Gerhard Conrad (officer)

Gerhard Conrad (born April 21, 1895 in Pregelmühle ; † May 28, 1982 in Ruhpolding ) was a German Lieutenant General in the Air Force during World War II .

Life

Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, Conrad joined the Anhalt Infantry Regiment No. 93 as a volunteer on August 10, 1914 , where he was made an ensign on December 7, 1914 . On January 29, 1915, he was promoted to lieutenant and as such he was first used as a platoon and then as a company commander at the front. Conrad then became a battalion adjutant on September 5, 1916 and remained in this position until he was wounded on March 18, 1918. After hospital stay and recovery, he was briefly on the regimental staff on April 8, 1918 and was then assigned to the replacement battalion of his regular regiment. From June 11, 1918, Conrad was back at the front. After a month he was appointed regimental adjutant and Conrad was to hold this position after the end of the war until the unit was demobilized at home. For his activities during the war, in addition to both classes of the Iron Cross , he had received the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords, the Wound Badge in Silver, the Knight's Cross II Class of the House Order of Albrecht the Bear with Swords and the Friedrich Cross .

From mid-December 1918 Conrad was active in Pavel's Freikorps , which was called in for border security tasks in Silesia . Conrad was then taken over into the Reichswehr and initially employed as a platoon leader in the Reichswehr Rifle Regiment 92 and in the Infantry Regiment 15. In the same function he was then used from October 22, 1920 to February 28, 1924 in the 5th (Prussian) Infantry Regiment and then in the 6th Infantry Regiment until August 31, 1926 . In the meantime he had been promoted to lieutenant on April 1, 1925 . As such, he was sent to the Reichswehr Ministry in Berlin on September 1, 1926 , and from that point on Conrad completed his studies at the TH Berlin . On February 1, 1930, he had become a captain , and after graduating, Conrad came to the Army Arms Office on April 1, 1930 as a department head, where he was to remain until March 31, 1933. Conrad was then transferred to the 11th (Saxon) Infantry Regiment as a company commander for a year and a half .

On January 1, 1935, Conrad joined the Air Force , was first assigned to the Aviation School in Faßberg and promoted to major on March 1, 1935 . On April 1, 1936, he took over the post of squadron captain in the 7th squadron of Kampfgeschwader 152, which later became Kampfgeschwader 1 . After being promoted to lieutenant colonel on March 1, 1937, on April 1, he took over the I. Group of Kampfgeschwader 157 (later Kampfgeschwader 27 "Boelcke" ) as group commander . After his promotion to colonel on September 1, 1939, he took over the combat squadron z. b. V. 2 , a transport squadron with Junkers Ju 52 aircraft. With this he took part in the western campaign in Holland in May 1940 as an airborne squadron and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on May 24, 1940 .

Since June 15, 1940 Geschwaderkommodore of Kampfgeschwader 27 "Boelcke", he was pilot of the XI on December 21, 1940 . Fliegerkorps , which fought with its 493 Ju 52s and one hundred gliders in May 1941 for Corinth and in the airborne battle for Crete . On February 1, 1943, Conrad was appointed commander of Luftflotte 4 Luftflotte troops and as such on April 1, 1943 Lieutenant General. With her he tried at the end of December 1944 in the Battle of Budapest to relieve the "Gateway to the West" enclosed by the Red Army . On March 10, 1945, he was appointed military replacement inspector in Leipzig. On April 20, 1945, Conrad was taken prisoner by the United States, from which he was released on July 11, 1947.

In 1935 Conrad became a member of the Corps Hercynia Munich . The Corps Frankonia Brno zu Salzburg awarded him the ribbon in 1964.

literature

• Lothar Selke : History of the Corps Frankonia in Salzburg. Vienna 1975, p. 108.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Reichswehr Ministry (Ed.): Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres. ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1930, p. 153
2. ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV, Douglas G. Stankey: Air Force Officer Career Summaries, Section A-F. (PDF) (No longer available online.) 2016, p. 479 , archived from the original on December 28, 2016 ; accessed on January 27, 2017 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
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. 262.
4. ↑ see also: Corinth 1941
5. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten: 1996, 73/767; 41/142.