Helmuth von Grolman

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Helmuth von Grolman (right) with Franz Josef Strauss , 1959

Helmuth Wilhelm Otto von Grolman (born November 6, 1898 in Reinshain , † January 18, 1977 in Hanover ) was a German officer , most recently lieutenant general in World War II and a politician . He was the first defense commissioner of the German Bundestag .

education and profession

Helmuth came from the old noble family of the von Grolman family . His father was the landscape director and temporary Reich and State Commissioner for the investigation of riot damage in Upper Silesia Siegfried von Grolman (1870-1938).

Grolman joined the 3rd Guards Uhlan Regiment in Potsdam on June 30, 1916 as a flag junior and took part in the First World War with them. At the end of October 1917 he completed a pilot training course and then joined the air force .

At the end of the war, Grolman was initially transferred back to his regular regiment and then taken over into the Reichswehr . He resigned from military service on December 31, 1920, completed an apprenticeship in banking from 1920 to 1924 and then began studying economics . In 1924 he was reactivated and rejoined the Reichswehr. He also served as a soldier in the Wehrmacht . Until 1937 he was active in the General Staff of the Army and in 1938 became First General Staff Officer (Ia) of the 28th Infantry Division . With this he took part in the Polish and Western campaigns and was then transferred as the first general staff officer to the operations department of the general staff of the army, where he worked until the end of 1942. In 1943 he led Panzer Regiment 1 for six months and in August of that year he became Chief of the General Staff of the 2nd Panzer Army deployed in the Balkans .

In July 1944 he was finally promoted to succeed Walther Wenck Chief of the General Staff of Army Group South Ukraine (from September 1944 Army Group South ) and on November 1, 1944 promoted to Lieutenant General. He saw the end of the war as commander of the 4th Cavalry Division (from March 24, 1945). With the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht , Grolmann became a prisoner of war in the United States , from which he was released on March 31, 1948.

Public offices

In the Federal Republic of Germany he was in the Lower Saxony state government of Prime Minister Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf from 1955 State Secretary in the Ministry for Expellees. The refugee minister Heinrich Albertz brought him into politics . Pastor Albertz had been protected several times from persecution by the National Socialists by Grolman.

From 1955 to 1957 he worked on the personnel appraisal committee for the Bundeswehr .

On February 19, 1959, he was elected by a large majority to be the first defense commissioner of the German Bundestag and sworn in on March 20, 1959. On April 1, 1959, he took up his post in Bonn .

Grolman's first annual report in 1960 sparked heated public discussions about his position and his position. Grolman reported that the rapid build-up was detrimental to the mood and spirit of the soldiers. The then Federal Minister of Defense, Franz Josef Strauss , described this statement as an overstepping of responsibilities .

After Grolman, the husband and father of five children, was publicly accused of having a homosexual relationship with the seventeen-year-old waiter's apprentice Eckhard Krull, he asked for his release on July 14, 1961. In the course of the public discussion about his homosexual tendencies, Grolman attempted suicide in his office with a cyanide capsule on July 13, but it failed. Krull had already tried to commit suicide with sleeping pills on July 9th. Grolman was sentenced by the court in September 1961 for fornication with minors to three months in prison with probation because of the granting of reduced sanity as a result of the abuse of sleeping pills.

Until the end of his life, Grolman lived in seclusion with his family.

Awards

family

Grolman was married and had five children.

literature

  • Rudolf J. Schlaffer : The Armed Forces Commissioner 1951 to 1985. Out of concern for the soldiers (= Security Policy and Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Germany , Volume 5). Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-486-58025-9 , p. 346.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Confessions of Krull . The mirror. July 26, 1961. Retrieved November 21, 2013.
  2. ↑ Pascal Beucker and Frank Überall: Behind the keyhole . TAZ of June 10, 2006, accessed on November 12, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b c Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Ed .: Reichswehrministerium , Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1929, p. 170.
personal data
SURNAME Grolman, Helmuth von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grolman, Helmuth Wilhelm Otto von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Reinshain
DATE OF DEATH January 18, 1977
Place of death Hanover