Horst Trebes

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Trebes (far left) shortly before the Kondomari massacre , June 2, 1941
Paratroopers murder Greek civilians, Kondomari, June 2, 1941

Horst Trebes (born October 22, 1916 in Cologne , † July 29, 1944 in Normandy ) was a German paratrooper officer in World War II . He took part in the airborne battle for Crete in 1941 and committed the Kondomari massacre as an officer in charge during this time . Later he commanded the III. Battalion of the 6th Paratrooper Regiment and took part in the attempted defense against the Allied landing in France . He fell during the Allied breakout of the Normandy beachhead ( Operation Cobra ).

Life

Horst Trebes joined the Wehrmacht in 1936 at the age of 19 as a flag junior . After two years he was promoted to lieutenant in April 1938 . In June 1938 he volunteered for the Parachute Infantry Battalion under Major Richard Heidrich . On April 1, 1939 he was with the association as III. Battalion in the Parachute Storm Regiment 1 in the Air Force .

Trebes and his unit took part in the invasion of Poland (September 1939) and the occupation of Denmark (April 1940). As a first lieutenant he landed on May 20, 1941 with the first wave in the airborne battle for Crete and took a bridge near Maleme as a shock troop leader . For this he was awarded the Knight's Cross on June 14, 1941 , which was presented to him on July 9, 1941 in Maleme.

On June 2, 1941, Trebes commanded a group of paratroopers and had 25 arbitrarily captured male residents of Kondomari shot in retaliation for alleged atrocities against German soldiers. This act followed an order from General der Flieger Kurt Student , and was recorded by the PK photographer Peter Weixler . Weixler made a comprehensive statement on this in 1945 at the Nuremberg Trial .

literature

  • Franz Thomas and Günter Wegmann: The Knight's Cross Bearers of the German Wehrmacht , Part 2: Paratroopers. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1986. ISBN 3-7648-1461-6 . (With a foreword by Walter Gericke , with whom Trebes received the Knight's Cross.)

Web links

Commons : Horst Trebes  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ GC Kiriakopoulos: The Nazi Occupation of Crete, 1941-1945 . Greenwood Publishing Group, New York 1995, pp. 19-23. ISBN 0-275-95277-0 .
  2. ↑ statement by Franz Peter Weixel (PDF, 1.2 MB). In: Donovan Nuremberg Trial Collection, Vol XII, Section 25.02 ( Weixler information, 11 Nov. 1945 ): Information supplied by Franz Peter Weixler / GOERING CASE "
personal data
SURNAME Trebes, Horst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German paratrooper officer of the Wehrmacht
DATE OF BIRTH October 22, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH July 29, 1944
Place of death Normandy