Hyacinth Graf Strachwitz

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Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz (right) 1943
Hyacinth Graf Strachwitz
Count Strachwitz during the battle for the Narva bridgehead in early 1944

Hyacinth Count Strachwitz of wholesale Zauche and Camminetz (*  thirtieth July 1893 in megalithic ; † 25. April 1968 in Trostberg ) was a German Lieutenant General and tank commander in the armed forces and leader of an eponymous volunteer corps in self-protection Upper Silesia during the uprisings in Upper Silesia 1921. He was nicknamed "The Panzer Count" during World War II .

Life

The Strachwitz are an old noble family and belonged to the wealthiest land and forest owners in Silesia . His parents were Count Hyacinth von Strachwitz (born November 21, 1864) and his wife Aloysia von Matuschka (born August 22, 1872).

When Regiment Garde du Corps in Potsdam Hyacinth Count Strachwitz was lieutenant . He had completed his cadet time in Lichterfelde with Manfred von Richthofen and Hans von Aulock .

After the outbreak of World War I he rode into France with his regiment . After a scouting operation, he was captured just outside Paris and sentenced to forced labor in Cayenne on October 14, 1914 . The transfer did not take place, however, he was brought to the penitentiary on the island of Ré via Lyon and Montpellier . In Carcassonne penitentiary , a Swiss medical commission from the International Committee of the Red Cross found him completely apathetic and emaciated. Thereupon Strachwitz was transferred to Switzerland and released to Germany in 1918 .

During the Silesian uprisings Strachwitz organized the self-protection of Upper Silesia . As a result, a bounty was placed on him by the Polish irregulars . After the suppression of the Polish uprising, he was a Rittmeister of the Reserve in the 7th Cavalry Regiment in Breslau. In 1935 he asked to be taken over by the armored forces that were built up by Generals Lutz and Guderian . From then on, he performed his reserve exercises with Panzer Regiment 2 in Eisenach .

At the beginning of December 1932 he joined the NSDAP ( membership number 1.405.652). He was also a member of the SS (membership number 82.857). In the SS he rose to SS-Standartenführer in 1943 and was a member of the personal staff of the Reichsführer SS .

During the Second World War he took part in the campaigns against Poland and France and was awarded the Iron Cross First Class as the first officer in his regiment . After the war against France in 1940, Graf Strachwitz , who was promoted to major in the reserve, was transferred to the 16th Panzer Division , which was headed by Major General Hube . The unit was stationed in Romania , where it was used as a training division for a Romanian army . At the beginning of Operation Barbarossa , the beginning of the war against the Soviet Union ordered by Hitler , Major Strachwitz attacked behind the demarcation line on June 22, 1941 and received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on August 28, 1941 . On November 17, 1942, he received the Knight's Cross Oak Leaves. Already promoted to lieutenant colonel, Strachwitz and his tank crew were among the first German soldiers to reach the banks of the Volga north of Stalingrad during the attack on Stalingrad . The Colonel of the Reserve was the first regimental commander to receive the "Grossdeutschland" tank regiment on January 15, 1943, for probation and probation. After the third battle near Kharkov , in which his regiment is said to have shot down several enemy tanks, he received the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords on March 28, 1943 . On April 1, 1944, Strachwitz was promoted to major general, reactivated and appointed commander of the 1st Panzer Division , a little later to the higher tank leader of Army Group North with three tank divisions and a tank hunting brigade. On April 15, 1944, he received the diamonds for the Knight's Cross. On January 1, 1945, he was promoted to lieutenant general in the course of his fifth promotion since the beginning of the war , making him the highest-ranking reserve officer in the entire armed forces.

resistance

It is doubtful whether Strachwitz met military resistance in the spring of 1943, as Hoffmann claims. On February 8th, he is said to have met with Major General Hans Speidel and General Hubert Lanz and worked out a plan to arrest Hitler on an upcoming visit to the front in Poltava or, if he defends himself, to kill him. Corresponding, also contradicting information was only given by those involved themselves and only after the end of the war. It could not come to fruition either, since Hitler had changed his travel plans.

After the surrender

After the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht , Strachwitz dismissed his troops and ordered them to move west. He made his way through the Sudetenland, made unsafe by the Czech partisans, to Velden , where he was captured by the Americans. His wife was run over by an army vehicle while in captivity, his youngest son was killed in the war, the eldest son was tied to the bed (he was already believed to be dead), and his daughter became a communications worker . After being a prisoner of war in Syria, he became an advisor to the President for Forestry and Agriculture and built up the country's army . After Husni az-Za'im was overthrown , Strachwitz and his second wife left for Lebanon . In June 1949 he arrived in Italy , where he ran a winery near Livorno . In autumn 1951 he returned to Germany, where he founded the “Oberschlesische Hilfswerk”. He and his second wife had two girls and two boys. Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz finally died on April 25, 1968. Bundeswehr officers held the last watch at the coffin.

Awards

literature

  • Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 .
  • Thomas Mc Guirl / Remy Spezzano, history of the Panzergrenadierdivision "Greater Germany" , Dörfler Verlag, Utting 1997, ISBN 3-89555-033-7 .
  • Hans-Joachim Jung: Panzer Regiment Grossdeutschland in action, Riesa 2000, ISBN 3-935102-09-7 .
  • Hans-Joachim Röll: Lieutenant General of the Reserve Hyacinth Graf Strachwitz von Groß-Zauche and Camminetz , Verlagshaus Würzburg Flechsig, Würzburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8035-0015-1 .
  • Helmuth Spaeter: The history of the Panzerkorps Großdeutschland Vol. 2 , self-published by the traditional tank corps Großdeutschland , Duisberg 1958.
  • Ludger Tewes : The Panzer Grenadier Division "Grossdeutschland" in the campaign against the Soviet Union 1942 to 1945 , Klartext Verlag Essen 2020, ISBN 978-3-8375-2089-7 .

Web links

Commons : Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Ernst Klee: The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 537.
  2. ^ Röll, Graf Strachwitz, p. 93.
  3. ↑ Ludger Tewes, Die Panzergrenadierdivision Grossdeutschland, p. 294.
  4. ^ Spaeter, Grossdeutschland, Vol. 2, pp. 9–150.
  5. ↑ Tewes, Grossdeutschland, pp. 293-300.
  6. ↑ Tewes, Grossdeutschland, pp. 774–796.
  7. ^ Peter Hoffmann : Resistance - Coup - Assassination. The fight of the opposition against Hitler. Munich 1985, ISBN 3-492-00718-X , p. 348f.
  8. ^ Hermann Frank Meyer : Bloody Edelweiss: the 1st Mountain Division in World War II , Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin, 2nd edition, 2008 ISBN 978-3-86153-447-1 p. 262 ff.
  9. ^ Röll, Strachwitz, p. 189
  10. ↑ 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. 728.
personal data
SURNAME Strachwitz, Hyazinth Graf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Strachwitz von Groß-Zauche and Camminetz, Hyazinth Graf (full name); Panzergrave, The
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German general and tank commander of the Wehrmacht
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Big stone
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 1968
Place of death Trostberg