Herbert Otto Gille

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Gille in the spring of 1944, admission to a propaganda company

Herbert Otto Gille (born March 8, 1897 in Gandersheim , † December 27, 1966 in Stemmen ) was a German SS-Obergruppenführer and general of the Waffen-SS .

Life

Early years

Herbert Gille was the fourth son of the manufacturer Hermann Gille. From 1903 to 1909 he first attended the community school and then the grammar school in his hometown. He had been a member of the Bensberg Cadet Corps since he was fourteen . After he was transferred to the Hauptkadettenanstalt Berlin-Lichterfelde in 1914 and was retired there, he joined the 2nd Baden Field Artillery Regiment No. 30 in Rastatt as an ensign . During the First World War he was transferred to the newly established Reserve Field Artillery Regiment No. 55, with which he moved to the front in December 1914. In January 1915 he was promoted to lieutenant and used in his regiment as platoon leader , battery officer and, most recently, battery leader . In addition to both classes of the Iron Cross , Gille also received the Austrian Military Merit Cross III for his achievements . Class.

After the armistice of Compiègne he returned home with his regiment and briefly returned to his main regiment at the end of January 1919. After demobilization and dissolution, Gille was retired from military service on March 31, 1919.

He first lived as an apprentice at the manor Bätzigerode in Kassel , was 1920-21 managers on the estate Bamhof and then to 1923 manager at a property at Abbesbüttel . In 1922 Gille joined the Stahlhelm , to which he belonged until 1926. From 1923 to 1929 he had changing employment relationships on domains and manors and then worked as a traveler at Büssing AG until 1931 . On January 25, 1931, he was sentenced to RM 20.00 , or four days' imprisonment, for gambling according to §§ 47, 248 RStGB .

SS career

In November 1930 he joined the NSDAP ( membership number 537.337) and was accepted into the SS in December 1931 (SS number 39.854). From January 1933 he led the motor squadron of the 49th SS standard in Braunschweig , which belonged to the Motor SS.

Promoted to SS-Sturmführer on April 20, 1933 , he took over command of the 49th SS Standard and was involved in an intrigue to overthrow the Brunswick government, which is why he was expelled from the party and the SS on July 20, 1933. However, proceedings before the party court of the NSDAP achieved his resumption in the party and SS, and on April 9, 1934 he was appointed as a surplus SS leader z. b. V. transferred to the 49th SS standard. Gille, who had sought to join the Reichswehr , joined the SS disposable troops set up on December 14, 1934, and on May 17, 1935, as SS-Obersturmführer, assumed responsibility for the 11th company of SS Standard 2 "Germany" in Ellwangen . After attending a course at the Döberitz Infantry School , Gille joined the SS “Germania” regiment in Arolsen , where he was given command of the 2nd Battalion on February 15. On the occasion of Adolf Hitler's 48th birthday , Gille was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer on April 20, 1937 .

Second World War

On June 1, 1939 Gille was entrusted with the establishment of an artillery department for the SS disposal division , after he had participated in an artillery course in Jüterbog in the spring of 1939 . As a division commander of the 1st division of the artillery regiment of the disposal division, Gille took part in the Polish and western campaigns, where he received the clasp for his Iron Crosses from the First World War. After the SS Division Wiking, led by SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner , was granted an artillery regiment in November 1940, Gille took over command of this regiment on January 30, 1941 with the rank of SS-Standartenführer . In this position he took part in the attack on the Soviet Union .

On October 1, 1941, Gille was promoted to SS-Oberführer and received the German Cross in Gold on February 28, 1942 for his services in the fighting in retreat on the Mius position ( Battle of Rostov ) . As the leader of an advance division, he contributed to the renewed conquest of Rostov on July 23, 1942 and made it possible to cross the Kuban . For this he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on October 28, 1942 . A short time later he took over command of SS Wiking Division from SS-Obergruppenführer Steiner.

When trying to relieve the trapped German 6th Army in the Battle of Stalingrad , Gilles Division was able to cover the southern flank of the 4th Panzer Army with difficulty and secure the retreat on the Don. The river was reached on February 5, 1943 by the Wiking Division. In Rostov, Felix Steiner took command of the division again. Gille, who had been promoted to SS Brigadefuhrer and Major General of the Waffen SS on December 1, 1942 , acted as his deputy.

In the retreat battles after the failed offensive at Kursk ( Citadel Company ), Gille, who had been in command of the Wiking Division again since May 1, 1943, again distinguished himself. His leadership skills enabled the division to withdraw in an orderly manner. Gille was awarded the Knight's Cross with the Oak Leaves.

In late 1943, the SS Wiking Division was used to secure the Dnieper near Cherkassy . Gilles' ruthless defense tactics contributed to the heavy losses suffered by the SS Wiking division. In an attempt to drive out invading Red Army units , two battalions were wiped out and a regimental commander was killed. On November 9, 1943, Gille was promoted to SS group leader and lieutenant general of the Waffen SS.

During the Korsun-Shevchenkovsk operation at the end of January 1944, Soviet troops broke through the German front line southwest of Kiev . As a result, two German army corps with nine divisions and 54,000 soldiers were enclosed in the so-called Cherkassy pocket. This included the Wiking SS Division. After three weeks, under the leadership of General of the Artillery Wilhelm Stemmermann, around 35,000 soldiers escaped from the pocket, leaving behind heavy weapons and equipment as well as a large number of wounded. Only the Wiking division and the Wallonia storm brigade, which was also included, were still recognizable as closed units.

On February 19, 1944, Gille received the swords for the oak leaves of the Knight's Cross from Hitler at the Führer Headquarters . At the same time, the situation in Kovel , which was declared a " permanent place " a little later and was only held by weak German troops, began to worsen. On March 16, 1944, Gille was flown into the city, which had already been trapped by Soviet troops, in order to command the trapped troops himself. A relief attack by the 131st Infantry Division , the 4th and 5th Panzer Divisions and the SS Wiking Division created a connection to the German lines on April 4, 1944. For the defense of Kowel Gille received on April 19, 1944 Hitler awarded the brilliants of the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.

While the SS Wiking division was being refreshed, Gille was given command of the newly formed IV SS Panzer Corps on August 8, 1944, during the collapse of Army Group Center ( Operation Bagration ) , with which he was able to stop the Soviet attack on Warsaw . For his defensive success, Gille was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen SS on November 9, 1944.

In the Battle of Budapest , Gilles IV. SS Panzer Corps was relocated to Hungary on Christmas Eve 1944 to relieve the city enclosed by the Red Army . The relief attack began on New Years Day 1945, but got stuck after a few days due to a lack of fuel and ammunition. A second attempt came to a halt about 20 kilometers from Budapest because the German attack peaks had almost been cut off by a Soviet counterattack. A little later, Gille argued with the commander of the 6th Army , General of the Panzer Force Hermann Balck , about whether a further advance would have been possible. Balck later expressed the assumption that Gille should be built up by Heinrich Himmler to become the “savior of Budapest”.

Until April 1945, the Balck Army Group tried repeatedly to stop the Soviet advances and repel the Red Army, while the reserves continued to dwindle. On May 7th, Gille and his corps marched in the direction of Austria , where the next day, when the Wehrmacht surrendered, he and some of his troops were taken prisoner by the Americans in Radstadt .

post war period

Until June 1946 Gille was imprisoned in the Stuttgart- Zuffenhausen internment camp , where he was camp leader. Transferred to Nuremberg in June 1946, but his testimony in the Nuremberg trial against the main war criminals was waived. He was released on May 21, 1948 and was able to return to his family in Stemmen. Because the SS had been classified as a criminal organization in the Nuremberg Trial , Gille was sentenced to a year and a half in prison as part of the denazification in April 1949. However, this judgment was overturned by the appeals court. Gille was classified as exempt in category V.

According to the British secret service, in 1950 he belonged to the " Brotherhood ", an association of old Nazis around the former Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann , who wanted to infiltrate the young Federal Republic of Germany .

Gille was one of the organizers of the decentralized mutual aid community of the members of the former Waffen SS (HIAG). Similar to Otto Kumm in Hamburg, he set up a regional organization in the south of Lower Saxony. In 1951 he gained national influence through the organization of a tracing service. From 1953 he was a member of the presidium of the HIAG Federal Liaison Office. Neither Gille nor Paul Hausser and Felix Steiner sought an independent organization of former members of the Waffen SS. Instead, a joint organization with former Wehrmacht soldiers should be formed. The background was the fear that an independent organization could be banned as a successor organization to the Waffen-SS and counteract the claim made by the veterans of the Waffen-SS that they were “soldiers like others”. Since 1951 Gille was a member of the Presidium of the Association of German Soldiers (VdS), which advocated the admission of former members of the Waffen SS.

In July 1953 Gille gave a speech at a soldiers' meeting organized by the VdS in Hanover. According to the historian Bert-Oliver Manig, Gille made in his "enthusiastically received speech [...] in the language of National Socialism reconciliation offers to the Federal Republic". A photograph taken after the rally shows Gille shaking hands with Vice Chancellor Franz Blücher (FDP). The historian Karsten Wilke refers to a photograph of Hitler and Hindenburg taken on the day of Potsdam and recognizes "unmistakable parallels in the image structure". The recording, presumably staged and published in Gilles' magazine Wikingruf , shows a new edition of the "Nazi image propaganda with its own symbolic language in the journalism of HIAG," said Wilke.

The magazine Wikingruf had been published by Gille since 1951. The magazine emphasized the “Pan-Germanic” character of the Waffen-SS and thus linked to National Socialist representations of the last phase of the war. In particular in officer portraits and war reports, elements can be recognized in style, choice of words and presentation that were used in the SS magazine Das Schwarze Korps .

The HIAG Federal Liaison Office was set up in 1953 against Gilles' will. Presumably in November 1955, Gille left the HIAG after further decisions had been made in favor of an independent, nationwide organization. There were ongoing conflicts between Gille and HIAG about the magazine Wikingruf until it was discontinued in 1958, in the course of which Gille was accused of financial irregularities and commercial ineptitude. As of 1956, HIAG published the magazine Der Freiwillige as a competing product .

Herbert Otto Gille died on December 26, 1966 as a result of a heart attack .

family

In 1927 Gille became engaged to Sophie Charlotte Mennecke (born December 31, 1903 in Stemmen), whom he married on January 4, 1935. His only daughter was born on October 9, 1935. Gille disregarded the request of the SS clan office to provide evidence of ancestry up to the year 1750, which means that he was one of the few higher SS leaders who did not have an " Aryan certificate ".

Awards

literature

  • Franz W. Seidler : Herbert Gille. The apolitical soldier. In: Ronald Smelser , Enrico Syring (Ed.) The SS. Elite under the skull. 30 résumés. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2000, ISBN 3-506-78562-1 , pp. 173-189.
  • Dermot Bradley (ed.), Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann: The generals of the Waffen-SS and the police. The military careers of the generals, as well as the doctors, veterinarians, intendants, judges and ministerial officials with the rank of general. Volume 1: Abraham – Gutenberger. Biblio, Bissendorf 2003, ISBN 3-7648-2373-9 . Pp. 379-385.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ 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, pp. 184-185, source BA N 1080/272.
  2. ↑ Karsten Wilke: The mutual aid community (HIAG) 1950–1990. Veterans of the Waffen SS in the Federal Republic . Schöningh, Paderborn / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77235-0 , p. 38–42, 265 (also dissertation, Bielefeld University, 2010).
  3. ↑ Bert-Oliver Manig: The politics of honor. The rehabilitation of professional soldiers in the early Federal Republic. (= Publications of the Contemporary History Working Group Lower Saxony , Volume 22), Wallstein, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 978-3-89244-658-3 , p. 560.
  4. ↑ Karsten Wilke: The mutual aid community (HIAG) 1950–1990. Veterans of the Waffen SS in the Federal Republic . Schöningh, Paderborn / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77235-0 , p. 45 (also dissertation, Bielefeld University, 2010).
  5. ↑ This assessment by Karsten Wilke: The mutual aid community (HIAG) 1950–1990. Veterans of the Waffen SS in the Federal Republic . Schöningh, Paderborn / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77235-0 , p. 53 (also dissertation, Bielefeld University, 2010).
  6. ↑ Karsten Wilke: The mutual aid community (HIAG) 1950–1990. Veterans of the Waffen SS in the Federal Republic . Schöningh, Paderborn / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77235-0 , p. 48, 50, 52–56 (also dissertation, Bielefeld University, 2010).
  7. ↑ 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. 335.
personal data
SURNAME Gille, Herbert Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, SS-Obergruppenführer and general of the Waffen-SS
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Gandersheim
DATE OF DEATH December 27, 1966
Place of death To stem