Gert Gawellek

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Gert Gawellek (born April 25, 1959 in Plauen / Vogtland ) is a Brigadier General of the Army of the German Armed Forces and from February 2016 to 2019 “General Air Operations Heer” and deputy commander of the Rapid Forces division . Gawellek is the first former officer of the National People's Army of the GDR to achieve the rank of general in the Bundeswehr.

Military career

Training and first uses in the NVA

Gawellek joined the NVA in 1978 as an officer's student and completed his officer training at the NVA's officers' college in Löbau (Saxony) by 1982. He studied at Section 02 for motorized rifle commanders in the training profile commanders for reconnaissance and paratrooper units. On August 14, 1982 he finished his studies as a university engineering economist and was appointed lieutenant. In the NVA he held several leadership positions. In its last employment before the German reunification , it studied at the Frunze Military Academy of the Soviet Army in Moscow .

Service in the Bundeswehr

After the GDR areas joined the Federal Republic of Germany and the associated dissolution of the NVA, Gawellek was taken over into the Bundeswehr. In the first few years he served as an officer in the Heimatschutzbrigade 38 in Weißenfels and as a company commander in the Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion 3 in Lüneburg . From 1996 to 1998 he completed the general staff course at the command academy of the Bundeswehr in Hamburg . He then served as a staff officer at Airborne Brigade 31 in Oldenburg . From 1998, he and parts of his brigade served as part of the SFOR mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina .

From 2000 to 2002 Gawellek was commander of the forces in the Special Forces Command and as such was significantly involved in the KSK's combat mission as part of the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-SOUTH / Task Force K-Bar against the Taliban in Afghanistan . In 2004 the unit was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation by US President George W. Bush for “extraordinary courage, ingenuity and aggressive fighting spirit in combat against a well-equipped, well-trained and insidious terrorist enemy”.

From 2002 Gawellek worked as a consultant in the Federal Ministry of Defense and was head of the basic group of the special operations division in Regensburg . In 2007 he returned to the Special Forces Command and became its deputy commander.

After further activities as a group and department head in the Army Office and on the staff of the Army Inspector , he became a sub-department head of the newly formed Army Command . In May 2013, he succeeded Reinhardt Zudrop as commander of Airborne Brigade 31 in Oldenburg. In January 2014, Federal Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen promoted him to Brigadier General.

In August 2015, Gawellek was supposed to take up the prestigious post of military attaché at the German embassy in Moscow - a task for which he seemed predestined due to his experience with the Russian military and his fluent language skills. However, the Russian authorities denied him a visa for no reason . Diplomats saw this as a measure of retaliation, as the Federal Republic had previously refused the entry of a Russian general.

On February 29, 2016, he took up his new post as "General Air Operations Heer" in the Rapid Forces Division .

Awards

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stephan Lorenz: 25 years in the service of ex-enemies. Freie Presse , December 28, 2015, accessed April 21, 2016 .
  2. ^ First former NVA officer promoted to general. nwzonline.de, January 30, 2014, accessed April 21, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Relations with Russia: Moscow refuses German military attaché visa , on: spiegel.de (as of August 8, 2015)
  4. ↑ Kieron Kleinert: Flying Change - new "General Flugbetrieb Heer" in the Rapid Forces division. deutschesheer.de, February 29, 2016, accessed on April 21, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Gawellek, Gert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German army officer of the Bundeswehr, commander of the airborne brigade 31
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Plauen / Vogtland