Army Personnel Office

This article deals with the German military agency until 1945. For the agency of the Austrian Armed Forces since 2002 see Heerespersonalamt (Austria) .

The Army Personnel Office was a military service of the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht . From 1935 on, it formed the Army High Command together with four other offices and was responsible for personnel matters.

history

Chiefs of the Army Personnel Office Major General / Lieutenant General Johann Edler von Braun (from December 7, 1918) Lieutenant General Wilhelm Heye (from April 1, 1922) Major General Hermann Reinicke (from October 1, 1923) Colonel Joachim von Stülpnagel (from February 1, 1927) Colonel Günther von Hammerstein-Equord (October 1, 1929) Lieutenant General Erich von dem Bussche-Ippenburg (November 1, 1930) Colonel Viktor von Schwedler (October 1, 1933) Major General Bodewin Keitel (February 4, 1938) Major General Rudolf Schmundt (October 1, 1942) Lieutenant General Wilhelm Burgdorf (October 12, 1944)

Since 1807, the Royal Prussian military cabinet had decided how officers were selected, appointed, or promoted. The management of this facility was incumbent on the head of the military cabinet, who from 1857 had also been adjutant general to the king.

From this, the new Army Personnel Office (HPA) arose in 1920, which had to deal with all personnel matters of the officers and the officer candidates of the Army of the Reichswehr and later of the Wehrmacht . The general staff officers were an exception ; the central department of the general staff decided on their training, employment and promotion. With the increased recruitment of officers from 1935 and above all during the Second World War , many new tasks arose for him. Between 1932 and 1939 alone, the officer corps grew 28-fold to 89,087 positions. The Personnel Office therefore tried to counteract the shortage of officers with temporary help, such as the promotion of active NCOs or the appointment of reserve officers , but without being able to solve the general problem.

The growing demands also led to numerous organizational changes. The subdivision into several departments was fundamental:

• Department P 1 (planning human resources, personnel management of officers)
• Department P 2 (officers' disciplinary matters)
• Department P 3 (staffing of General Staff officers ; from 1935 transferred to the Central Department of the General Staff of the Army)
• Department P 4 (personnel management of officers in special careers; was renamed P 3 on April 1, 1939)

On October 2, 1942, Major General and "Chief Adjuntant of the Wehrmacht to the Fuehrer" Rudolf Schmundt became the new head of the Army Personnel Office. This was the first time since 1918 that the personal union of chief adjutant and chief of the Army Personnel Office was re-established. After his death due to the serious injury sustained in the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , his previous deputy, Lieutenant General Wilhelm Burgdorf , took over the position of head of the Army Personnel Office. At the same time he was also the chief adjutant of the Wehrmacht with Hitler.

The holdings of the Army Personnel Office are, as far as they are still preserved, in the Federal Archives-Military Archives in Freiburg im Breisgau .

See also

• German Office (WASt) , storage location of all surviving personnel files of the Wehrmacht.

literature

• Rudolf Schmundt , Wilhelm Burgdorf , Heerespersonalamt, editors, Dermot Bradley , Richard Schulze-Kossens , activity report of the Chief of the Army Personnel Office General of the Infantry Rudolf Schmundt: October 1, 1942 to October 29, 1944 , new edition, Biblio Verlag, 1984
• Herbert Schottelius / Gustav-Adorlf Caspar: The Organization of the Army 1933–1939 , in: Wehrmacht and National Socialism , Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1978, pp. 289–400 (= Military History Research Office (ed.): German Military History 1648–1939 , Vol. 4).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Günter Wegner: Occupation of the German Army 1815-1939 , Vol. 1, Osnabrück 1990, p. 762
2. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler : German history of society 1914–1945 , Munich 2003, p. 879; Friedrich Hossbach: The development of the supreme command over the army in Brandenburg, Prussia and in the German Empire from 1655-1945 , Würzburg 1964, p. 148
3. ^ Hans Ulrich Wehler: German history of society 1914-1945 , Munich 2003, p. 879
4. ↑ Herbert Schottelius / Gustav-Adorlf Caspar: The Organization of the Army 1933-1939 , p. 335
5. ↑ Herbert Schottelius / Gustav-Adorlf Caspar: The Organization of the Army 1933-1939 , p. 334
6. ^ Federal Archives: The Federal Archives and its Holdings , Boppard am Rhein 1977, p. 208