Karl Barlen

Karl Wilhelm Roland Barlen (born July 17, 1890 in Trarbach on the Moselle , † March 22, 1956 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German aviator general .

Life

Military training and World War I

After attending school, Barlen joined the German Army on June 12, 1909 and was initially a flag junior in the 8th Rhenish Infantry Regiment No. 70 . On November 16, 1910, he was promoted to lieutenant after he had previously graduated from military school. He then returned to his regiment and remained there until the beginning of World War I in August 1914 as an officer in a company .

At the beginning of the war he was promoted to lieutenant in the field aviator department No. 8 and during his use there on March 22, 1916 promoted to first lieutenant . Most recently he was employed in the staff service from the summer of 1916 until the end of the war. During the First World War, he was not only honored with the Iron Cross , but also with several other awards for his military services .

Weimar Republic

After the end of the war he was accepted into the so-called "Peace Army" , in which he was employed as a first lieutenant and company officer in the 15th Infantry Regiment . After he was promoted to captain on October 1, 1922 , he was transferred to the staff of the 2nd Thuringian Battalion of the 15th Infantry Regiment in Eisenach , before he became company commander of its 5th company in Sondershausen in the summer of 1923 . Five years later he officially resigned from the Reichswehr in this role on October 1, 1928, but actually attended a pilot course on behalf of the Reichswehr at the Secret Aviation School and testing facility of the Reichswehr in Lipetsk .

After completing his pilot training, he was resumed as a captain in the Reichswehr on October 1, 1929, initially with the 4th Baden Squadron of the 18th Cavalry Regiment in Ludwigsburg . A short time later he became an officer in the staff of the 5th Reichswehr Division in Stuttgart .

Third Reich and World War II

Barlen was first promoted to major on April 1, 1933 and with this rank was transferred to the Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM) in autumn , which initiated his later takeover into the Air Force . In the Reich Aviation Ministry he was an employee of the personnel office and as such was promoted to lieutenant colonel on April 1, 1935 .

On March 15, 1936, he left the RLM and became the commander of reconnaissance group 115 and the commandant of the Göppingen air base.However , almost a year later, on April 1, 1937, he returned to the Reich Ministry of Aviation in Berlin and became a colonel head of a department of the personnel office.

Two years later, on February 1, 1939, he was appointed head of the Personnel Office in the RLM and on April 20, 1939, he was promoted to major general , with his seniority (RDA) set on April 1, 1939. During his tenure as head of the official group until March 31, 1943, he was promoted to lieutenant general on April 1, 1941 .

After his use in the Reich Aviation Ministry ended, Lieutenant General Barlen became head of the protection zone in Slovakia on April 1, 1943 and kept this position until the end of the Second World War . Most recently he was promoted to General of the Airmen on April 1, 1944.

After the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht , he was captured by the Red Army on May 9, 1945 in Freistadt . He spent the next few years in various Soviet prisoner-of-war camps ; on July 3, 1950, a Soviet military tribunal sentenced him to 25 years of forced labor for war crimes. On October 7, 1955, however, he was released early and returned to West Germany . He spent the last months of his life in Rod an der Weil . Almost six months after his discharge, Barlen died of a heart attack in a hospital in Frankfurt am Main .

literature

• Irina V. Bezborodova: Generals of the Third Reich in Soviet hands 1943–1956. Association for the Promotion of Research into Consequences after Conflicts and Wars, Graz / Moscow 1998, ISBN 3-901661-03-4 .
• Karl Friedrich Hildebrand: The Generals of the German Air Force 1935-1945, Part II, Volume 1: Abernetty - v.Gyldenfeldt , Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1990, ISBN 3-7648-1701-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Death register of the registry office Frankfurt I No. 349/1956.