Gustav von Mauchenheim called Bechtolsheim

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Gustav Maria Benno Freiherr von Mauchenheim called Bechtolsheim (born June 16, 1889 in Munich , † December 25, 1969 in Nonnenhorn ) was a German officer , most recently Major General of the Wehrmacht in World War II . As the commander of the 707th Infantry Division , from 1941 to 1943 he was primarily responsible for numerous war crimes in Belarus and Russia during the German-Soviet War .

Life

He came from the ancient noble family von Mauchenheim and was the son of Maximilian Maria Markus Freiherr von Mauchenheim called Bechtolsheim and Maria-Antonia Edle von Taeuffenbach.

Mauchenheim joined the Bavarian Army as a flag junior in 1907 and received his patent as a lieutenant in the infantry body regiment in 1909 . In the First World War he reached the rank of captain .

After the end of the war he was temporarily a member of the Epp Freikorps , was accepted into the Reichswehr and was used as a company commander in the 19th (Bavarian) Infantry Regiment in the following years . From 1929 Mauchenheim worked as a major at the commandant's office in Cuxhaven. In 1931 he took over the 2nd Battalion of the 20th (Bavarian) Infantry Regiment in Ingolstadt .

After retiring from active military service, Mauchenheim was reactivated in 1936 as an E-Officer and Colonel and assigned to the Landwehr commander in Darmstadt as a training manager in Heidelberg. During the mobilization for World War II, he took over as commander of the 404 Infantry Regiment ( 246th Infantry Division ), with which he was deployed on the western border during the seated war and the Western campaign .

In May 1941 he took over the newly established 707th Infantry Division , with which, after the start of Operation Barbarossa from August 1941, he was the Wehrmacht commander in the Reich Commissariat Ostland , Lieutenant General Walter Braemer , later the commander of the Rear Army Area (Berück) of Army Group Center , General der Infantry Max von Schenckendorff and the Korück 532 of the 2nd Panzer Army in the Brjansk area was subordinate. Deployed to "secure and pacify" the areas behind the fighting front, his troops committed numerous war crimes , including mass shootings of Jews and supporting civilians suspected of being partisans , based on the guidelines of the Wehrmacht leadership that were contrary to international law . Until December 1941, under the leadership of Wehrmacht commander v. Bechtolsheim 19,000 people shot dead by members of the 707th Infantry Division, 11 Reserve Police Battalion and a Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft battalion. In August 1941 he had been promoted to major general.

"Where smaller or larger groups of Jews are found in the country, they can either be done by oneself or brought together in ghettos at individual larger locations [...]."

- Mauchenheim's order of November 24, 1941

“[Jews] are no longer people in the European sense of culture, but beasts who have been raised to be criminals from their youth and trained from youth to be. But beasts must be destroyed. "

- Situation report (signed Bechtolsheim) from October 19, 1941

"The population here is worth nothing more than to be beaten or shot."

- Order of March 8, 1943

In February 1943 he handed over his command to Baron Hans von Falkenstein , joined the Führerreserve and was employed as an inspector of the military replacement inspection in Heidelberg and then in Regensburg from the beginning of April 1943 until the end of the war . His attempts to get another command post in an occupied area were unsuccessful due to a lack of suitability.

After the end of the war, an investigation was carried out against Bechtolsheim in 1961 based on the testimony of a former police commander who had ordered the murder of Jews accused of Bechtolsheim. Bechtolsheim denied the allegations, arguing that his division had neither participated in the murders of Jews nor delegated them to police units. The examining magistrate and the public prosecutor's office believed that, according to general experience, the Wehrmacht would not have been involved in actions against the Jews, and so the investigation against Bechtolsheim was discontinued in March 1962.

literature

  • Christian Gerlach : Calculated murders. The German economic and extermination policy in Belarus 1941 to 1944. Hamburger Edition , Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-930908-54-9 .
  • Hannes Heer : “Killing Fields. The Wehrmacht and the Holocaust. ”In: Ders., Klaus Naumann (Hrsg.): Destruction War. Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941 to 1944. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-930908-04-2 .
  • Ders .: Extreme normality. Major General Gustav Freiherr von Mauchenheim called Bechtolsheim. Environment, motives and decision-making of a Holocaust perpetrator . In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft , No. 51 (2003), pp. 729–753.
  • Ders .: Gustav Freiherr von Mauchenheim, known as Bechtolsheim - a Wehrmacht general who organized the Holocaust . In: Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Gerhard Paul (Ed.): Careers of violence. National Socialist perpetrator biographies. Scientific Book Society, 2nd edition, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 978-3-534-16654-1 .

Notes and references

  1. ^ In Heer (2004, p. 33) the date of death is given as December 25, 1965. - In Klee, the date of death is - apparently correct - December 25, 1969. Source: Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich. Fisherman. Frankfurt am Main 2007. ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 . (Updated 2nd edition). P. 395.
  2. ^ A b Samuel W. Mitcham: German Order of Battle: 1st-290th Infantry divisions in World War II . Stackpole Books, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8117-3416-5 , pp. 189 ( google.de [accessed on May 14, 2019]).
  3. ↑ Bert Hoppe (arrangement): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933-1945. (Collection of sources) Volume 8: Soviet Union with annexed areas II. Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-486-78119-9 , p. 177 with note 5
  4. ↑ Doc. 8/27 In: Bert Hoppe (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945. (Source collection) Volume 8: Soviet Union with annexed areas II. Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-486-78119-9 , p. 134.
  5. ↑ Quoted from Bert Hoppe (arr.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945. (Source collection) Volume 8: Soviet Union with annexed areas II. Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-486-78119-9 , pp. 28/29.
  6. ↑ Quoted from Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm: The troops of the Weltanschauung war. The Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and SD 1938–1942. = Sources and presentations on contemporary history, Vol. 22. Stuttgart 1981, p. 513.
  7. ↑ Hannes Heer: Gustav Freiherr von Mauchenheim, called Bechtolsheim - a Wehrmacht general as the organizer of the Holocaust . In: Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Gerhard Paul (Ed.): Careers of violence. National Socialist perpetrator biographies. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2004, p. 40
  8. ↑ Hannes Heer: Gustav Freiherr von Mauchenheim, called Bechtolsheim - a Wehrmacht general as the organizer of the Holocaust . In: Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Gerhard Paul (Ed.): Careers of violence. National Socialist perpetrator biographies. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2004, p. 33
personal data
SURNAME Mauchenheim called Bechtolsheim, Gustav von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mauchenheim called Bechtolsheim, Gustav Maria Benno Freiherr von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently major general in the Wehrmacht in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH June 16, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1969
Place of death Nun's horn