Hermann Hoth
Hermann Hoth (born April 12, 1885 in Neuruppin , Brandenburg province ; † January 25, 1971 in Goslar ) was a German army officer ( Colonel General since 1940 ) who served in the Royal Prussian Army , the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht . During the Second World War he was used as a commander of large units of the army in various theaters of war. After the war he was charged with his involvement in war crimes in the High Command of the Wehrmacht and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Life
Empire and First World War
As the son of a medical officer, Hoth joined the Prussian Cadet Corps in Potsdam in 1896 and began his service in the army as an ensign in the 4th Thuringian Infantry Regiment No. 72 in Torgau in 1904 . After attending the Danzig War School , he was promoted to lieutenant in early 1905 . From 1907 he served as a battalion adjutant in his regiment and was assigned to the Prussian War Academy in Berlin for three years in 1910 . In April 1914, he was one with the rank of lieutenant to the General Staff .
When the First World War broke out , he was assigned to the General Staff of the 8th Army in East Prussia, where he was promoted to captain in November 1914 . He had previously received the Iron Cross, second class, on September 20 . In 1915 he served for a few months as Third General Staff Officer (Ic) in the General Staff of the 10th Army . On August 2, 1915, he received the Iron Cross, First Class. After serving as battalion commander and head of a field pilot's department, he served in the staff of the commanding general of the air force from autumn 1916 to summer 1918. On August 16, 1918 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords. At the end of the war in 1918 he was First General Staff Officer (Ia) of the 30th Infantry Division .
Weimar Republic
After the First World War he was accepted into the provisional Reichswehr and initially served as a company commander , and from 1921 in the Organization Department (T 2) of the Troops Office. In 1923 he was appointed first general staff officer in the staff of Infantry Leader II in Stettin and promoted to major here in 1924 . In 1925 he returned to the Reichswehr Ministry, where he was used as a consultant in the Army Training Department (T 4). From January 1929 he served as commander of the 1st battalion of the 4th (Prussian) Infantry Regiment in Stargard and was promoted to lieutenant colonel there in February 1929 . In November 1930 he was transferred to the staff of Group Command 1 in Berlin and returned to service in 1932 as the commander of the 17th Infantry Regiment ( Braunschweig ). In October 1933 he moved to the Lübeck Wehrgau Command, where he was appointed site commander on February 1, 1934.
time of the nationalsocialism
Pre-war period
On October 1, 1934 he was promoted to Major General to Infantry Leader III in Liegnitz and formed the 18th Infantry Division here until October 1, 1935 . On October 1, 1936, he was promoted to lieutenant general . On October 1, 1938 he was with the establishment of the XV. Army Corps (mot.) Commissioned in Jena , to which the three light divisions of the army were subordinated. With retroactive effect to November 1, 1938, he was promoted to General of the Infantry here .
Second World War
When the German Reich began the Second World War with the attack on Poland on September 1, 1939 , Hoths XV was subject to. Army Corps (motorized) of the 10th Army . On October 27, 1939, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross .
With the 10th Army, he also took part in the French campaign in May and June 1940 . He managed to cross the Meuse at Dinant . For his services in the French campaign, he was promoted to Colonel General on July 19, 1940 .
The staff of his XV. Army Corps was renamed Panzergruppe 3 on November 16, 1940 ; Hoth remained their commander. On June 28, 1941 conquered Hoth with his Panzer Group in Operation Barbarossa , the city Minsk , and on July 9, 1941 Vitebsk , for which he received the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross on 17 July.
On October 5, 1941, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the 17th Army . This took part in May 1942 under his leadership in the Battle of Kharkov . Hoth took the view that the “Eastern campaign [must] be carried out differently than z. B. the war against the French ”and was one of those officers who implemented and passed on the notorious commissioner's order and the Reichenau decree . On November 17, 1941, he asked his soldiers
"To show no compassion or softness towards the population, no carelessness and good-naturedness towards partisans, but mastery and Nazi worldview, healthy feelings of hatred and superiority and understanding for the relentless extermination of communists and Jews."
Hoth was one of the generals who expressed their agreement with the mass murders of the Einsatzgruppen in the rear area in their orders and left no doubt in their approval of the "extermination" of the Jewish population:
“The necessity of tough measures against elements alien to the people and species must be understood by the soldiers. These circles are the spiritual supporters of Bolshevism, the agents of its murder organization, the helpers of the partisans. It is the same Jewish class of people who have damaged our fatherland so much through their anti-people and anti-cultural activities, today in the whole world German. Promotes currents and wants to be the bearer of vengeance. Their extermination is a matter of self-preservation. "
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Hoth received his last troop command on June 1, 1942, when he succeeded Colonel General Richard Ruoff as Commander-in-Chief of the 4th Panzer Army . From December 12 to 23, 1942 he tried in vain to relieve the 6th Army in Stalingrad under General Friedrich Paulus ( Operation Wintergewitter ) with the 4th Panzer Army (Hoth Group), which was considerably reduced in troop strength . From summer to autumn 1943, Hoth's 4th Panzer Army held the strategically important Dnieper line , which earned him the swords for oak leaves on September 15. In the autumn of 1943, Hoth's front line in Ukraine was breached by the Red Army , so that the city of Kiev was lost ( Battle of the Dnieper ). On December 10th, Hoth was relieved of his command by Hitler. In April 1945 he was reactivated as Commander Saale, then Commander Erzgebirge and remained under Army High Command 7 until the end of the war.
post war period
In the High Command of the Wehrmacht , the last of the Nuremberg trials , Hoth was sentenced to 15 years in prison for crimes against peace, planning a war of aggression and forwarding the commissioner's order. He spent most of these in Landsberg am Lech . In 1954 he was released from prison.
Own publications
- Panzer Operations: Panzer Group 3 and the operational idea of the German leadership, summer 1941 . Kurt Vowinckel Verlag, Heidelberg 1956
literature
- Hermann Hoth in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
- Jürgen Förster (Author), MGFA (Ed.): The Wehrmacht in the Nazi State. A structural-historical analysis . Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58098-3 .
- Johannes Hürter : Hitler's Army Leader: The German Commanders-in-Chief in the War against the Soviet Union 1941/42 . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-486-58341-7 .
- Janusz Piekałkiewicz : Citadel company . Pawlak Verlag, Herrsching 1989, ISBN 3-88199-579-X .
Web links
- Literature by and about Hermann Hoth in the catalog of the German National Library
- Robert Thoms: Hermann Hoth. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Johannes Hürter: Hitler's Army Leader: The German Commanders-in-Chief in the War against the Soviet Union 1941/42 . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-486-58341-7 , p. 635 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
- ↑ a b Jürgen Förster : The Wehrmacht in the Nazi state. A structural-historical analysis . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-486-58098-1 , p. 64
- ^ The "Reichenau command" in the NS archive.
- ↑ Printed in: Verbrechen der Wehrmacht , Dimensions of the War of Extermination 1941–1944 . Exhibition catalog, Hamburg 2002, p. 90.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hoth, Hermann |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German officer and war criminal |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 12, 1885 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Neuruppin |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 25, 1971 |
| Place of death | Goslar |