Herbert Selle

Herbert Selle (born May 30, 1895 in Breddin , Ostprignitz district in Brandenburg ; † March 8, 1988 in Ahrensburg ) was a German officer , most recently (1942/1943) colonel and army pioneer leader of the 6th Army (AOK 6) on the Eastern Front in Second World War , old fighter of the NSDAP as well as book author and hunting functionary.

Life

Herbert Selle joined the 2nd Nassau Pioneer Battalion No. 25 in Mainz on March 10, 1914 after graduating from the secondary school in Potsdam . With his battalion he came to the front after the outbreak of the First World War . In 1915 he was promoted to lieutenant and in 1918 to first lieutenant . In May 1919 he was taken over by the Reichsheer .

In 1920 Herbert Selle joined the Lübeck Security Police as a lieutenant and was promoted to police captain in 1921. On December 31, 1921, he married the hotel owner's daughter Ina Steffen in Kellinghusen and left the Lübeck police service a year later.

In the period from 1923 to 1924 he worked as a guest and farmer in the Lockstedt camp in Hohenlockstedt ; he also ran the sports school there. The Lockstedt camp was shaped in the 1920s by members of the reactionary Freikorps of the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade .

In 1924 Selle became a board member of the Stahlhelm locality group in Lockstedter Lager and was a mob until 1931. Officer for the Military District Command II ( Stettin ).

Selle joined the NSDAP in 1925, but left again after meeting Joseph Goebbels in Itzehoe in 1926.

In 1931 Selle was the police commander of Braunschweig.

From 1933 to 1934 Selle was a police colonel and department commander of the Prussian state police in Altona.

During the Stahlhelm putsch in Braunschweig, Lieutenant Colonel Selle organized an attack by SS and SA auxiliary police on the AOK building on March 27, 1933 . For a few months Selle was head of the Napola in Potsdam.

Until the outbreak of the Second World War, Selle commanded the rank of lieutenant colonel (since April 1, 1937) the pioneer battalion 50 in Hamburg- Harburg . As commander of the 677 Pioneer Regiment, he fought in the Battle of Kharkov in May 1942 .

In August 1942, the bridges of his engineers made it possible for the 6th Army to advance rapidly across the Don .

Colonel Selle, in his function as Army Pioneer Leader of AOK 6, commissioned Colonel Hans Mikosch to set up an Army Pioneer School on the Don Heights near Kalatsch as part of the Stalingrad campaign; the Heeres-Pi.Btl. 672 under Major Linden to maintain the school operations of this new Army Pioneer School.

The task of the Army Pioneer School was teaching and teaching officers, non-commissioned officers and men of all branches of service for training in fortification, tank combat and raiding troops for house-to-house fighting in Stalingrad.

In late autumn 1942 he was appointed commander of the LI. Army Corps Walther von Seydlitz-Shortly Bach and Lieutenant General Erwin Jaenecke, the division commander of the 389th Infantry Division with the operation Hubertus in Stalingrad entrusted. Colonel Selle handed over the execution of the operation to Major Josef Linden, due to the lack of reserves and the successful defense of the Soviet bridgeheads by the Red Army, the operation turned into a military disaster.

Selle commented on Hitler's unrealistic order to build concrete fortifications as winter quarters for the 6th Army as “ a downright criminal ignorance of the local situation ”, since the nearest gravel deposit was on the Sea of ​​Azov and cement would have had to be brought in from Germany, 2,000 km away. In November 1942, army pioneer leaders Selle Karpowka and Kalatsch were supposed to convert them into fortified rooms to protect the Romanian left wing of the army. On November 20, 1942, the army pioneer leader Colonel Selle declared the hostile situation to be harmless to Kalatsch, which later turned out to be a false analysis. On November 30, 1942, Selle was replaced by Colonel Stiotta, the commander of the 604 Pioneer Regiment, in his duties as army pioneer leader, as Selle and his combat group were assigned to the Don. On January 5, 1943, Selle was to be flown back into the Stalingrad pocket from the Don Front to supervise the construction of locking positions. He was commissioned to set up the Rossoschka Valley between Malaia Rossoschka and Barbukin for defense with all construction and pioneering workers.

In January 1943 Selle was flown out of the Stalingrad pocket. Herbert Selle was henceforth in direct opposition to National Socialism. Selle, NSDAP member since 1925, made Hitler as the " future gravedigger of the Reich " to be primarily responsible for the military catastrophe.

His connection to the Hitler conspirators Colonel Hellmuth Stieff and Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg almost cost him his life. In March 1943 he was charged with sedition detained in Harburg and his family in Sippenhaft taken. Selle was transferred to the Wehrmacht prison in Berlin . The certificate of promotion to major general originally intended for him was refused by the General Command of the X Army Corps in Hamburg . A court martial that had already been ordered was averted as Selle pleaded for mental insanity.

At the end of 1944 the arrest warrant was lifted and Herbert Selle, rehabilitated, was put back into military service. In 1944 he was Army Pioneer Leader of the 7th Army on the Western Front and in 1945 Senior Pioneer Leader of the 17th Army east of Krakow , where he refused a hopeless order.

Selle lived in Hamburg again after the war and was a Colonel a. D. Honorary member of the Association of Pioneers and has been the managing director of the DJV ( German Hunting Protection Association ) since 1948 .

Publications (selection)

• At escort. In: Werner Gerlach: The dark valley. Experience report from a doctor. The long way from Stalingrad to Friedland. 3. Edition. Self-published (Werner Gerlach), Ottobrunn 1980.
• For what? Memories of a leading pioneer from the Bug to the Volga. Vowinckel Verlag, Neckargemünd 1977, ISBN 3-87879-118-6 .
• The tragedy of Stalingrad: A representation from the military side with a map insert. Verlag Das Andere Deutschland, Hanover 1947.

Autobiography "What for?"

In his book "What for", Selle described his personal war experiences on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1943. It was published in 1977 by the right-wing extremist Vowinckel-Verlag . In 1941 his engineer unit was responsible for crossing the Bug and Dnieper rivers and later fought in the Battle of Kiev . In December 1941, Selle replaced Colonel von Schlieben as army pioneer leader in the 6th Army. He also took part in the spring battle of Kharkov, the summer offensive of 1942 and the tank battle of Kalatsch. During the attack over the Don, he led, together with the 76th Infantry Division and 295th Infantry Division, a larger engineer unit in an operation with assault boats . In September 1942 the pioneers of the 6th Army were involved in the fighting in Stalingrad, which Selle characterized in his own words as follows:

“ At the same time, every house, every hut, every skyscraper, every silo, every factory is bitterly fought in Stalingrad, with an effort of blood and material that is in no relation to the successes of both sides in attack and defense. The advantage here lies in the fact that the chaos of streets and houses torn apart by the many Balkas, in the labyrinth of half-shattered factories and assembly halls, has the advantage of the defender hidden behind every protruding wall, every stairway, every door niche, every lathe, every punching press with the submachine gun released On the hand. With dogged rage, a tenacity and that unconditionality that the campaign in the East developed so ruthlessly, literally every inch of ground is being fought here . "

- Herbert Selle

After the encirclement, Selle was assigned to the Don Front, later flown back to Stalingrad in January 1943, where the final phase of the battle was initiated. Selle was flown out again on January 22nd.

In the closing remarks, Herbert Selle reported on his hardships British captivity and his "demilitarization" in Belgium. In June 1945 Selle was released and taken to Gütersloh by train .

His book about the tragedy in Stalingrad in a strongly polemical presentation is, according to today's knowledge of the files, partly no longer tenable, as it contains reports from Wehrmacht officers, whereby Selle was flown out before the surrender.

Awards

• Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class
• Austrian Military Merit Cross III. Class with the war decoration
• Clasp for the Iron Cross, 2nd and 1st class
• German cross in gold on February 16, 1943

literature

• Federal Archives RH 46 Associations and Units of Pioneers (1922–1945) MSg 1 Military Biographical Collection (including Herbert Selle, Götz Dietrich Sasse and Alfred Jacob)
• Stefan Appelius, Pacifism in West Germany, Verlag G. Mainz, Aachen 1991, vol. 1, p. 98 ff.
• Reimer Möller, A coastal region in political and social upheaval (1860-1933): the consequences of industrialization in the Steinburg district (Elbe) . Hamburg, Münster 2007, ISBN 978-3-8258-9194-7 . The book is about a. with Selle's role in the region as a functionary of the Stahlhelm and the NSDAP in Lockstedter camp. And it contains a short biography of Selle.

Web links

• Image by Herbert Selle

Individual evidence

1. ↑ managed under Pers. 6/8027 according to BA-MA
2. ^ Reimer Müller: A coastal region in political and social upheaval 1860–1933 , publication by the Hamburg working group for regional history (HAR), Lit Verlag Hamburg, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8258-9194-7 , p. 652.
3. ↑ Das Bundesarchiv.de: Herbert Selle ( Memento of the original from January 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Geest-Verlag: 1933 Stahlhelm Putsch in Braunschweig  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ Order of the 6th Army Ia / OQu, October 17, 1941, NOKW-184. Head of the pioneers in Kharkov was Colonel Herbert Selle, commander of the 677th Pioneer Regiment
6. ^ Janusz Piekałkiewicz : Stalingrad. Anatomy of a battle , Heyne, Munich 1993, p. 101.
7. ^ Janusz Piekałkiewicz: Stalingrad. Anatomy of a battle , Heyne, Munich 1993, p. 269.
8. ^ Manfred Kehrig: Stalingrad. Analysis and documentation of a battle , Stuttgart 1979, p. 105.
9. ^ Manfred Kehrig: Stalingrad. Analysis and documentation of a battle , Stuttgart 1979, p. 171.
10. ^ Manfred Kehrig: Stalingrad. Analysis and documentation of a battle , Stuttgart 1979, p. 271.
11. ^ Manfred Kehrig: Stalingrad. Analysis and documentation of a battle , Stuttgart 1979, p. 499.
12. ^ Manfred Kehrig: Stalingrad. Analysis and documentation of a battle , Stuttgart 1979, p. 507.
13. ↑ Colonel Herbert Selle - Investigation into disparaging remarks about the German leadership in Stalingrad and investigation against his daughter, high school student Frauke Selle, into anti-subversive remarks in Bundesarchiv.de: Herbert Selle ( Memento of the original from January 21, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info : The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
14. ^ William Craig: The Battle of Stalingrad , Munich 1973, p. 371.
15. ^ Association of German Pioneers V .: Honorary members ( Memento of the original from April 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
16. ↑ Der Spiegel.de: All my ends , issue 49/1964.
17. ^ Wilhelm Bode, Elisabeth Emmert, Jagdwende: From noble hobby to ecological handicraft , CH Beck, Munich, 1998, p. 155 ISBN 3-406-42042-7 .
18. ↑ Ukrainian loess gorge
19. ↑ Herbert Selle: What for? - Memories of a leading pioneer as far as Stalingrad , Neckargemuend 1977, p. 42.
20. ^ Manfred Kehrig: Stalingrad. Analysis and documentation of a battle , Stuttgart 1979, p. 13
21. ↑ ^{a b} Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Ed .: Reichswehrministerium , Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin 1930, p. 149
22. ↑ Klaus D. Patzwall , Veit Scherzer : The German Cross 1941-1945. History and owner. Volume II. Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall, Norderstedt 2001, ISBN 3-931533-45-X , p. 441