Hermann Prieß
Hermann August Friedrich Priess , also Priess, (born May 24, 1901 in Marnitz , † March 2, 1985 in Ahrensburg ) was an officer , most recently an SS group leader and lieutenant general of the Waffen SS in World War II .
Military background
Prieß, who had served in the Reichswehr for twelve years , joined the SS in 1934 (membership number 113.258) and was a member of the NSDAP (membership number 1.472.296). There he was deployed as an artilleryman and commanded an SS artillery regiment during the Western campaign in 1940 during the Second World War . He also commanded this during the war against the Soviet Union .
From February 26 to April 26, 1943 and from October 22, 1943 to June 20, 1944, he was commander of the SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Totenkopf" . On October 30, 1944, he took command of the 1st SS Panzer Corps "Leibstandarte" and led it during the Battle of the Bulge .
After the war, Prieß was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment as a war criminal for his involvement in the Malmedy massacre in the Malmedy trial in 1946, later pardoned and released from the Landsberg war crimes prison in October 1954 .
Awards
- Iron Cross (1939) 2nd and 1st class
- Wound badge (1939) in black
- German cross in gold on January 6, 1942
-
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with oak leaves and swords
- Knight's Cross on April 28, 1943
- Oak leaves on September 9, 1943 (297th award)
- Swords on April 24, 1944 (65th award)
- SS skull ring
- Honorary sword of the Reichsführer SS
Individual evidence
- ↑ 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. 604.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Priess, Hermann |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Prieß, Hermann August Friedrich (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German SS group leader, commander of the SS division "Totenkopf" Adolf Hitler |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 24, 1901 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Marnitz |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 2, 1985 |
| Place of death | Ahrensburg |