Joachim Lemelsen

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General of the Panzer Force Joachim Lemelsen (1941).

Joachim Lemelsen (born September 26, 1888 in Berlin , † March 30, 1954 in Göttingen ) was a German officer , most recently a general of the tank troops and commander in chief of the German 14th Army in World War II .

Life

Early career

Lemelsen joined the Altmark Field Artillery Regiment No. 40 on July 1, 1907 as a flag junior and was promoted to lieutenant on November 19, 1908 . When the First World War broke out , he and his regiment served as adjutant of the 2nd Battalion on the Western Front and on December 24, 1914 was promoted to first lieutenant .

On November 1, 1931, Lemelsen was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Promoted to Colonel on April 1, 1934, he took over Artillery Training Regiment 1 on April 10, 1934. On April 1, 1935, he became the commander of the War School in Dresden . On April 1, 1937, Lemelsen was appointed major general.

On March 1, 1938 Lemelsen took over command of the 29th Infantry Division . The promotion to lieutenant general took place on April 1, 1939. At the beginning of the Second World War, Lemelsen continued the division during the attack on Poland . War crimes were committed when units subordinate to him shot around 250 to 300 Polish prisoners of war (see Ciepielów massacre ). In the western campaign he continued to lead the 29th Infantry Division before he was commander of the 5th Panzer Division on May 29, 1940 . On August 1, 1940 he was promoted to General of the Artillery (renamed General of the Panzer Troops on June 4, 1941 ).

Commanding general on the Eastern Front

On November 25, 1940 Lemelsen took command of the newly formed XXXXVII as commanding general . Army Corps . This essentially consisted of the newly established 17th and 18th Panzer Divisions as well as Lemelsen's old 29th Infantry Division (motorized). The corps was moved to the eastern border in May / June 1941 ( Generalgouvernement ) and came under the command of Panzer Group 2 under Colonel General Heinz Guderian . From June 22, 1941 Lemelsen's corps was involved in the war against the Soviet Union .

Lemelsen's formations formed part of the inner ring during the Białystok and Minsk Kessel Battle (June 22 - July 2, 1941), then caught up on the Dnieper and broke through the Stalin line at Kopys on July 11. During the subsequent Kesselschlacht near Smolensk (July 10th - August 6th 1941) it was again Lemelsen's divisions that formed the southern part of the inner ring and on July 16th took Smolensk itself. At the end of August / beginning of September 1941 the XXXXVII belonged to. Army Corps (motorized) also for the force grouping of Panzer Group 2, which, in cooperation with Panzer Group 1, wiped out the Soviet " Southwest Front " in the Kesselschlacht near Kiev . The corps was then involved in the further advance to the east (→ double battle near Vyazma and Brjansk ) and suffered considerable losses in the battle for Moscow . For the success of his troops and their leadership, Lemelsen was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on July 27, 1941 .

However, the leadership of the individual associations was not easy in every respect, especially when it came to questions of discipline towards the Russian population. As early as June 25th (only 3 days after the start of the campaign) Lemelsen wrote in an order to the troops subordinate to him: “I have found that there were senseless shootings, both of prisoners and civilians. The Russian soldier who is captured in uniform and who fought valiantly is entitled to honorable treatment. ”He added:“ We want to free the civilian population from the yoke of Bolshevism and we need their labor. [...] This order does not change anything in the Fuehrer's order about ruthless action against militants and Bolshevik commissars. ”On June 30th he repeated his warnings, but without threatening penalties for violations:

“In spite of my orders [...] there are repeated shootings of prisoners, defectors and deserters, which take place in an irresponsible, senseless and criminal manner. This is murder! [...] The Fiihrer's decree orders ruthless action against Bolshevism (political commissars) and all rioting! People who are properly identified as belonging to this group are to be led aside and only to be shot on the orders of an officer. [...] But the Russian soldier, who is found on the battlefield and fought bravely, is not a riot, but has the right to honorable, good treatment and care as the wounded [...] especially with the lie of the shooting of the prisoners but if the enemy keeps his soldiers with the troops [...] Both the harsh measures against militants and civilians fighting as well as the good treatment of prisoners and deserters that are ordered would save the German army a lot of blood. "

- General Lemelsen

Lemelsen drew a clear line here between the treatment of commissioners and partisans on the one hand and captured and / or wounded Red Army soldiers on the other. However, this was pragmatically motivated. The historian Omer Bartov sees this as proof that “his [Lemelsen's] thinking was already shaped by the mixture of ideology and unscrupulousness, even cynical pragmatism, which characterized National Socialism.” In addition, it should be noted that the division commanders subordinate to Lemelsen acted very differently . The " Commissar Order " under Lieutenant General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim in the 17th Panzer Division was not carried out. With the 18th Panzer Division under Lieutenant General Walther Nehring , however, the instruction had already been issued before the attack on the Soviet Union to shoot wounded prisoners of war as well as commissioners. Heinz Guderian, Lemelsen's direct superior, later stated that he had neither received nor forwarded the "Commissioner's order".

The XXXXVII. Army Corps (mot.) Remained in the comparatively quiet central section of the Eastern Front in 1942 and was in June 1942 in XXXXVII. Renamed Panzer Corps. Nevertheless, almost all motorized formations had been handed over to Army Group South , so that Lemelsen led mostly infantry formations. In the summer he was commissioned to carry out a large-scale campaign (→ Vogelsang Company ) against the Soviet partisans in the Bryansk area . After about four weeks the XXXXVII reported. Panzer Corps 1,582 partisans killed and 519 captured. In addition, 3,249 men were arrested and 12,531 people were "evacuated" from the area. The German losses amounted to 58 dead and 130 wounded. In view of this discrepancy, Colonel-General Rudolf Schmidt , as Commander-in-Chief of Lemelsen's 2nd Panzer Army, felt compelled to issue a sharp order: “The fight against the partisans requires ruthless severity wherever it is needed. But I expect the troops to understand how to distinguish between the partisans and the population in the partisan area, some of which live under severe terror. […] Even in the partisan war we remain soldiers and do not fight against women and children. ”Nevertheless, under Lemelsen's leadership, another major campaign against the partisans in the Bryansk area was carried out in May / June 1943 (→ Gypsy Baron Company ). A total of 1,584 “partisans” were killed, 1,568 “prisoners” were taken and 15,812 civilians were displaced without any loss of their own.

Only in the course of the German summer offensive in 1943 against the front arch at Kursk (→ Citadel Company ) were Lemelsen's Panzer Corps reassigned to several motorized units with which he spearheaded the northern attack on Kursk. He led these divisions in July / August 1943 in the defense against the Soviet offensive Oryol Operation and in the retreat to the Panther position on the Dnepr. For his leadership in these battles Lemelsen was awarded the Knight's Cross on September 7, 1943.

Army Commander in Chief

From September 4, 1943 to December 31, 1943 he was Commander-in-Chief of the 10th Army in Italy and was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the 1st Army in France on May 1, 1944 . Shortly before the start of the Allied invasion, he became Commander-in-Chief of the 14th Army in Italy on June 5, 1944 and took over command of the 10th Army on October 26, 1944.

On July 3, 1944, Lemelsen issued the following order for his area of ​​command with regard to the fight against partisans and thus also against the Italian civilian population:

I will cover every leader who goes beyond what is usual with us in the choice of means and the severity of the means in combating the gangs. Here, too, the old principle applies that a mistake in the choice of means to assert oneself is still better than omission and negligence.

In the last year of the war, on February 22, 1945, he was again Commander-in-Chief of the 14th Army in Italy and commanded it during the final Allied offensive in April 1945. On May 8, 1945, he and the remnants of the 14th Army were taken prisoner by the British April 10, 1948 was released.

Awards

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georg Tessin: Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in World War II 1939–1945 , Vol. 5, Bissendorf 1977, pp. 145 ff.
  2. ↑ a b c d Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 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. 501.
  3. ↑ a b Omer Bartov: Hitler's Wehrmacht - soldiers, fanaticism and the brutalization of war , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1995, p. 132.
  4. ↑ Jürgen Förster: Securing the "living space". In: The German Reich and the Second World War , Vol. 4, Stuttgart 1984, p. 1069.
  5. ↑ Christian Streit: No Comrades - The Wehrmacht and the Soviet Prisoners of War 1941–1945 , Stuttgart 1978, p. 84.
  6. ^ The trial of the main war criminals before the International Court of Justice in Nuremberg , Nuremberg 1947, vol. 7, p. 434 online version
  7. ↑ Johannes Hürter: Hitler's Heerführer - The German Supreme Commanders in the War against the Soviet Union 1941/42 , Munich 2007, p. 436 f.
  8. ↑ Omer Bartov: Hitler's Wehrmacht - soldiers, fanaticism and the brutalization of war , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1995, p. 142.
  9. ↑ General Simon - Life story of an SS leader , Wißner-Verlag, Augsburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89639-743-0 , p. 284.
  10. ↑ a b c Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres, Verlag Mittler & Sohn, Berlin, p. 122.
personal data
SURNAME Lemelsen, Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently General of the Armored Force in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1954
Place of death Goettingen