Johann Adolf Graf von Kielmansegg

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johann Adolf Graf von Kielmansegg, 1967
Johann Adolf Graf von Kielmansegg, 1967
Johann Adolf Graf von Kielmansegg, 1967

Johann Adolf Friedrich William Graf von Kielmansegg (born December 30, 1906 in Hofgeismar ; † May 26, 2006 in Bonn ) was a general in the Army of the German Armed Forces who had previously served in the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht .

Life

origin

Johann Adolf was the youngest of three children of Adolf Johann Graf von Kielmansegg (1864–1907) and his wife Eva Mathilde, born von Werner (1868–1953). His sisters Ilse (1889–1986) and Anna Dorothee (1892–1993) each married into noble families.

Military career

Kielmansegg joined the Reichswehr on April 7, 1926 after graduating from the Roßleben monastery school and served as a cavalry officer in the 16th Cavalry Regiment in Hofgeismar , Langensalza and Erfurt . In 1930 he was promoted to lieutenant . In the early 1930s the young family lived in Eisenach , Kapellenstrasse 6.

After Kielmansegg was promoted to captain on January 1, 1937 , he passed the military district examination on March 1 . This compulsory test was routinely used to check suitability as a general staff officer . Since Kielmansegg was able to successfully take this, he received from October 1, 1937 to July 31, 1939 at the War Academy in Berlin the corresponding higher education. Kielmansegg rated the expansion taking place during this period ( connection of Austria , Sudeten crisis ) positively:

“The fact that we marched into Austria and then a little later into the Sudetenland: nobody had anything against it. [...] At that time there was no awareness of injustice in matters relating to Austria and the Sudetenland. […] My question marks began on March 15, 1939, namely with the invasion of Prague. That was something completely different for me, namely unjustified violence. "

- Johann Adolf von Kielmansegg (1992)

After graduating from the War Academy, he was transferred to the staff of the 1st Panzer Division under Major General Rudolf Schmidt as Ic (enemy reconnaissance) .

During the Second World War he served in various troops, staff and front line assignments in the Wehrmacht in Poland , France and the Soviet Union . From 1942 to 1944 he was in the operations department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW) on May 1, 1944 as Colonel i. G. been promoted. As a co-conspirator of the coup d'état of July 20, 1944 , he was arrested by the Gestapo , but released on October 23, 1944, albeit without further use in the General Staff. On November 25, 1944, he was given command of the 111th Panzer Grenadier Regiment of the 11th Panzer Division , which was set up in July 1942, and led this unit until April 16, 1945.

After the war, initially British and later American captivity , he was released in May 1946 and initially worked as a driver in a farm, from February 1948 as a journalist and from 1949 as a publishing clerk in Hamburg. In the first years after the war, as a politically persecuted person, he was a member of the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime (VVN) .

In 1949, leaving out his first names (author's name “Graf Kielmannsegg”), he published the book Der Fritsch-Prozess 1938 , an unconditional defense document about his uncle Colonel General Werner von Fritsch , in order to wash this “strange bachelor” ( Gerhard Ritter ) from the accusation of homosexual activity and the so-called Fritsch affair can be traced back to an intrigue of Himmler and Göring.

In October 1950 he worked on the secret Himmeroder memorandum . In 1950 he was appointed to the Blank Office in Bonn , where from December 1, 1950 to 1955, he was initially a consultant for military policy and then “sub-department head general questions of national defense”. During this time he was the German delegate in the negotiations on the European Defense Community and the Paris Treaties . Kielmansegg is considered to be one of the intellectual fathers of the principle of " inner leadership ", which with the concept of the citizen in uniform became the trademark of the Bundeswehr.

Kielmansegg joined the Bundeswehr in 1955 with the rank of Brigadier General (with effect from November 1, 1955). From 1955 to 1958 he represented the Federal Republic of Germany as the “National Military Representative” at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Powers in Europe ( SHAPE ) - at that time still in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in France .

From December 1958 to 1960 he was deputy commander of the 5th Panzer Division in Koblenz and from 1960 to 1963 (from April 1, 1961 as major general ) commander of the 10th Panzer Grenadier Division in Sigmaringen . From 1963 he was active again in the international field and was appointed Lieutenant General (promotion to rank: July 5, 1963) NATO Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Land Forces Central Europe ( COMLANDCENT , Allied Land Forces Central Europe) in Fontainebleau in France (there already for the 1st September 1963 to General transported) and from March 15, 1967 NATO commander ( CINCENT , Commander in Chief, Allied forces Central Europe) Allied forces Central Europe ( AFCENT, Allied forces Central Europe ) initially in Fontainebleau, from 1 July 1967, in Brunssum (Netherlands). On April 1, 1968, he ended his military career, his successor as CINCENT in NATO was the German General Jürgen Bennecke .

In 1965 he was awarded the Freiherr vom Stein Prize for his services to the principle of "Inner Leadership" .

Kielmansegg did not call himself a resistance fighter. In order to rehabilitate the former general of the German Wehrmacht internationally, a commemorative publication was published in his honor in 1966. This was done on behalf of the German Federal Armed Forces, Department "Psychological Warfare".

In 1966 he was appointed commander of the Legion of Honor by French President de Gaulle .

In 1985, together with Oskar Weggel, he published the book Invincible? published by Seewald Verlag, Stuttgart, on the military power of the People's Republic of China .

family

Johann Adolf Graf von Kielmansegg had been married to Mechthild von Dincklage (1909–2000) since 1934 and was the father of two sons and two daughters:

  1. Johann Adolf (Hanno) (born July 8, 1935), Major General a. D. ∞ Benedicta (Benita) Freiin von Thielmann (* 1936)
  2. Peter (born June 27, 1937 in Hanover), German political scientist ∞ Walpurgis Countess von Schweinitz and Krain, baroness von Kauder
  3. Ulrike (* 1940) ∞ Hellmut Holle (* 1935)
  4. Lewine (* 1943) ∞ Werner Lehnhoff (1943–1984)

He died on May 26, 2006 in Bonn and is buried in the Bad Krozingen cemetery.

Awards

Works

  • Tanks between Warsaw and the Atlantic. Publishing house "Die Wehrmacht". Berlin 1941.
  • The 1938 Fritsch Trial: Process and Background. Hoffmann & Campe 1949.
  • The treaties of Bonn and Paris from May 1952. Publishing house for history and politics. Frankfurt 1952.
  • Invincible? China as a military power. Seewald, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-512-00721-X . with Oskar Weggel.

literature

Web links

Commons : Johann Adolf Graf von Kielmansegg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Landmann / Wolter / Zlotowicz, Villen in Eisenach, Weimar 1997, p. 202 ff. (Stefan Wolter)
  2. ↑ Quoted from: Karl Feldmeyer, Georg Meyer: Johann Adolf Graf von Kielmansegg 1906–2006. German patriot, European, Atlanticist , Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2007, p. 8.
  3. ↑ Speidel successor: Forward with Kilian , Der Spiegel, August 7, 1963
  4. ↑ Article of March 6, 2006 in: Der Spiegel , No. 23/2006.
  5. ↑ Helmut Bohn: A political biography 1914–1998 , Dresden 2003, ISBN 3-935063-18-0 , p. 239.
  6. ^ "Consilio Non Imperio" on the 60th birthday of General Johann Adolf Graf von Kielmansegg. Published by Markus Verlag. Cologne 1966.
  7. ↑ Helmut Bohn: A political biography 1914–1998 , Dresden 2003, pp. 225–263.
  8. ↑ Later renamed the “Psychological Defense” section.
predecessor Office successor
Jean Albert Emile Crépin Commander in Chief, Allied Forces Central Europe
1963–1968 		Jürgen Bennecke
personal data
SURNAME Kielmansegg, Johann Adolf Graf von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kielmansegg, Johann Adolf Friedrich William Graf von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German general, commander in chief of NATO
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Hofgeismar
DATE OF DEATH May 26, 2006
Place of death Bonn