Hans Windeck

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hans Windeck, 1943

Hans Edmund Otto Arthur Windeck (born January 13, 1888 in Berlin-Schöneberg , † June 19, 1979 in Herford ) was a German officer , most recently Lieutenant General in World War II .

family

Windeck came from a bourgeois family proven in the Lower Silesian Goldberg since the fifteenth century . His grandfather was the owner of a manor on Suckau in the district of Glogau / Lower Silesia. He was the second son of the then Prussian Prime Lieutenant in the Fusilier Regiment "Queen" (Schleswig-Holstein) No. 86 Richard Windeck (1856–1903) and his wife Elise Berringer (1863–1912) from Rostock in what was then the Schöneberg suburb of Berlin born. His godparents were Hans Linck , who later became a member of the Reichstag, and Arthur Freiherr von Gillern, who later became Lieutenant General . He had three brothers and two sisters; one sister died in childhood, all three brothers died in the First World War .

He was married twice. From his first marriage (1922/23) with Käthe Hagenah he had a daughter; from his second marriage (⚭ 1927) to Ruth Baals he had two sons and two daughters.

Life

youth

He first grew up in Flensburg and Rastatt , where his father served and entered the Karlsruhe cadet house in 1898 ; from there he transferred to the Hauptkadettenanstalt , which he completed as a selectan with the officer examination; he was one of the ten best of the year presented to the emperor.

Empire and First World War

In March 1908 he was transferred as a lieutenant to the infantry regiment "Graf Werder" (4th Rheinisches) No. 30 , with which he also took part in the First World War . In the first battle near Mercy-le-Haut (France) during the conquest of Ligny, he was seriously wounded as a battalion adjutant; at the same time his seventeen-year-old youngest brother fell, who had only been with the same regiment as an ensign for a few days. In February 1915 he was promoted to first lieutenant and appointed leader of the 10th Company. This he led in the battles in the Argonne and the autumn battle in Champagne, as well as several times in the battle and trench warfare around Verdun . As an orderly officer in the 34th Division , he was involved in the retaking of Fort Douaumont . Further stations were u. a. General staff officer of the 29th Division and the course for general staff officers as well as a mission as an air observer. In 1917 he was promoted to captain and in March 1918 took over the 1st battalion of his regular regiment. During a short absence due to the convalescence of a wound, his battalion was almost completely destroyed on October 6, 1918 in the fighting before the Siegfriedstellung, but was replenished shortly afterwards as the regiment's alarm battalion.

After the armistice , his regiment in Delitzsch was demobilized . Against the will of his regimental commander, but with the full support of the division commander Major General Teetzmann , he followed the call of the provisional Reich government Ebert to set up volunteer associations and set up a reinforced, well-equipped company of around 150 men from all parts of the division, including 58 men from his own Battalion came. With this he joined on December 21, 1918 the Freikorps of Colonel Ernst Hasse , the later Reichswehr Regiment Hasse as the 8th company. The company was deployed to protect the elections to the National Assembly in Berlin-Wedding and housed in the Moabit remand prison. Operations to protect Silesia followed later . When the provisional Reichswehr was downsized at the beginning of 1920 and the regiment was disbanded in February, he took part in the Kapp Putsch on March 13, like many discharged soldiers ; his engagement was short.

Weimar Republic

In 1920 he joined the Prussian police in Kiel as a police captain and became a consultant at the regional council in Schleswig-Holstein in Schleswig ; u. a. In 1921 he was in charge of the temporary police operation in Heligoland when there were efforts there to be reconnected to Great Britain . Further stations as police chief were Cottbus , Mönchen-Gladbach and Dortmund- Nord. On April 1, 1931, he was transferred to the police school in Brandenburg an der Havel , initially as head of department, then as deputy school commander.

time of the nationalsocialism

After the proclamation of military sovereignty , he was accepted into the Wehrmacht as a lieutenant colonel in 1935 and served first as a battalion commander in the Paderborn infantry regiment (later: Infantry Regiment 18 ), then as deputy regiment commander in Detmold . On April 20, 1936 he was promoted to colonel and took over the 58th Infantry Regiment of the 6th Infantry Division in Herford on January 18, 1937 , which he also led in the first missions of the Second World War in the west. From November 1939 he was commissioned to set up the 198th Infantry Division ; then he was appointed commander of Kalisch , from which he was relieved at his own request and in February was given the command of Division No. 402 . On March 16, 1940, he was appointed major general. On June 20 he took over the 152nd Division in Stettin and was promoted to Lieutenant General on March 16, 1942. With his transfer on March 13, 1944 as commander of the z. b. V. 540 in Brno he was the armed forces commander of Moravia . On March 31, 1945 he moved as General z. b. V. (Deputy) of the Armed Forces Plenipotentiary in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Prague and headed in this function after the departure of his superior on 8/9. May the withdrawal of German troops and refugees from Prague to Pilsen .

Release certificate from American captivity

post war period

On May 9, 1945, Windeck went into American captivity in Pilsen , from which he was released to his family in Herford on June 5, 1947, after spending time in the Landshut , Dachau and general camps in Garmisch-Partenkirchen . At first it was under the supervision of the British occupying forces. He learned the trade of a businessman and worked as a sales representative for the numerous furniture factories in and around Herford.

He was a co-founder and long-time chairman of the Association of German Soldiers (VdS) in Herford; he was also part of the city council for the FDP .

Overview of the promotions

Awards

literature

  • Horst Großmann: History of the Rhenish-Westphalian 6th Infantry Division 1939–1945. Podzun, Bad Nauheim 1958.
  • Schmidt, von Woedtke: History of the Infantry Regiment Graf Werder (4th Rhine.) No. 30 1914/18. Berlin 1929.
  • Ernst Schmidt: The active officers of the Graf Werder regiment from 1812-1912. Self-published by the regiment, Saarlouis 1912.
  • Federal Archives - Military Archives: Pers 6/999

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Albert Schulz : Memories of a Social Democrat, Library and Information System of the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg 2000, ISBN 3-8142-0758-0 , p. 32f ( PDF )
personal data
SURNAME Windeck, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hans Edmund Otto Arthur Windeck (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently lieutenant general in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH January 13, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin-Schöneberg
DATE OF DEATH June 19, 1979
Place of death Herford