Hans Jordan (General, 1892)

Hans Jordan (born December 27, 1892 in Scheuert near Rastatt , † April 20, 1975 in Munich ) was a German officer , most recently a general of the infantry in World War II . He commanded the 9th Army of the Wehrmacht when it was defeated in the Soviet Union in 1944.

Life

In 1912, after visiting the Cadet Corps, Jordan joined the Anhalt Infantry Regiment No. 93 of the Prussian Army in Dessau as an ensign . From July 1912 to March 1913 he was sent to the Hanover War School for further training and was promoted to lieutenant on June 16, 1913 .

With the outbreak of the First World War he came to the front with his regiment. He was wounded in 1914 and 1916 and received, among other things, the Iron Cross 2nd and 1st class. At the end of the war, Jordan was a first lieutenant orderly officer with the staff of the 80th Reserve Division .

After the end of the war, after a certain period of time with the Border Guard East and in the Freikorps, he was accepted into the Provisional Reichswehr . With this transitional army he belonged from the spring of 1920 to the intelligence department 4 of the Reichswehr Brigade 4. From 1921 Jordan was a staff officer of the 6th division . From 1922 to 1937 he worked in various units as a machine gun officer and battalion commander. On October 12, 1937, he was appointed commander of teaching group C at the military school in Munich. From 1938 on he taught at the Wiener Neustadt War School .

Map of the initial phase of the Battle of Bobruisk from June 24, 1944 to June 27, 1944. General Jordan tried to stop the Soviet attacks by splitting up the 20th Panzer Division, which was in reserve. When that failed, the city of Bobruisk, which had been declared a "permanent place", was enclosed on June 27th.

During the Second World War, he initially commanded the 49th Infantry Regiment in the western campaign as a colonel and received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on June 5, 1940 . From June 1941 he took part in the war against the Soviet Union with the 49th Infantry Regiment, which was subordinate to Army Group Center . In October 1941, Jordan was promoted to major general and command of the 7th Infantry Division . In 1942 he was promoted to lieutenant general and, as infantry general, commanded the VI. Army Corps . Due to the advance of his corps during the Typhoon operation on Moscow , Jordan received the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves on January 16, 1942 (59th award). In 1942 and 1943 he was in command of his army corps in the Battle of Rzhev and the Defense of Vitebsk .

On April 20, 1944, Jordan received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords (64th award). Subsequently, on May 20, 1944, the Army High Command transferred command of the 9th Army to him . On June 22, 1944, the Soviet offensive Operation Bagration began , in the initial phase of which the northern wing of the 1st Belarusian Front under General Rokossovsky attacked the defensive positions of Jordan's 9th Army south and north of Bobruisk . Due to the numerical superiority of the Soviet troops, Jordan was unable to stop the peaks in the attack. As a result, the city of Bobruisk , which had been declared a "permanent place" , was included on the afternoon of June 27, 1944.

Hitler dismissed Jordan on June 26, 1944 as commander of the 9th Army and appointed General of the Panzer Troop Nikolaus von Vormann as his successor. Jordan, who was subsequently transferred to the Führerreserve, only received a staff function in Army Group C , Army Group Tyrol in Italy in 1945 . There he was taken prisoner by the Allies , from which he was released in 1947.

Recordings of a Hitler speech

With handwritten notes, Hans Jordan left behind important primary sources during the Nazi era.

On February 10, 1939, Adolf Hitler gave a speech to officers of the Wehrmacht. a. historical, political and geopolitical arguments for an "enlargement of the [German] living space" , the Weltanschauung war and an appeal to the (ideological) unity of the officer corps and which was handwritten by Jordan. Through the personal acquaintance of the administrative director of the Institute for Contemporary History Heinz Förster with Jordan, the notes entered the institute's inventory.

literature

Dermot Bradley (Ed.): The Generals of the Army 1921-1945. Biblio publishing house. Volume 6. ISBN 3-7648-2582-0 . Pp. 306-308.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Findemittelinfo - Hans Jordan (PDF; 41 kB), Institute for Contemporary History , Munich.
↑ ^a ^b ^c 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. 424.

personal data
SURNAME	Jordan, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German officer, most recently General of the Infantry in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH	December 27, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH	Scouring (Gernsbach) near Rastatt
DATE OF DEATH	April 20, 1975
Place of death	Munich

[IFZ-1] Findemittelinfo - Hans Jordan (PDF; 41 kB), Institute for Contemporary History , Munich.

[Scherzer-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. 424.