Karl Wilhelm von Kleist (officer, 1914)
Karl Wilhelm Leopold Oskar Werner von Kleist (born February 3, 1914 in Rome , † July 26, 1994 in Rheinbach ) was a German officer , most recently a brigadier general in the Bundeswehr .
Life
family
Kleist came from the Zützen branch of his old lineage from the Pomeranian nobility . His father was Colonel Leopold von Kleist (1872–1946), Wilhelm II's wing adjutant , and his mother Luise, née Countess von der Schulenburg (1879–1966). She was the daughter of Werner von der Schulenburg-Burgscheidungen (1836-1893), member of the Prussian mansion and Fideikommißherr on castle divisions , and his wife Henriette, née Countess von der Schulenburg.
Military career
After graduating from the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Gymnasium in Berlin , Kleist chose the soldier profession. On April 1, 1933, he entered the 7th (Prussian) cavalry regiment in Breslau as an officer candidate . In 1935 he became a lieutenant . At the same time, after Adolf Hitler had unilaterally broken and abolished the arms restrictions imposed by the Versailles Peace Treaty on Germany (including the ban on tanks) , his cavalry regiment was converted to a tank regiment and the garrison of this regiment was relocated to Eisenach .
With the newly established tank regiment, Kleist took part in the campaign in Poland as well as in the western campaign against France and in the war against the Soviet Union both as a company commander and as a regimental adjutant during the Second World War. He was wounded three times in total. In 1943, after completing his general staff training, he was appointed Ia of a division . In the heavy fighting on the Western Front after the Allied invasion of he got in November 1944 in British captivity , was released from the 1947th
Kleist joined the so-called Amt Blank in 1952 under the later Federal Defense Minister Theodor Blank as a civilian employee, who was supposed to prepare the re-establishment of German armed forces , which was planned by the western allies because of the Cold War that had now existed between the eastern and western former opponents of the war . After the Bundeswehr was established in 1955, he was made a lieutenant colonel and sent to Canada in 1957 as a German military attaché , a position he held until 1960. He then became the commander of the 84th Panzer Battalion , with which he was the first association of the German armed forces to take part in a practice shooting in Wales ( Castle Martin ) and to sustainably strengthen the new German NATO partnership. In 1967 he became brigadier general and deputy division commander of the 1st Panzer Division in Hanover . In 1969 he then retired.
Private life
In addition to his military duties, he was committed to his widespread and numerous family, whose family association he led as chairman. He died in Bonn in 1994. He was married to Elisabeth von Schickfuß and Neudorff (* 1925) on May 25, 1947 . The marriage resulted in two girls and a boy.
Individual evidence
- ^ Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels , Adelige Häuser A Volume XXV, page 124, Volume 117 of the complete series, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1998, ISSN 0435-2408 , p. 226.
- ^ Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels , Adelige Häuser A Volume XXV, Volume 117 of the complete series, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1998, p. 280.
- ^ A b c Gustav Kratz, History of the Kleist family.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kleist, Karl Wilhelm von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kleist, Karl Wilhelm Leopold Oskar Werner von (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German officer, most recently Brigadier General of the Bundeswehr |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 3, 1914 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rome |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 26, 1994 |
| Place of death | Rheinbach |