Hans von Sponeck

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Hans Emil Otto Graf von Sponeck (born February 12, 1888 in Düsseldorf , † July 23, 1944 in Germersheim ) was a German officer , most recently Lieutenant General of the Wehrmacht in World War II .

Life

family

He came from the family of the Counts von Sponeck . His parents were the Rittmeister Emil August Joseph Anton von Sponeck (1850-1888) and his wife Maria Courtin (1856-1927).

His childhood was marked by a military upbringing. The son Hans-Christof , one of the first conscientious objectors , was a high-ranking UN diplomat. Another son, Hans-Curt, was in 1941 as a captain squadron in Jagdgeschwader 5 of the Luftwaffe . After his father withdrew, he was deprived of command of his unit. There was a transfer to Schnellkampfgeschwader 10 in Caen .

Military career

In 1908 Sponeck joined the Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 5 of the Prussian Army in Spandau and was used as a lieutenant and adjutant of the 2nd battalion. During the First World War he was transferred to Infantry Regiment No. 262 on the Eastern Front in 1915 as a regimental adjutant , in which he later also served as company commander . In 1916 he was employed in the General Staff of the Guard Corps and in 1917 in the General Staff .

During the time of the Weimar Republic, he was included in the Reichswehr , and Sponeck served in various staffs. I.a. he was active in the general staff of Artillery Leader III and rose to colonel by 1934 . In 1937 he joined the Luftwaffe , where he was air dome commander in Berlin and Munich. In this position, promoted to major general on March 1, 1938 , Sponeck returned to the army in July 1938 and was appointed commander of the 22nd Infantry Division in Bremen in November .

Second World War

At the beginning of the Second World War Sponeck took part in the attack on Poland with this division , which was later trained for airborne operations. In February 1940 he was promoted to lieutenant general . At the beginning of the French campaign , his division was involved in the failed airborne undertaking to take The Hague . On May 14, 1940, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . During the war against the Soviet Union in 1941 he became the commanding general of the XXXXII. Army Corps and took part in the conquest of the Crimean peninsula as part of Army Group South .

At the end of December one of his units, the 46th Infantry Division , was supposed to hold the Kerch Peninsula . In the course of the Kerch-Feodosia operation , the 244th Rifle Division and the 83rd Marine Infantry Brigade of the Red Army landed on the peninsula on December 26, under the protection of strong naval forces; However, the 46th Infantry Division managed to seal off the bridgehead . When on December 29, 1941 parts of the Soviet 44th Army landed in Feodosiya , there was a risk that the German XXXXII. Army Corps would be cut off at the rear, so Sponeck ordered the 11th Army under Erich von Manstein to clear the Kerch peninsula without consulting his superior command authority . Due to the rapid implementation of the order and the dismantling of the radio stations, he also made a withdrawal of the order by the 11th Army impossible.

On December 31, 1941, Sponeck was relieved of his command due to his unauthorized withdrawal and brought before a court martial in Berlin chaired by Hermann Göring . In this court martial , important testimony was not allowed and the accused had to stand permanently during the trial. Sponeck was sentenced to death on January 23, 1942 for "negligent disobedience in the field" . Adolf Hitler commuted the sentence to six years imprisonment on February 22, 1942 . Sponeck spent his imprisonment in the military prison in Germersheim . Multiple attempts by Erich von Manstein to obtain a complete rehabilitation of General Graf von Sponeck were unsuccessful. His family was held in kin and his assets were confiscated.

Although he no contact with the bombers of 20 July 1944 had been, he was on 23 July 1944 on the orders of Himmler with the active support of Gauleiter Josef Bürckel without trial for an example shot . This demonstrative murder was intended to prompt all officers to obey unconditionally .

Sponeck was buried in Germersheim. However, this only became known after the end of the war. In 1952 his body was buried in the Dahn Cemetery of Honor .

criticism

The historian Götz Aly sees no distance between Sponeck and the extermination policy of the Nazi system. Two days before the attack on the Soviet Union, he had issued an order to isolate and kill Jewish prisoners of war.

Awards, honors

Stolperstein in memory of Hans von Sponeck; In 2015 the request was made to remove the stone. The memorial stone was stolen before a decision was made. (see proof).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b In the sky of Europe. Edition 2009, p. 303f. ISBN 978-3-00-027503-6 .
  2. ↑ a b Reinhard Stumpf : The Wehrmacht Elite. Structure of rank and origin of the German generals and admirals 1933–1945. (Military history studies). Harald Boldt Verlag. Boppard am Rhein 1982. ISBN 3-7646-1815-9 . P. 39f.
  3. ↑ 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. 714.
  4. ^ Lothar Wettstein: Josef Bürckel. 2009, p. 540.
  5. ↑ Aly, Götz, Why the Germans? Why the Jews? Equality, envy and racial hatred 1800-1933, Frankfurt 2012 (paperback edition), p. 188; the order printed in: The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945; Vol. 7: Occupied Soviet areas under German military administration, Baltic States and Transnistria, edit. by Bert Hoppe, Munich 2011, pp. 124–126
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g Ranking list of the German Imperial Army. Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin, p. 124.
  7. ↑ Erik Grimmer-Solem: "Independent responsible action". Lieutenant General Hans Graf von Sponeck (1888–1944) and the fate of the Jews in the Ukraine, June – December 1941 . In: Military History Journal 72 (2013). Pp. 23–50 , accessed on August 26, 2015 .
  8. ^ Stumbling block stolen from Wehrmacht General Sponeck. senatspressestelle.bremen.de, March 26, 2015, accessed on March 27, 2015 .
  9. ↑ The Sponeck barracks become the Südpfalz barracks . Bundeswehr Luftwaffe, June 22, 2015, accessed on August 26, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Sponeck, Hans von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sponeck, Hans Emil Otto Graf von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently lieutenant general in the Wehrmacht in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 1944
Place of death Germersheim