Horst von Mellenthin

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Horst von Mellenthin (born July 31, 1898 in Hanover , † January 8, 1977 in Wiesbaden ) was a German officer , most recently General of the Artillery , member of the Gehlen Organization and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND).

Life

He came from the old Neumark - Pomeranian noble family von Mellenthin and was the son of the officer Paul von Mellenthin (1866–1918). His younger brother was the officer Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin . After visiting the cadet institutes in Potsdam and Groß-Lichterfelde , which he graduated as the best of his class, he joined the Artillery Regiment No. 6 in Breslau on January 20, 1915 as an ensign . In 1915, at the age of 16, he was promoted to lieutenant and was active in the troops and staff service on the Western Front during the First World War . In the same year he received the Iron Cross 2nd class and in May 1917 the 1st class. At the end of the war he was an artillery intelligence officer at the General Command in the Balkans .

Mellenthin was accepted into the Reichswehr in 1921 and promoted to first lieutenant in 1925 . Later he attended the leadership assistant training . With these courses, the Reichswehr leadership circumvented the closure of the War Academy stipulated in the Versailles Treaty and thus enabled officers to undergo thorough general staff training. From 1932 Hauptmann he was appointed adjutant to the Chief of Army Command in 1933, serving among others Kurt von Hammerstein and Werner von Fritsch . As Hammerstein's adjutant, Mellenthin made a transcript of Adolf Hitler's speech to the leaders of the Reichswehr on February 3, 1933 (see Liebmann record ), which , according to the historian Andreas Wirsching , has a "high source value". In July 1937 he took over the management of the attaché group in the Army General Staff in Berlin . Its main task was to maintain coordination with the staffs of the allies, but also with the neutral states.

On May 1, 1943, Mellenthin received a front command as colonel and commander of the 67th Grenadier Regiment. For a short time, he took over the leadership of the 23rd Infantry Division and the 93rd Infantry Division . In December of the same year he took over as commander of the 205th Infantry Division and was appointed major general. He proved himself as a troop leader and received the Knight's Cross for his achievements in 1944 and promotion to Lieutenant General on July 1, 1944 . His division was mentioned twice in the Wehrmacht report. On March 16, 1945 Mellenthin was promoted to General of the Artillery and on April 4, 1945 awarded the Knight's Cross with the Oak Leaves. At the end of the war he was the commanding general of the XI. Army Corps in Upper Silesia and finally the VIII Army Corps , with which he secured the passes of the Giant Mountains . He and his units surrendered to the Americans and thus saved them from being captured by the Soviets.

From 1945

After his release from American captivity, Mellenthin had been working for the Gehlen organization since 1948 , where he had the service name "Merker". In November 1948, he was head of the Unit for press evaluation and became the April 1, 1949 Head of Service with the Tarnchiffre "35", responsible for the so-called "special connections". She was subordinate to Reinhard Gehlen , who had known von Mellenthin for "years as a lieutenant", and was housed separately in Munich . At the end of October 1951 Reinhard Gehlen appointed him his deputy, but was dismissed from this post again at the beginning of 1954, but retained him nominally until the end of 1955 and was primarily responsible for training issues during this time. 1956 was taken over by Mellenthin in the BND and went as its first official resident to Washington, DC

Horst von Mellenthin died on January 8, 1977 at the age of 78 in Wiesbaden. He received a funeral with military honors .

Awards

literature

  • Erwin Lenfeld and Franz Thomas: The oak leaves 1940-1945. Weilburg, Wiener Neustadt 1983; ISBN 3-900100-07-1 .
  • Friedrich von Mellenthin: Germany's generals of the Second World War. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1980; ISBN 3-404-65027-1 .
  • Horst Riemann: General of the artillery Horst von Mellenthin. In: German Soldier Calendar 1987, page 9; Schild Verlag, Munich 1987; ISBN 3880140871 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andreas Wirsching : Introduction to: Adolf Hitler, speech before the heads of the Reichswehr, February 3, 1933 , in: 1000dokumente.de
  2. ↑ Thomas Wolf: The emergence of the BND. Structure, financing, control (=  Jost Dülffer , Klaus-Dietmar Henke , Wolfgang Krieger , Rolf-Dieter Müller [eds.]): Publications of the Independent Commission of Historians for Research into the History of the Federal Intelligence Service 1945–1968 . Volume 9 ). 1st edition. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-96289-022-3 , pp. 559 .
  3. ↑ Thomas Wolf: The emergence of the BND. Structure, financing, control (=  Jost Dülffer , Klaus-Dietmar Henke , Wolfgang Krieger , Rolf-Dieter Müller [eds.]): Publications of the Independent Commission of Historians for Research into the History of the Federal Intelligence Service 1945–1968 . Volume 9 ). 1st edition. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-96289-022-3 , pp. 51 .
  4. ↑ Thomas Wolf: The emergence of the BND. Structure, financing, control (=  Jost Dülffer , Klaus-Dietmar Henke , Wolfgang Krieger , Rolf-Dieter Müller [eds.]): Publications of the Independent Commission of Historians for Research into the History of the Federal Intelligence Service 1945–1968 . Volume 9 ). 1st edition. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-96289-022-3 , pp. 122 f .
  5. ↑ Thomas Wolf: The emergence of the BND. Structure, financing, control (=  Jost Dülffer , Klaus-Dietmar Henke , Wolfgang Krieger , Rolf-Dieter Müller [eds.]): Publications of the Independent Commission of Historians for Research into the History of the Federal Intelligence Service 1945–1968 . Volume 9 ). 1st edition. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-96289-022-3 , pp. 390 .
  6. ↑ 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. 536.
  7. ↑ http://www.das-ritterkreuz.de/index_search_db.php4?modul=search_result_det&wert1=4108&searchword=mellenthin
personal data
SURNAME Mellenthin, Horst von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, general of the artillery and army corps commander in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH July 31, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1977
Place of death Wiesbaden