Johann Mickl

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Johann Mickl (until 1922 Mikl ) (born April 18, 1893 in Zelting , Radkersburg Umgebung , Styria , † April 10, 1945 in Rijeka , Istria ) was an Austrian officer , most recently lieutenant general in the German Wehrmacht .

Life

Promotions

Mickl came from a Catholic farming family near Luttenberg in Styria. In 1911 he entered the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt as an officer candidate . At the beginning of the First World War he came to the kk Landwehr Infantry Regiment 4 . He fought on the Eastern Front in Galicia and in the mountain war .

Radkersburg

As a member of the German-Austrian People's Armed Forces , Mickl wanted to drive out the Slovenian occupation of Radkersburg with a free group in early 1919 . Since the Styrian state government under Wilhelm Kaan did not want to help, he procured the necessary weapons in Carinthia . When the attempt at liberation failed due to treason on February 4, 1919 , Mickl was persecuted by the Styrian state government ; In other villages in the lower Mur valley, however, the armed uprising against the occupation was successful. During the negotiations in Marburg an der Drau in February 1919, the failed attempt was taken as proof that the population of the country north of the Mur wanted to become part of German Austria. In the peace treaty of St. Germain Austria was awarded Radkersburg , while Lower Styria became part of the newly founded "State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs", later "State of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes" (both abbreviated: SHK).

Federal Army and Wehrmacht

In 1920 he was taken over into the Federal Army (1st Republic) and on February 15, 1935, Mickl became a general staff officer in the 3rd Brigade of Lower Austria in St. Pölten . With the conversion of the brigade to the Lower Austria Division in January 1936, he became First General Staff Officer (Ia).

In March 1938 Mickl was accepted into the Wehrmacht . Since November 10, 1938, department commander of the anti-tank department 42, which belonged to the 2nd Light Division , he fought with it in the attack on Poland and in the western campaign . On December 10, 1940 he was regiment commander of the 7th Rifle Regiment. On June 1, 1941, he took over the 155th Rifle Regiment of the 90th Africa Light Division in the German Africa Corps . For special bravery in the battle for Tobruk he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . Mickl parted from the "rough block" Erwin Rommel in an argument; but he considered him to be the only troop leader of real quality whom he had met in the Greater German Army.

Slightly wounded in the same month, Mickl became brigade commander of the 12th Rifle Brigade (12th Panzer Grenadier Brigade) on March 25, 1942 on the Volkhov . For his achievements in the Battle of Rzhev , he received the oak leaves for the Knight's Cross as a colonel .

Assigned to command the 11th Panzer Division on May 15, 1943 , he fought in the citadel company during the attack on Kursk . He attributed the failures in Operation Barbarossa above all to the generals' aversion to the front . So he was replaced because of disagreements with Otto von Knobelsdorff and Hermann Hoth - to his great annoyance - and temporarily transferred to the " Führerreserve ".

On August 13, 1943 he became division commander of the 392nd (Croatian) Infantry Division , which was reorganized in Döllersheim in Lower Austria . With her he conquered the Velebit to the Adriatic Sea and he covered the retreat of Army Group E . Wounded by a shot in the head while fighting the Yugoslav partisans near Senj on April 9, 1945 , he died the next day, a week before his 52nd birthday, in the hospital in Rijeka.

Orders and honors

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ From April 1917 the kk Landwehr Infantry Regiment 4 was called kk Gebirgs-Schützenregiment Nr. 1
  2. ↑ a b Heinz Richter (1994)
  3. ^ A b c Peter Broucek: Commission for Modern History of Austria 1988
personal data
SURNAME Mickl, Johann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mikl, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian officer, most recently lieutenant general of the armored forces of the German armed forces
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Zelting, Radkersburg area , Styria
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1945
Place of death Rijeka