Hans-Gustav Felber

General Hans-Gustav Felber (left) in 1943 at the Gare d'Arenc freight yard, during the deportation of Jews from Marseille. Next to him Colonel Bernhard Griese (Commander Police Regiment Griese) and Carl Oberg (HSSPF France) in civilian clothes.

Hans-Gustav Felber (born July 8, 1889 in Wiesbaden , † March 8, 1962 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German officer , most recently a general of the infantry in World War II .

career

Felber began his military career on March 17, 1908 as a flag junior in the infantry body regiment "Grand Duchess" (3rd Grand Ducal Hessian) No. 117 in Mainz , on August 17, 1909 he was promoted to lieutenant . During the First World War he served as a battalion and regimental adjutant as well as a company and battalion commander and from 1917 as a captain in the staff of the Grand Ducal Hessian (25th) Division . He attended the Sedan General Staff course in 1918 and then served at AOK 2 until the end of the war . He received the Iron Crosses II and I class.

He stayed with the army after the end of the war, served in the transitional army and the Reichswehr , where he was deployed as a company commander and later a regimental adjutant in the 15th Infantry Regiment . In the meantime, he also served in the organization department of the military office . In 1924 he was transferred to the staff of the infantry leader in military district VII (Munich) , where from 1925 he was head of training for assistant leaders . He completed the Wachenfeld courses from 1931 , which was followed on April 1, 1932, by promotion to lieutenant colonel . Felber received command of the 1st Battalion of 1st Infantry Regiment in 1933, before he was commissioned as a colonel in the summer of 1934 to set up the military academy .

In July 1935 he became Chief of Staff of the III. Army Corps , promoted to major general in 1937 and head of the staff of Army Group Command 3 in Dresden in April 1938 , which was converted to AOK 8 for the attack on Poland in 1939 . He kept this position, meanwhile promoted to Lieutenant General, even after he was transferred to the West and renamed to AOK 2 . In February 1940 he was appointed Chief of Staff of Army Group C under Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb and took part in the Western campaign in this position . On October 25, 1940, after his promotion to General of the Infantry, he was given command of the XIII. Army corps , which he led in the area of ​​the 4th Army of Army Group Center during the attack on the Soviet Union . In January 1942 he was transferred to the Führerreserve and in April he was promoted to commanding general of the Higher Command XXXXV deployed in France on the demarcation line. On May 21, 1942, the Felber Army Group ( LXXXIII. Army Corps ) was formed under his leadership, which was so named due to the liaison staff to the Italian AOK 4. In this role he was involved in the Anton company , which was occupied in the south of France in November 1942. In August 1943 he handed over his command to Georg von Sodenstern , as he had been appointed military commander in the southeast (with responsibility for Serbia ). From September 26th to October 27th, 1944 he led the army division Serbia, then the "Higher Command Vosges" (also called "Corps Group Felber"), from which later the new XIII. Army Corps emerged.

From February 22 to March 25, 1945 he commanded the 7th Army . On March 23, US troops under General Patton managed to cross the Rhine near Nierstein . Shortly thereafter, Felber was transferred to the Führer Reserve until the end of the war . He was a US prisoner of war from May 8 ; from this he was released on May 8, 1948.

Alleged involvement in war crimes

The deportation of Polish Jews from the Lodz ghetto was ordered by Felber, who was then Chief of Staff of the 8th Army , before Reinhard Heydrich issued the corresponding order . This shows that the Wehrmacht was involved in the persecution of the Jews at an early stage.

After the Anton company , the Felber Army Group became responsible for the defense measures in southern France, which was previously under the sole control of the Vichy regime . Among other things, Felber's troops were involved in the deportation of Jews from Marseille and the evacuation and destruction of the harbor area in January 1943 .

Against Felber in 1949 before the regional court Frankfurt / M. initiated a preliminary investigation into violation of international law in relation to hostage killings in Serbia, which has not continued.

Web links

• Ahlrich Meyer : " The raids in Marseille in 1943 and the propaganda photography of the German Wehrmacht ." Francia 22/3 (1995)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jürgen Förster, Complicity or Entanglement? - Wehrmacht, War and Holocaust, p. 271, in Michael Berenbaum & Abraham J. Peck (eds.): The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined. Indiana 2002 ( online )