Helmuth Greiner

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Helmuth Greiner (born April 20, 1892 in Leipzig , † March 16, 1958 in Wiesbaden ) was a German officer , archivist and military historian . As a military writer from 1939 to 1943 he kept the official war diary of the High Command of the Wehrmacht and records from briefings of the Wehrmacht command staff .

Life

Greiner was born in Leipzig as the son of the actor Carl Greiner and his wife Anna, née Goldschmidt. He attended the higher middle school and the humanistic Thomas School in Leipzig . In 1913 he graduated from the Johanneum in Zittau .

In 1913 he became a flag junior in the 1st Lower Alsatian Infantry Regiment 132 in Strasbourg . In 1914 he was promoted to lieutenant and then fought in the First World War . After being wounded two times, he was ordered to serve as a military attaché at the Imperial German Legation in Bern . After the war he served in the War History Department of the Great General Staff in Berlin. In 1919 he became assistant archivist in the historical department of the Reichsarchiv in Potsdam and in 1920 left the Reichswehr as captain .

From 1921 to 1924 he studied economics and history at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin . After several years of training, he became archivist at the Reich Archives in 1928 . There he conducted research on the history of the First World War. In 1929 he married Asta Schmarsow. In 1935 he was Councilor in the Wehrmacht and 1936 upper government in the "War History Research Institute of the Army" in Berlin. He wrote several military historical writings and published for the magazines " Germania ", " Wissen und Wehr " and the "Berliner Monatshefte".

In 1939 he was transferred to Department "L" (national defense) in the Wehrmacht Leadership Office (WFA) at the High Command of the Wehrmacht , and in 1940 he was appointed Ministerial Councilor. In 1943 he was released from his work on the war diary after being denounced . Percy Ernst Schramm became his successor. Then he worked on the war diary of the "German General at the headquarters of the Italian Wehrmacht" Enno von Rintelen . In 1943 he was appointed to the Fiihrer's headquarters and released into the Reich Archives in the same year. From 1945 to 1946 he was an American prisoner of war .

His war history is now in the Federal Archives .

Works (selection)

  • We Fighters in World War I (Ed.), Peters Verlag, Berlin 1937.
  • The highest command of the Wehrmacht 1939–1943 , Limes Verlag, Wiesbaden 1951.
  • The Russian campaign of 1812 (ed.), Limes Verlag, Wiesbaden 1953.
  • War diary of the Wehrmacht High Command 1940–1945 , Pawlak Verlag, Herrsching 1982.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Edmund Glaise von Horstenau , Peter Broucek: A General in the Twilight. The memories of Edmund Glaise von Horstenau . 2nd edition, Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 1988, p. 156 f, ISBN 3-95004-380-2 .
  2. ^ Extract from the German lists of losses (Pruss. 29) of September 19, 1914, p. 257
  3. ^ Extract from the German lists of losses (Preuss. 239) of June 3, 1915, p. 6697