Harald von Hirschfeld

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Harald Siegwart Hans Lutze von Hirschfeld (born July 10, 1912 in Weimar , † January 18, 1945 at the Duklapass ) was a German officer , most recently Lieutenant General in World War II .

Life

Hirschfeld was the son of a Mecklenburg wholesale merchant and spent his childhood as a German expat in Brazil and Spain . In 1931 he passed the primary school at a Potsdam grammar school and worked from autumn 1932 to spring 1933 as the foreign correspondent of the Völkischer Beobachter in Paris . In March 1933 he returned to Germany, where he joined the NSDAP and the SA .

From July 1, 1933 to March 31, 1935, Hirschfeld was adjutant of the police chief of Kassel , the SA leader Friedrich Pfeffer von Salomon , then completed his Reich labor service and after its termination on October 29, 1935, joined the mountain hunter as a three-year-old volunteer. Regiment 99 in Kempten in the Allgäu . There he was promoted to corporal in the reserve on September 30, 1936, and on that day he was appointed reserve officer candidate. This was followed by promotion to Oberjäger of the Reserve on November 12, 1936, to Sergeant of the Reserve on December 10, 1936, and finally to Lieutenant of the Reserve on September 1, 1937 . As such, Hirschfeld was transferred to the Mountain Infantry Regiment 98 on October 12, 1936. From July 10, 1938, he completed a one-month course at the Potsdam War School . On September 1, 1938, Hirschfeld was taken over into active employment. From November 10, 1938 he then acted as adjutant of the 2nd battalion of his regiment. On July 1, 1939, he became platoon leader in the 16th anti-tank company.

At the beginning of the Second World War, he joined the regiment's staff as an orderly officer, took part in the attack on Poland and was platoon leader again from December 9, 1939 to January 20, 1940. Then Hirschfeld, who had been promoted to first lieutenant on June 1, 1940 , was entrusted with the management of the company he led during the campaign in the west until August 1940 . On August 2, 1940, he was appointed their chief , deployed from November 25 to December 6, 1940 in the staff of the 1st Mountain Division and then transferred to him command of the 7th Company. He led this in the war against the Soviet Union and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on November 15, 1941 , and promoted to captain on April 1, 1942 . On April 26th he was appointed commander of the 2nd Battalion and as such he received the 164th Oak Leaves for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for the fighting in the Caucasus on December 23, 1942.

From January 18 to June 15, 1943, Hirschfeld was in the Führerreserve and was promoted to major on January 21, 1943. In July, he returned to the 1st Mountain Division as battalion commander, and on October 3, he took the lead of the Mountain Infantry Regiment 98 and appointed on December 1, 1943 while being promoted to lieutenant colonel as its commander.

In September 1943, Hirschfeld, as regimental commander, played a key role in the massacre on Kefalonia .

On June 1, 1944, he was promoted to colonel and from July 21 to September 1, 1944, he was reassigned to the Führerreserve. At the same time, he completed a division leader course in August. He was then assigned to lead the 564th Volksgrenadier Division , shortly afterwards on September 15th the 337th Volksgrenadier Division and finally on September 22nd 1944 assigned to the 78th Volkssturm Division , of which he became the unofficial commander (officially the Colonel Alois Weber Commander). With simultaneous promotion to major general , Hirschfeld was appointed commander of the former 78th Volkssturm division, which was now renamed the 78th Infantry Division, on January 15, 1945 (retroactive to December 1).

Hirschfeld died as a result of an air raid on January 18, 1945 and was posthumously promoted to lieutenant general on February 10, 1945. His accelerated career in the second half of the war can largely be explained by his intellectual closeness to National Socialism. Hirschfeld was considered the prototype of the political officer required by the Nazi regime.

Hirschfeld was married to the daughter of the former imperial consul general in Argentina, Sylvina Countess Dönhoff. The widow married the former lieutenant general of the German Air Force Adolf Galland in 1954 .

literature

  • Dermot Bradley: The Generals of the Army 1921–1945. Volume 5: v. Haack-Hitzfeld. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1999, ISBN 3-7648-2538-3 , pp. 470-472.
  • Roland Kaltenegger: Lieutenant General Harald von Hirschfeld: from the training director of the son of the Chinese Marshal Chiang Kai-shek to the youngest general of the army , Würzburg: Flechsig [2018], ISBN 978-3-8035-0103-5 .
  • Peter Lieb : Lieutenant General Harald von Hirschfeld. A National Socialist career in the Wehrmacht. In: Christian Hartmann (ed.): From generals and private. On the biographical dimension of the Second World War. Oldenbourg-Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58144-7 .
  • Hermann Frank Meyer: Bloody edelweiss. The 1st Mountain Division in World War II. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86153-447-1 (online) .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 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. 393.
  2. ^ A b Samuel W. Mitcham: German Order of Battle: 1st-290th Infantry divisions in World War II . Stackpole Books, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8117-3416-5 , pp. 133 ( google.de [accessed on May 1, 2019]).
  3. ^ Adolf Galland . In: Der Spiegel . 1954. Retrieved December 23, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Hirschfeld, Harald von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently lieutenant general in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH July 10, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Weimar
DATE OF DEATH January 18, 1945
Place of death Duklapass