of the US under Brigadier General Robert Stack occupied Bad Tölz, whose people also arrested von Rundstedt.
post war period
After the US interrogations at Camp Ashcan and then in Wiesbaden , Rundstedt was taken into British captivity at Grizedale Hall from July 1945 , where Rundstedt was charged with war crimes. Among other things, he was accused of mass murder in the occupied Soviet territories. The accusation was justified with the so-called Reichenau order, because Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau was subordinate to von Rundstedt at the time. The order blatantly calls for the annihilation of "Jewish subhumanity". There is evidence that von Rundstedt knew this order, approved it and "fully agreed" with it.
Due to his poor health and old age, there was no longer any conviction. His heart disease led the British to release him from captivity in May 1949.
Gerd von Rundstedt died on February 24, 1953 in Hanover and was buried in the Stöcken city cemetery.
Awards (selection)
- Iron Cross 2nd and 1st class
- Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with swords
- Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross , September 30, 1939
- Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, July 1, 1944
- Knight's Cross with Swords, February 18, 1945.
Movie
In the war film The Longest Day ( The Longest Day , 1962), he was of Paul Hartmann represented. In the film A Bridge Too Far embodied Wolfgang Preiss von Rundstedt.
literature
- Günther Blumentritt : Von Rundstedt: The Soldier and the Man . 1952.
- Charles Messenger: The last Prussian. A biography of field marshal Gerd von Rundstedt . Brassey's (UK), London, Oxford et al. 1991, ISBN 0-08-036707-0 .
- Detlef Vogel: Field Marshal General Gerd von Rundstedt . In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. From the beginnings of the regime to the beginning of the war , Volume 1. Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 3-89678-083-2 , pp. 223-233.
- Rudolf Günter Huber: Gerd von Rundstedt. His life and work in the field of tension between social influences and personal positioning . Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-631-51933-8 .
- Sönke Neitzel : Rundstedt, Karl Rudolf Gerd von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 258 f. ( Digitized version ).
-
Johannes Hürter : Hitler's military leader. The German commanders-in-chief in the war against the Soviet Union in 1941/42 . Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-486-58341-0 .
- therein: Gerd von Rundstedt (biogram), p. 656 f.
- Michael Schadewitz: Between the knight's cross and the gallows. Skorzeny's secret company Greif in Hitler's Ardennes offensive 1944/45 . Helios-Verlag, Aachen 2007, ISBN 978-3-938208-48-9 .
Web links
- Alexander mill, Arnulf Scriba: Gerd von Rundstedt. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
- Literature by and about Gerd von Rundstedt in the catalog of the German National Library
- Newspaper article about Gerd von Rundstedt in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
- Portrait photo
Individual evidence
- ↑ books.google.de.
- ^ History of the Magdeburg Hussar Regiment No. 10. 1813–1888. compiled by Herbert von Thielen. Hahn'sche Buchhandlung, Hanover 1888; Pp. 204-206.
- ^ Quotation from Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 515.
- ↑ Peter M. Kaiser (2010): Courage to Confess: The Secret Diaries of Captain Hermann Kaiser , p. 526 (footnote 696)
- ↑ Gerd R. Ueberschär , Winfried Vogel : Serving and earning. Hitler's gifts to his elites . Frankfurt 1999, ISBN 3-10-086002-0 .
- ↑ Rainer Bannier: Historisches Gaißach: The last days of the war in Gaißach: 200 interested people in a lecture , contribution about a lecture by Robert Huber and Vroni Müller from May 1, 2019 on merkur.de, seen on May 1, 2019
- ^ BG Robert Stack. In: togetherweserved.com . Retrieved November 24, 2019 .
- ^ The "Reichenau order": "The behavior of the troops in the east room" , NS-Archiv.de .
- ↑ Also on the following orders Johannes Hürter : Hitler's Army Leader. The German Supreme Commanders in the War against the Soviet Union 1941/42 , Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-57982-6 , p. 657 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
|
n / a Erwin von Witzleben Walter Model |
Commander-in-Chief West October 10, 1940 to April 1, 1941 March 15, 1942 to July 2, 1944 September 5, 1944 to March 3, 1945 |
Erwin von Witzleben Günther von Kluge Albert Kesselring |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rundstedt, Gerd von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Rundstedt, Karl Rudolf Gerd von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German officer, most recently Field Marshal General in World War II |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 12, 1875 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Aschersleben |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 24, 1953 |
| Place of death | Hanover |