Gustav Anton von Wietersheim

Gustav Anton von Wietersheim (born February 11, 1884 in Breslau ; † April 25, 1974 in Göttingen ) was a German officer , most recently General of the Infantry and Commanding General of the XIV Panzer Corps .

Life

Gustav Anton von Wietersheim joined the army as an ensign after visiting the cadet institute in 1902 . In 1903 he was promoted to lieutenant in the Queen Augusta Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 4 .

At the beginning of the First World War he was promoted to captain . In 1917 he was assigned to the Great General Staff and subsequently on the Division Staff of the 3rd Division and the General Staff of the XXV. Reserve Corps deployed. After the war he was accepted into the Reichsheer and promoted to major in 1925 . This was followed by the command to the Reichswehr Ministry , where he was used in the Army Training Department (T 4) in the troop office. In February 1929 he took over a battalion of the 17th Infantry Regiment in Goslar and was promoted to lieutenant colonel the following year. In 1932 he became Chief of Staff of the 3rd Cavalry Division and the following year as Colonel Chief of Staff of the 3rd Infantry Division.

In 1934 he was transferred back to the Reichswehr Ministry, where he headed the Army Department (T 1) for a year. After the Reichswehr was renamed the Wehrmacht in 1935, the designation changed to " Oberquartiermeister I in the General Staff of the Army". Promoted to Lieutenant General in April 1936, he was replaced by Erich von Manstein in October of the same year and took over the leadership of the 29th Infantry Division .

On February 1, 1938 von Wietersheim was promoted to General of the Infantry and at the beginning of April took over as commanding general of the newly established XIV. Motorized Army Corps in Magdeburg. With this he took part in the attack on Poland in 1939 . There he commanded the German troops in the Battle of Kock between October 2nd and 6th. It was the last battle of the campaign. In 1940 he took part in the Western campaign and in 1941 in the Balkan campaign. For the latter service he was awarded the Knight's Cross on April 20, 1941 . With the beginning of the war against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, his corps of Panzer Group 1, later 1st Panzer Army , was subordinated to Army Group South . Von Wietersheim was involved in the Uman and Kiev kettle battles, among other things , and in the winter of 1941/42 his corps defended positions on the Mius . On June 21, 1942, the corps was renamed XIV Panzer Corps and in August 1942 it was subordinated to the 6th Army for the attack on Stalingrad . In mid-September 1942 von Wietersheim was bid farewell to Hitler because he had proposed giving up Stalingrad again. He had to leave the XIV Panzer Corps within twenty-four hours. Lieutenant General Hans-Valentin Hube became his successor. He was transferred to the Führerreserve . It was no longer used.

After the end of the war he testified as a witness at the Nuremberg trials .

Awards

Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class
Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with swords
Bavarian Order of Military Merit IV class with swords
Braunschweig War Merit Cross, 2nd class
Order of the Iron Crown III. Class with the war decoration
Austrian Military Merit Cross III. Class with the war decoration
Wehrmacht service award IV. To I. class
Clasp for the Iron Cross, 2nd and 1st class
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on April 20, 1941

literature

Stephen Walsh: Stalingrad. Hell in the cauldron. 1942/1943. Neuer Kaiser Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-7043-6055-4 .
Will Fowler: Battle of Stalingrad The conquest of the city - October 1942. Tosa, 2006, ISBN 3-902478-62-4 .
Udo von Alvensleben: Lots of farewells. Diary in the war. Ullstein 3578, ISBN 3-548-03578-7 , p. 233.
Wilhelm Adam, 1st Adjutant of the 6th Army: The difficult decision. Verlag der Nation Berlin 1976, license number 400/34/76, pp. 87f.

Web links

Gustav Anton von Wietersheim in the Magdeburg Biographical Lexicon
Entry by Gustav Anton von Wietersheim on stalingradbattle.nl

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Ranking list of the German Imperial Army. Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin, p. 118.
↑ 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. 786.

personal data
SURNAME	Wietersheim, Gustav Anton von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Wietersheim, Gustav von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German officer, most recently General of the Infantry in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH	February 11, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH	April 25, 1974
Place of death	Goettingen

[Rangliste_des_Deutschen_Reichsheeres-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Ranking list of the German Imperial Army. Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin, p. 118.

[2] 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. 786.