Hans Piekenbrock

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Hans Piekenbrock (born October 3, 1893 in Essen , † December 16, 1959 in Porz-Wahn ) was a German lieutenant general in World War II .

Life

Piekenbrock family grave in Essen (Ostfriedhof)

Piekenbrock was born as the son of a building contractor in Essen. After visiting the elementary school and the high school in Essen he took a law degree at the University in Freiburg on. From 1914 he was a member of the Corps Rhenania Freiburg . When the First World War broke out, he joined the 2nd Westphalian Hussar Regiment No. 11 of the Prussian Army as a volunteer and was promoted to lieutenant by mid-October 1915 . At the end of the war he was a regimental adjutant and, in addition to the two classes of the Iron Cross, had the Wound Badge in Black, the Hanseatic Cross Hamburg and the Austrian Military Merit Cross III for his behavior . Class received with war decorations.

Hans Piekenbrock's grave inscription

After the end of the war he was accepted into the Reichswehr and employed as a squadron officer in the 15th (Prussian) cavalry regiment . His promotion to first lieutenant took place on December 1, 1923 and as such he came to the regimental staff in Paderborn . In 1926 he was transferred to the staff of the 6th Division . Here he completed a one-year training as a guide assistant , which was actually a hidden general staff training. Due to the Versailles Treaty , it was forbidden for the Reichswehr in the Weimar Republic to have a general staff or to implement appropriate qualifications for military command personnel. After completing this course, he was transferred to the Reichswehr Ministry in Berlin on October 1, 1927 . Here it was used in the Army Statistical Department T3 of the TA Troop Office, the military intelligence service of the Reichswehr. Günther Schwantes (1881–1942) had been head of the Defense Department since 1927. The task in the area of ​​defense consisted in the intelligence service gathering information about the military facilities, their structure, armament and deployment of the armies of potential war opponents. In April of the following year, the Defense Department was merged with the intelligence service of the Admiralty to form the expanded Defense Department. Since a certain rotation principle within a time limit of two to three years was mandatory for the general staff, Piekenbrock was transferred to the staff of the 3rd Cavalry Division in Weimar on October 1, 1929 .

In 1932 he was reassigned to the 15th Cavalry Regiment as squadron chief . During the restructuring of the Reichswehr to the Wehrmacht in 1934, Piekenbrock was transferred to the staff of Infantry Leader III (Wehrkreiskommando III) on October 1st as the first General Staff Officer (Ia) . His superior was Hermann Hoth (1885–1971), who here had the task of forming the 18th Infantry Division after the military designations were now again openly used in 1934. Thereafter Piekenbrock was used as the first general staff officer of the 18th Infantry Division . He was appointed to this position on October 6, 1936 by Major i. G. Rudolf Schmundt (1896–1944) replaced to become head of Department I of the Defense in the Reichswehr Ministry. This structure of the military intelligence service was taken over on January 1, 1935 by Vice Admiral Wilhelm Canaris as head of the Defense Office and restructured by him. From this point on, the defense was divided into five departments, including the headquarters, the foreign intelligence service, counter-espionage, sabotage and intelligence gathering, i.e. Department I. The department headed by Piekenbrock was responsible for the intelligence-gathering of information in neutral and opposing countries. On August 1, 1937 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel i. G. Immediately after the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis in early 1938, the Abwehr office was incorporated under the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW). At this point in time, Division I was subdivided into Army, Air, Navy and Technical Department. Shortly before the German invasion of Poland in 1939, he also held this office and was called in to cover the fictitious attack on the Gleiwitz transmitter in August 1939 . His next promotion took place on December 1 to Colonel i. G. He then left the department post in the military defense in early 1943. His successor was Colonel Georg Hansen (1904–1944).

In June 1943 Piekenbrock was transferred as commander of the 208th Infantry Division , which was deployed on the Eastern Front. Shortly thereafter in August, he was promoted to major general. On March 1, 1944, he was promoted to lieutenant general. On May 4, 1944, he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for leading his division in the Kamenez-Podolski battle . At times he was also with the leadership of the LIX. Army Corps instructed.

Shortly after the surrender , Piekenbrock was taken prisoner of war in Czechoslovakia on May 12, 1945 , where he remained until autumn 1955.

On July 10, 1924, he married Renate Haase. Piekenbrock died on December 16, 1956 in Cologne-Porz. He found his final resting place in the Ostfriedhof Essen .

literature

  • André Brissaud : Canaris. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt 1970.
  • Ladislas Faragó : The game of the foxes. Ullstein 1972.
  • Julius Mader : Hitler's spy antagonists testify. A documentary report on the structure, structure and operations of the OK W Secret Service Abroad / Defense with a chronology of its operations from 1933 to 1944. Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1971.
  • Erwin Dickhoff: Essen heads. Richard Bacht publishing house, Essen 1985, ISBN 3-87034-037-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reichswehr Ministry (Ed.): Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres. Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin 1930, p. 149.
  2. ^ Michael Geyer: Armament and Security. The Reichswehr in the Crisis of Power Politics 1924–1936. Wiesbaden 1980; Florian Peter Kleeberg: Organization and nature of the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic. (Research work) GRIN Verlag Munich 2010, p. 7 ff.
  3. ^ Friedrich Gempp: Secret intelligence service and counter-espionage of the army. (Memorandum) Files of the Reich Chancellery Weimar Republic and BA-MA Freiburg.
  4. ^ Karl Heinz Abshagen: Canaris. Patriot and citizen of the world. Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Stuttgart 1954.
  5. ^ Document on the structure of the defense from 1936. In: André Brissaud: Canaris legend and reality. Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg 1996. p. 535.
  6. ↑ Karsten Hansen: Resistance and Defense. From the life of Colonel i. G. Georg Alexander Hansen. Cultural Association Rangsdorf, 2014.
  7. ↑ 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. 594.
personal data
SURNAME Piekenbrock, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Lieutenant General in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 1959
Place of death Porz madness