Kurt Waeger

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Kurt Waeger (born February 6, 1893 in Schöneberg ; † June 18, 1952 in Winsen (Luhe) ) was a German officer , most recently general of the artillery in World War II and from 1942 to 1944 head of the armaments office at the Reich Ministry for Armaments and Ammunition .

Life

Waeger was born the son of a privy councilor . He joined the 2nd Pomeranian Field Artillery Regiment No. 17 in Bromberg on April 3, 1911 as an ensign and was promoted to lieutenant on August 18, 1912 . This was followed by participation in the First World War and, after the end of the war, he was accepted into the Reichswehr . You put him first in the 2nd (Prussian) Artillery Regiment ( Schwerin ) as a battery officer and regimental adjutant and promoted him on 1 February 1926 captain . As such he took over the 13th (mounted) battery of the 3rd (Prussian) Artillery Regiment in Potsdam in May 1929 . At the end of 1933 he moved to the staff of the border section command in Opole and the following year to the staff of Infantry Leader VI (cover name for the 22nd Infantry Division ) in Bremen , where he was the first general staff officer (Ia). In the summer of 1937 he was appointed lieutenant colonel to chief of staff in Heereswaffenamt appointed, which he remained until the spring 1941st

After being promoted to colonel in the meantime , he then became chief of staff of the newly formed LIII. Army corps with which he took part in the attack on the Soviet Union . In January 1942 he replaced Wilhelm Hasse as Chief of the General Staff of the 18th Army ( Army Group North ). A little later, he was promoted to major general . In November 1942 he was appointed as the successor to Georg Thomas as head of the Armaments Office in the Reich Ministry for Armaments and Ammunition under Albert Speer and at the same time "entrusted with the work of the forces deployed at the trial and experimental sites". In the course of his two years at this post he was promoted to general of the artillery and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords when he left in November 1944 . At the same time as Waeger, the previous head of the Central Office, Willy Liebel, left the Ministry of Armaments, and the powers of the two heads of office were transferred to Theo Hupfauer .

In December 1944 , Waeger was transferred to the OKH's Führerreserve , and at the end of January 1945 Waeger was given a new position as commanding general of the re-established V Army Corps . With this he took part in the association of the 4th Panzer Army in the final battles in the Lausitz and the Ore Mountains. He was released from captivity in 1948.

Waeger's final resting place is in a war grave series grave in the cemetery in Winsen (Luhe).

Awards

literature

  • Klaus D. Patzwall : The knight's cross bearers of the War Merit Cross 1942–1945. Patzwall Militaria Archive, Hamburg 1984.

swell

  • Written information from the Helmut Schmidt University of the Federal Armed Forces on January 10, 2007
  • Written information from the BMVg dated February 8, 2007

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ranking list of the German Imperial Army. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1930, p. 142
personal data
SURNAME Waeger, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently general of the artillery in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Schöneberg
DATE OF DEATH June 18, 1952
Place of death Winsen (Luhe)