Horst Freiherr Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels

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Horst Freiherr Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels (born September 2, 1900 in Kassel , † January 8, 1990 ibid) was a German officer , most recently major general . During the Second World War he served in various positions as a general staff officer and served in the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW) from 1942 to 1945 .

Life

Origin and family

His parents were the Prussian Major General Walter Freiherr Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels (* October 4, 1865 - March 29, 1954) and Margarethe Damms (* July 7, 1874 - November 15, 1945). His father was the commander of the Magdeburg Hussar Regiment No. 10 , which was stationed in Stendal. The archaeologist Herbert von Buttlar (1912–1976) was his brother. He himself was married to Helene Perleberg (born October 23, 1910, † August 13, 1980) since June 9, 1948 .

Military career

Promotions
  • June 11, 1917 flagjunker
  • 01st July 1918 lieutenant
  • 0July 1, 1925 First Lieutenant
  • 0July 1, 1933 Rittmeister
  • 0January 1, 1937 Major
  • 01st August 1939 Lieutenant Colonel
  • 01st February 1942 Colonel
  • 0October 1, 1944 Major General

Buttlar-Brandenfels took effect on 11 June 1917 during the First World War as an officer cadet in the Magdeburgische Hussars. 10 in Stendal one. During the war he was appointed lieutenant (from July 1, 1918) and in January 1919 as an orderly officer in the staff of the VI. Reserve Corps transferred. Under Major General Rüdiger von der Goltz, this led the German volunteer associations in the Baltic States in 1919 .

Following this use, von Buttlar was accepted into the Reichswehr and in May 1920 assigned to the 3rd (Prussian) Cavalry Regiment . After the compulsory military district examination, he was able to take part in the three-year leadership assistant training from May 1931 . Behind this hid the training to become a general staff officer , which was forbidden by the Versailles Treaty and therefore disguised . After completing his training, von Buttlar received his first staff assignment in the General Staff of the IX on October 1, 1934 . Army Corps in Kassel . Since it was common practice to keep general staff officers tactically at the highest level through regular troop commands, von Buttlar took up the post of squadron chief in Reiter Regiment 2 in Angerburg / East Prussia for one year on October 1, 1936 . As of October 1, 1937, he was in the Army General Staff in the Army High Command transferred (OKH), where he was used in the "Central Division". In addition to organizing the internal service of the General Staff, this also handled the personnel matters of all General Staff officers.

When the mobilization of new divisions began after the outbreak of World War II , von Buttlar was appointed First General Staff Officer (Ia) of the 81st Infantry Division on December 1st . Before the division could be moved to the front, however, von Buttlar was recalled in April 1940 and assigned as Ia to the general staff of "Group XXI" under General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst . This staff was the management group for the management of the company "Weser Exercise" , the attack on Denmark and Norway . After the end of the fighting, "Group XXI" was renamed Army High Command Norway on December 19, 1940 , while von Buttlar retained his position on this staff.

In the high command of the Wehrmacht

In January 1942 the "Wehrmacht Command Staff " was restructured within the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW). The "National Defense Department" was dissolved in name and the position of its head was renamed "Deputy Chief of the Wehrmacht Command Staff". This was subordinate to three departments each for a general staff officer of the army, the air force and the navy. In mid-January 1942 Buttlar was named »1. General Staff Officer Heer in the Wehrmacht Command Staff "appointed Chief of the Army Department. His direct superior, General Walter Warlimont , later described him as an “excellent officer and comrade.” Buttlar is said to have enjoyed a high reputation with the Chief of the Wehrmacht Command Staff, General Alfred Jodl. He had known him since his time in the Central Department of the General Staff and had worked closely with him in the campaign against Norway. Another contemporary wrote: "Colonel Buttlar made the impression of a very energetic and hard-hitting man who, however, does not seem particularly personable."

In the new task Buttlar was responsible for the concerns and interests of the army in the theaters of war of the OKW (Mediterranean, North Africa, Balkans, Northern and Western Europe). However, he also strongly advocated the General Staff in the High Command of the Army (OKH). In the late summer of 1943, for example, he tried to convince the Chief of the Wehrmacht Command Staff, General Alfred Jodl, of the necessity of a large disengagement movement on the Eastern Front and the early establishment of a defensive position on the Dnepr (→ Panther position ) so that he in turn could influence Hitler. In the second half of 1943 he also ensured that more divisions were sent to the Eastern Front at the expense of the other theaters of war.

On February 1, 1942, Buttlar had become a colonel and on January 1, 1944, he was promoted to major general. According to the memories of Luise von Benda (from 1945 2nd wife of Alfred Jodl) Buttlar was quite critical of the German warfare ("How much blood flowed unnecessarily in the East, oh ... if you only knew ..."). When General Warlimont finally fell ill in early August 1944, Buttlar took over the business from September 6, 1944 as »Deputy. Chief of the Wehrmacht Command Staff «. To his successor as department head, Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm Meyer-Detring , he said: “You will have to get used to a lot here. If you have tried countless times in vain to help your common sense to win, you gradually tire. ”Buttlar did not stay in his new position for long. His successor was Lieutenant General August Winter on November 8, 1944 . From April 10 to May 3, 1945 he commanded the remnants of the 11th Panzer Division .

post war period

Buttlar-Brandenfels was questioned by his defense attorney Hermann Jahrreiß as a witness for the defendant Alfred Jodl at the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals on June 7, 1946 . In addition to August Winter, Percy Ernst Schramm and Herbert Büchs, Jodl had asked him to give a relieving statement. Buttlar testified that Jodl was never responsible for prisoners of war and that regulations for fighting gangs in partisan warfare were not aimed at exterminating Jews and Slavs.

In August 1946, the Historical Division in Allendorf began work on a history of the OKW. In the autumn of 1946 Warlimont and Buttlar were brought in from Nuremberg for this purpose. Buttlar, like Warlimont, had to go to the IMT again from January 14th to February 13th, 1947, then returned for a longer stay. Even after the war, he reconstructed the history of the war. In 1954 his work »World War 1939–1945 - Book of Honor of the German Wehrmacht« was published (Stuttgart, 1954). This was mainly used by Soviet historiography, since otherwise there was hardly any access to original documents for the official account (» History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union « 1960–1965).

literature

  • Othmar Hackl : General Staff, General Staff Service and General Staff Training in the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht 1919–1945 - Studies of German Generals and General Staff Officers in the Historical Division of the US Army in Europe 1946–1961 , Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1999. ISBN 3-7648-2551-0
  • Peter Broucek (Ed.): A General in Twilight - The Memories of Edmund Glaises von Horstenau (2nd edition), Vol. 3, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 2005. ISBN 3-205-08749-6
  • Anton J. Donnhauser / Werner Drews: The path of the 11th Panzer Division 1939-1945 , Braunschweig 1982.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Family tree on: wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com (as of January 10, 2016)
  2. ↑ a b c d Othmar Hackl: General Staff, General Staff Service and General Staff Training in the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht 1919–1945 , Osnabrück 1999, p. 181
  3. ↑ Walter Walimont: At the headquarters of the German army , Augsburg 1990, p 231
  4. ↑ Luise Jodl: Beyond the End - Life and Death of Colonel General Alfred Jodl , Vienna / Munich / Zurich 1976, p. 280
  5. ↑ Peter Broucek (Ed.): A General in Twilight - The Memories of Edmund Glaises von Horstenau , Vol. 3, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1988, p. 156
  6. ↑ Walter Walimont: At the headquarters of the German army , Augsburg 1990, p 398f
  7. ↑ Luise Jodl: Beyond the End - Life and Death of Colonel General Alfred Jodl , Vienna / Munich / Zurich 1976, pp. 93–96
  8. ↑ Quoted from: Bodo Scheurig : Alfred Jodl - Obedience and Vergehnisnis , Berlin / Frankfurt am Main 1991, p. 296
  9. ↑ Nuremberg Trial, Vol. XV, p. 648ff
  10. ↑ Bodo Scheurig: Alfred Jodl - Obedience and Disaster , Berlin / Frankfurt am Main 1991, p. 394
  11. ↑ Esther-Julia Howell: Learn from the vanquished? , Berlin / Boston 2016, p. ?? Footnote 695
personal data
SURNAME Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels, Horst Freiherr
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently major general and member of the Wehrmacht High Command
DATE OF BIRTH 2nd September 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1990
Place of death kassel