Hasso von Manteuffel

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Hasso von Manteuffel (1944)

Hasso Eccard von Manteuffel (born January 14, 1897 in Potsdam , † September 24, 1978 in Reith , Austria ) was a German tank general in World War II as well as a politician ( FDP , FVP , DP ) and a member of the German Bundestag from 1953 to 1957 .

Life

Hasso Eccard was the son of the Prussian captain Eckard August Gerdt Erdmann von Manteuffel (1863-1904) and his wife Susanne, born Ende (1874-1921).

First World War

During the First World War , coming from the cadet corps, he passed the Abitur at the Hauptkadettenanstalt in Berlin-Lichterfelde. On February 22, 1916, he joined the Hussar Regiment "von Zieten" (Brandenburgisches) No. 3 in Rathenow as an ensign . On April 28, 1916, he was promoted to lieutenant there . With his regiment he was deployed on the Western Front and was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross , the Wound Badge in Black and the Braunschweig War Merit Cross , 2nd class.

Interwar years

After the war, Manteuffel was from January 1919 adjutant of the volunteer corps of Burghard von Oven in Berlin . In May 1919 he was accepted into the 100,000-man Reichswehr and assigned to the Reichswehr Cavalry Regiment 18. In the course of the further reduction in the Reichswehr, he was transferred to the 3rd (Prussian) Cavalry Regiment , where he served in the 2nd Squadron. At the end of 1924 he was appointed adjutant and on April 1, 1925 he was promoted to first lieutenant . On October 1, 1932, chief of the 5th squadron of the 17 Reiter Regiment. On March 1, 1937 he became a consultant in the OKH in the General Army Office in the inspection of the rapid troops (later inspection of the armored forces).

On 23 June 1921 he married ARMGARD von Kleist, the niece of the later Field Marshal appointed Ewald von Kleist . The couple had two children.

Manteuffel was a well-known sport rider in the 1930s. In 1936 he served, among other things, as a tactics teacher at the Panzer Troop School I in Wünsdorf, southeast of Berlin.

Second World War

Hasso von Manteuffel (left) in consultation with officers of the Greater Germany Division (Lithuania, August 1944)

When the Second World War broke out , Manteuffel was a lieutenant colonel . Before the German attack on the Soviet Union, he became battalion commander in the 7th Panzer Division (ghost division). In August of the same year he took over the 7th Rifle Regiment , and on October 1, 1941, he was promoted to colonel . At the end of November 1941 he advanced with the so-called "Kampfgruppe Manteuffel" up to 50 km to the outskirts of Moscow . For conquering a strategically important bridge, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on December 31, 1941 . From July 1942 Manteuffel was commander of the 7th Panzer Grenadier Brigade of the 7th Panzer Division on the Eastern Front .

In the winter of 1942/43 he was posted to North Africa to serve as a division commander ( division "von Manteuffel" ) during the Tunisian campaign . In the Tuniskessel he became so ill that at the end of April 1943 he had to be sent to Germany for treatment. On May 1, 1943, he was promoted to major general . After his recovery he became commander of the 7th Panzer Division in the southern section of the Eastern Front in August 1943. In February 1944 Manteuffel was promoted to lieutenant general and on February 1, 1944 appointed commander of the Panzergrenadier Division Greater Germany , which was initially also deployed in the south of the Eastern Front and later in the Baltic States.

On September 1, 1944, Manteuffel was promoted by Hitler in the presence of Guderian in the "Fuehrer's Headquarters" to General of the Panzer Troops and at the same time he was appointed Commander in Chief of the 5th Panzer Army on the Western Front . From December 16, 1944, seven of his divisions took part in the Battle of the Bulge . After the offensive came to a standstill, Manteuffel succeeded in withdrawing his troops , despite the well-conducted counterattacks by General George S. Patton , so that they escaped destruction.

In March 1945 Manteuffel was appointed commander in chief of the 3rd Panzer Army , which was supposed to prevent the Red Army from advancing across the Oder in Pomerania. But his army was no longer able to do this, and he withdrew north of Berlin across the Elbe .

Through negotiations with British generals, Manteuffel managed in May 1945 that he and 300,000 German soldiers were taken prisoners of war by the British instead of the Soviets . After he was interned in various prison camps in Great Britain , he was handed over to American captivity. He was released from this in 1947.

Post-war years

After the war, Manteuffel, now in Neuss , was a professional employee of Robert Pferdmenges ' bank , and was also active in politics. He had been a member of the FDP since 1949, and in 1950, according to the British secret service, he contacted the Brotherhood , an association of old Nazis around the former Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann who wanted to infiltrate the young Federal Republic of Germany ; the club was ideally and personally a forerunner of the Naumann circle , also called "Gauleiter-FDP". From 1953 to 1957 he was a member of the Bundestag . He was initially his party's defense policy spokesman. After the coalition change of the FDP in North Rhine-Westphalia from the CDU to the SPD , he left the Liberals with the Euler Group on February 23, 1956 and took part in the founding of the FVP , of which he became deputy parliamentary group leader. When the FVP joined the German party on March 14, 1957 , Manteuffel did the same. The ex-general, who advocated a German defense contribution to NATO at an early stage, suggested that the new armed forces be named " Bundeswehr " , following the example of the parliamentary army of 1848 . In 1957 there were accusations against him and MPs Martin Blank (DP) and Fritz Berendsen (CDU) in connection with armaments contracts. The Defense Committee of the Bundestag, of which he was a full member from 1953 to 1957, then acted as a committee of inquiry under Article 45a of the Basic Law , but was unable to confirm the allegations.

In 1959 he was charged with manslaughter by a jury . In 1944 he had brought a soldier to a court martial for cowardice in front of the enemy because he had observed the kidnapping of two of his comrades during a night watch, but had neither intervened nor reported the incident. The court martial ruled on detention, but Manteuffel had the soldier shot . Manteuffel was sentenced to one year and six months in prison for manslaughter on August 21, 1959 , but was released after two months on the intercession of the outgoing Federal President Theodor Heuss . Manteuffels' appeal against the prison sentence was rejected by the Federal Court of Justice on March 21, 1960 .

In 1968 he was invited to a visit to the US Military Academy in West Point , New York . He also attended at the invitation of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General William Westmoreland , the Ministry of Defense of the United States and at the request of former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower , the White House .

At the end of the 1960s, Manteuffel worked as a German military advisor for US war films. He died on September 24, 1978 while on vacation in Austria and was buried in Germany. The Spiegel , The Times and other media published obituaries.

Awards

literature

Web links

Commons : Hasso von Manteuffel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Georg Meyer:  Manteuffel, Hasso von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , p. 92 ( digitized version ).
  2. Reichswehr Ministry (Ed.): Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres. ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1924, p. 182.
  3. Ludger Tewes, Die Panzergrenadierdivision Grossdeutschland, evidence for the change in positions in 1932 and 1937, p. 461.
  4. Ludger Tewes, Die Panzergrenadierdivision Grossdeutschland, p. 461.
  5. Ludger Tewes, Die Panzergrenadierdivision Grossdeutschland, p. 460.
  6. ^ Tewes, Grossdeutschland, pp. 457 to 462 from the personal file in the Federal Archives.
  7. Ludger Tewes, Die Panzergrenadierdivision Grossdeutschland, p. 537.
  8. Online
  9. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 391, source BA N 1080/272., And Searle, see Ref., P. 158.
  10. Ludger Tewes, Die Panzergrenadierdivision Grossdeutschland: p. 462, his attitude to the Bundeswehr, pp. 1101–1107.
  11. Georg Meyer:  Manteuffel, Hasso von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , p. 92 ( digitized version ).
  12. ^ Spiegel.de October 2, 1978: Died