Gerhard Boldt (officer)

Gerhard Boldt (born January 24, 1918 in Lübeck ; † May 7, 1981 ibid) was a German Rittmeister of the Reserve and author. Boldt is regarded as a contemporary witness of the last few days in the Reich Chancellery .

Life

In the Second World War , "Boldt fought in France, Russia and Hungary." On April 18, 1943, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross as First Lieutenant in the Reserve and leader of the 3rd Company of Reconnaissance Division 158 on the Eastern Front .

At the end of 1944, Gerhard Boldt, as head of department in the OKH in the Foreign Army East department, reported directly to Reinhard Gehlen , who later set up the Federal Intelligence Service . He was then assigned to the General Staff (under Heinz Guderian ) in Zossen as 'OI' , joined the 'Führerlage' in Berlin from the beginning of February 1945 and became the (former) adjutant from April 22, 1945 together with Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven Guderians was ordered to the Reich Chancellery to prepare the presentations in the Führerbunker . On April 29, at their suggestion and with Hitler's approval, both were able to give General Wenck , commander of the 12th Army , “unequivocal information about the situation in Berlin and the Reich Chancellery [...] and about the further attack on Berlin to serve as a guide ”escaped from the enclosed city. Wenck could no longer be reached, however. That night, while they were hiding in a cover ditch in a forest, Boldt tried to commit suicide by taking an overdose of morphine. Von Freytag-Loringhoven forced him to vomit the whole thing up again and thus saved his life. Then they moved westward, evading Russian patrols, swam through rivers until they parted in the western area in order to fall into western captivity. "

Boldt was the officer who, on April 26th, after almost all connections to fighting units had failed, used “the fairly intact telephone network in the city of Berlin” to determine the course of the front and positions.

See also

• The bunker. Hitler's end.

Publications (selection)

• The last days of the Reich Chancellery. Rowohlt, Hamburg-Stuttgart 1947.
• Hitler: The last few days in the Reich Chancellery . Ullstein, 1973, ISBN 3-550-07295-3 .
• With Alfons Schulz: Three years in the news center of the Führer Headquarters. Christiana-Verlag 1997, ISBN 3-7171-1028-4 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Gerhard Boldt in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Torben Fischer, Matthias N. Lorenz: Lexicon of 'Coping with the Past' in Germany: Debate and Discourse History of National Socialism after 1945. transcript Verlag 2015, ISBN 3-839-42366-X , p. 237.
2. ^ Preliminary remark by the publisher in Gerhard Boldt: The last days of the Reich Chancellery , Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1964, p. 7.
3. ↑ 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. 233.
4. ^ Boldt: The last days of the Reich Chancellery , 1964, p. 140.
5. ^ Hugh Trevor-Roper : Hitler's Last Days , Ullstein Publishing House, Frankfurt / M. - Berlin 1965, p. 208 f.