Joachim von Kortzfleisch

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General von Kortzfleisch (r.) With Lieutenant Colonel Hans von Ahlfen am Pruth , July 1941

Joachim Otto August Achatius von Kortzfleisch (born January 3, 1890 in Braunschweig , † April 20, 1945 near Wulwesort , Sauerland ) was a general of the infantry of the German Wehrmacht .

family

He came from the Westphalian noble family Kortzfleisch and was the son of the Prussian Major General Gustav von Kortzfleisch (1854-1910) and Elsbeth Oppermann (1862-1937).

Kortzfleisch married on November 17, 1921 on Gut Loschen ( district of Preußisch Eylau , East Prussia ) Edelgard von Saucken (born November 9, 1901 on Gut Loschen), the daughter of the landowner Siegfried von Saucken, landlord of Loschen and Gomthenen (both district of Preussisch Eylau) , and Freda Freiin von Hollen (House Hohenwalde). In 1929 the couple had a son in Dresden, who would later become the theologian and publicist Siegfried von Kortzfleisch .

Life

Von Kortzfleisch took part in the First World War as an officer . After the end of the war, he was accepted into the Reichswehr, which had been greatly reduced due to the Versailles Treaty , and was promoted to major on January 1, 1928 . From 1933 on as the commandant of Opole , in 1935 as a colonel he took over command of Infantry Regiment 3 in Deutsch-Eylau . After his promotion to major general in 1937, he was employed as Landwehr commander in Allenstein for a few months before he rose to command of the 1st Infantry Division in February 1938 in the course of the Blomberg-Fritsch affair . He led this in the fall of 1939 during the attack on Poland , where it was used as part of the 3rd Army .

At the beginning of March 1940, he was promoted to lieutenant general and was given command of the XI. Army Corps . For his leadership of the corps in the western campaign , he was promoted to General of the Infantry in August and the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in September . In 1941 he was used with his corps in the Balkan campaign and in the Russian campaign in the area of Army Group South . After he was temporarily with the leadership of the XXXXIII. Army Corps had been instructed to put him up in early 1943 in the Führerreserve .

In March 1943, Kortzfleisch was then appointed commander in military district III in Berlin . As such, he came into direct contact with the events of July 20, 1944 . Due to his attitude loyal to the regime, he made a decisive contribution to the failure of the resistance by not signing the Valkyrie orders for the military district despite massive pressure from the conspirators, which is why the Linz lieutenant colonel i. G. Robert Bernardis had to take on part of this task and was hanged for it.

It is noteworthy that Kortzfleisch was a brother-in-law by marriage of Stauffenberg's cousin Olga von Üxküll (married to Fredy von Saucken ). At their wedding on October 28, 1943, no less than five resistance fighters of July 20 met (recorded in a photo), namely Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg , Nikolaus Graf von Üxküll-Gyllenband , Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg and Caesar von Hofacker . Joachim von Kortzfleisch and his wife can also be seen in the photo.

On March 2, 1945, Kortzfleisch became the commander of the bridgeheads on the Rhine of Army Group B under General Field Marshal Walter Model, and with this he got into the so-called Ruhr basin in the course of the war . On April 20, 1945, he and a handful of soldiers attempted to cut through enemy lines. However, the troop was discovered and surrounded by a US patrol near Schmallenberg-Wulwesort. Kortzfleisch did not comply with the request to surrender, but raised his arm in the Hitler salute and was then shot in the chest.

Awards

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eyewitness report of the "Fifth Infantry Division of the US Armed Forces", printed in the yearbook Hochsauerlandkreis 1995, ISBN 3-86133-126-8 , translated by Frank Muermann and Rudolf Salingré, p. 70
  2. ↑ a b c d Ranking list of the German Imperial Army. Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin, p. 123.
  3. ↑ 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. 467.
personal data
SURNAME Kortzfleisch, Joachim von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kortzfleisch, Joachim Otto August Achatius von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German infantry general in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Braunschweig
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1945
Place of death Wulwesort