Hannibal of Lüttichau

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Hannibal Siegfried Wolff Curt von Lüttichau (called Lüttichau-Bärenstein ) (* February 2, 1915 in Dresden , † January 29, 2002 in Bonn ) was a German major in the armored forces in World War II and President of the German Castle Association eV for the preservation of historical defense and Residential buildings.

Life

Hannibal von Lüttichau joined the tank force in 1934 . In World War II he served first on the Western Front , then as a first lieutenant in Panzer Regiment 31 ( 5th Panzer Division ), with which he took part in Operation Barbarossa (attack on the Soviet Union). From February 1943 to July 1943 von Lüttichau conducted the tank training course for the Tiger tank at the tank school in Paderborn as a captain . He was then the first commander of the 509 heavy tank division until October 1943. He later became the commander of the 2nd division of the 2nd Panzer Regiment, which in January 1945 was subordinate to the 553rd Volksgrenadier Division .

It is reported from January 1945 that von Lüttichau, with reference to the acute shortage of fuel and ammunition in his units , refused an attack order from Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler , who had been Commander-in-Chief of the Upper Rhine Front since November 1944. Himmler then ordered von Liège's arrest, but his high war awards saved him from conviction.

Lüttichau experienced the end of the war as a major in the hospital in Tegernsee , where he was recovering from a brain operation during which the fragments of an American hand grenade had been removed. Here he made a contribution to saving the city by first convincing the commander of the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Götz von Berlichingen" , SS Oberführer Georg Bochmann, to stop the fire and withdraw, and then to withdraw unarmed punched through the main battle line to the American command post at Gmund and explained to the Americans that Tegernsee and the entire Seetal harbor thousands of wounded German soldiers and around 12,000 civilian war refugees and that American artillery fire would kill countless unarmed soldiers and civilians in the overcrowded city. He assured that the German troops had already withdrawn and led the Americans themselves to the evacuated city to prove it.

Bärenstein Castle - ancestral seat of the family (1816–1945)

After the Second World War, von Lüttichau lived with his wife Angelika (née Haniel ) in West Germany, after the dispossessed family had to leave their traditional family seat, Bärenstein Castle in the Eastern Ore Mountains , in 1945 . He became a farmer and forest manager as well as an independent businessman, was a member of the supervisory board of Westdeutsche Ytong AG after the currency reform and founded Kontakt-Leuchten KG in Bonn in 1952 (sold to STAFF Leuchten in 1969). He also held shares in the companies REMA GmbH and Riebesel & Lüttichau Saatzucht KG. Von Lüttichau lived in Wistinghausen / Oerlinghausen until 1949 , then in Meerbusch -Büderich until 1952, in Remagen- Rolandswerth until 1954 and finally at the Rodderberghof near Bonn-Bad Godesberg . Since 1959 he has been an honorary member of the Presidium of the German Castle Association, of which he was President from 1971 to 1986. Since 1958 he was a legal knight of the Saxon cooperative of the Order of St. John . In 1980, Hannibal von Lüttichau was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit with ribbon in recognition of his honorary work.

medal

literature

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephen Ambrose: Citizen Soldiers - The US Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany. June 7, 1944 to May 7, 1945. Simon & Schuster, New York 1998, ISBN 0-684-81525-7 .
  2. ^ In Germany, War and Reunion. In: New York Times. May 30, 2010
  3. ^ A. Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein: Obituary. On the death of Honorary President Hannibal von Lüttichau-Bärenstein. 2002, p. 49.
personal data
SURNAME Lüttichau, Hannibal von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lüttichau, Hannibal Siegfried Wolff Curt von (full name); Lüttichau-Bärenstein
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 2002
Place of death Bonn