Karl-Adolf Hollidt

Karl-Adolf Hollidt (born April 28, 1891 in Speyer ; † May 22, 1985 in Siegen ) was a German army officer ( Colonel General since 1943 ). During the Second World War he was used as a commander of large formations in various theaters of war. After the war he was charged with involvement in Wehrmacht crimes and sentenced to five years in prison.

Life

Empire and First World War

The son of a study Council for modern languages at the Humanities College in Speyer resigned after graduating from high school in 1909 in the Infantry Life Guards "Grand Duchess" (third Grand Ducal Hessian) No. 117 one, in the third company he became 1910 lieutenant was appointed. Hollidt spent the time of the First World War exclusively in various positions on the Western Front . During this time he was promoted to first lieutenant (1915) and captain (1918).

Weimar Republic

From 1919 Hollidt served as a regimental adjutant in Infantry Regiment No. 15 in Giessen . From 1922 to 1923 he received general staff training in the Reichswehr Ministry . After working in the staff of Infantry Leader III ( Potsdam ), Hollidt was employed as a company commander in Infantry Regiment No. 12 in Zerbst . Hollidt taught tactics from 1931 to 1933 at Military District Command V in Stuttgart .

time of the nationalsocialism

Pre-war period

After his promotion to lieutenant colonel on February 1, 1933, he became battalion chief in Infantry Regiment No. 12 in Dessau . As Colonel i. G. (on the General Staff ) served in 1935 as Chief of Staff of the 1st Army Corps in Königsberg . After his appointment as major general , Hollidt worked as infantry commander 9 and site elder in Siegen. There he commanded infantry regiments No. 57, 116 and 136. In 1939 he took over the Aryanized villa of the Siegen merchant Eduard Hermann, who had fled to Palestine from the Nazi persecution of Jews .

Second World War

On August 26, 1939, Hollidt became commander of the 52nd Infantry Division , but gave up this post after a few days to be appointed Chief of Staff of the 5th Army . From November 1, 1939, he served as chief of staff at the Commander-in-Chief of the East, Colonel General Johannes Blaskowitz . In the western campaign , after being promoted to lieutenant general on April 1, 1940, he served as chief of staff in the 9th Army . From October 1940 he was in command of the 50th Infantry Division , which he also led in the 1941 campaign against Greece . With this division, he was after the invasion of the Soviet Union of the Southern Army Group assumed. As a general of the infantry , Hollidt commanded the XVII from January to November 1942 . Army Corps , from which the Hollidt Army Division was formed. After the surrender of the remnants of the 6th Army in the Stalingrad pocket, a new 6th Army was formed from the Hollidt Army Department on March 6, 1943, with Hollidt taking over as the successor to Field Marshal Paulus . On September 1, 1943, he was promoted to colonel general. At the end of March 1944 he was recalled as Commander in Chief of the 6th Army, followed by General Sigfrid Henrici . A little later, he was transferred to the Führer Reserve . In the final phase, Hollidt worked from February to April 1945 as a military advisor to the Gauleiter of the NSDAP.

After the end of National Socialism

Hollidt was involved in crimes of the Wehrmacht , both war crimes and non-war-related crimes, which is why he and some other members of the Wehrmacht leadership were investigated and charges were brought against him after 1945 in Nuremberg. In case XII “OKW and General Staff Trial” (1947–1948) Hollidt was sentenced to five years imprisonment for the illegal use of prisoners of war as well as the deportation and enslavement of civilians, which he was to serve in the Landsberg War Crimes Prison . Shortly before Christmas 1949, like many other Nazi criminals convicted by the Western Allies, he was released early against the backdrop of the Cold War and the formation of a bloc. This was caused by the so-called "Christmas amnesty", which came into force at the end of the year the Federal Republic of Germany was founded.

Hollidt was chairman, then honorary chairman of the state association of North Rhine-Westphalia of the Association of Returnees . He was elected presbyter by his Protestant parish.

Awards

• Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class
• Hessian bravery medal
• Wound badge (1918) in black
• Wehrmacht service award IV. To I. class
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with oak leaves
  • Knight's Cross on September 8, 1941
  • Oak leaves on May 17, 1943 (239th award).

literature

• Dermot Bradley : Colonel General Karl Hollidt. In: Mars - Yearbook for Defense Policy and Military Affairs. 6, 2000, pp. 272-285.
• Friedrich Karl Hollidt (Ed.): A hundred years are like a day. Memories and documents of the Hollidt family from the beginning to the 20th century. Rohnstock, Berlin 2003.

Web links

• Regional dictionary of persons, article by Karl Adolf Hollidt

Individual evidence

1. ^ Regional personal encyclopedia on National Socialism in the old districts of Siegen and Wittgenstein , sv Karl Adolf Hollidt , accessed on May 17, 2020.
2. ↑ See: [1] .
3. ^ Samuel W. Mitcham , Blitzkrieg No Longer. The German Wehrmacht in Battle, South Yorkshire 2010, p. 296.
4. ↑ This and the following information from: Regionales Personenlexikon, article Karl Adolf Hollidt .
5. ^ Samuel W. Mitcham, Blitzkrieg No Longer. The German Wehrmacht in Battle, South Yorkshire 2010, p. 296.
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin 1930, p. 125
7. ↑ 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. 402.