Kurt Zeitzler

Kurt Zeitzler

Kurt Zeitzler (born June 9, 1895 in Goßmar , Brandenburg province , † September 25, 1963 in Hohenaschau im Chiemgau ) was a German colonel general and the last official chief of staff of the army of the Wehrmacht .

Life

Kurt Zeitzler comes from a family of pastors in the Spreewald. After passing the final examination at the grammar school in Luckau he joined on 23 March 1914 as an ensign in the 4th Thuringian Infantry Regiment. 72 in Torgau one with which he shortly afterwards in the First World War moved. As a lieutenant (since December 1914) he commanded a pioneer company, among other things. At the end of the war he was first lieutenant and regimental adjutant.

After joining the Reichswehr , he served as a battalion adjutant and platoon leader in the 18th Infantry Regiment . He completed his assistant leadership training from 1926 in various divisional headquarters and was promoted to captain in January 1928 . From 1929 he served for three years in the staff of the 3rd Division in Berlin and then as a company commander in the 9th (Prussian) Infantry Regiment in Berlin-Lichterfelde. In February 1934 he was transferred to the Reichswehr Ministry and a little later he was promoted to major . Since January 1937, Lieutenant Colonel , Zeitzler last worked in the National Defense Department of the Wehrmacht Command Office in the OKW . In April 1939 he took over as commander of the 60th Infantry Regiment in Lüdenscheid and was promoted to colonel on June 1st .

When mobilizing to attack Poland at the end of August 1939, he was appointed chief of the general staff of the newly established XXII. (motorized) army corps under Ewald von Kleist , which was deployed on the right wing of the 14th Army . During the western campaign in 1940 he organized the deployment of what is now the "Kleist Panzer Group", which played a decisive role in the implementation of the " sickle-cut plan ". With the Panzer Group 1 formed in November 1940 under von Kleist , he took part in the Balkan campaign in April 1941 and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on May 18 . During the attack on the Soviet Union , the Panzer Group ( 1st Panzer Army since October 5 ) formed the spearhead of the Army Group South advancing into Ukraine .

Zeitzler was promoted to major general on February 1, 1942. In April of that year, under General Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, he became Chief of the General Staff of Army Group D / Commander in Chief West in occupied France. After the dismissal of the Chief of the Army General Staff, Colonel General Franz Halder , in September 1942, he was appointed by Hitler as his successor and promoted to General of the Infantry on September 24, skipping the rank of Lieutenant General . With Zeitzler's appointment as chief of staff and thus closest advisor for the Eastern Front , Hitler hoped to gain more support for his risky warfare.

After the 6th Army was encircled in Stalingrad, there were serious conflicts between Zeitzler and Hitler after Zeitzler, at the urging of the Commander-in-Chief of the 6th Army , Colonel General Friedrich Paulus , asked several times to consent to a withdrawal or breakout from the pocket. This request was categorically rejected by Hitler. After the end of the Battle of Stalingrad at the beginning of February 1943, Zeitzler succeeded in obtaining withdrawal orders for the troops fighting in the Rzhev front west of Moscow and in the Demyansk pocket. Significantly involved in the original planning for the Citadel enterprise , Zeitzler refused to take responsibility for this after its failure, as Hitler had, contrary to his advice, postponed the date of the attack several times.

On January 30, 1944, on the same day as Alfred Jodl , he was promoted to Colonel General . When Zeitzler understood the futility of further fighting after the series of defeats of the Wehrmacht up to mid-1944, most recently the collapse of Army Group Center , after the battle of Kursk , he asked Hitler to relieve him. However, the latter rejected his request several times. Zeitzler then called in early July. The head of the operations department of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Adolf Heusinger , acted as Zeitzler until he was injured in the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 . Colonel-General Heinz Guderian was then entrusted with the management of the business .

Zeitzler was not involved in the conspiracy against Hitler that had led to the assassination attempt. His adjutant Günther Smend had tried in vain to get Zeitzler to participate. However, since several of his subordinates were convicted or suspected of involvement, Zeitzler felt compelled to affirm his unbroken loyalty in a personal letter to Hitler. After he was transferred to the Führerreserve in mid-August 1944 , he was informed in November 1944 by the Army Personnel Chief Lieutenant General Wilhelm Burgdorf that on Hitler's instructions no further use was planned. On January 31, 1945, Zeitzler's final departure from the Wehrmacht took place, and he was forbidden from wearing the uniform. His efforts to defend himself against this order with the help of Rundstedt and later Albert Speer were unsuccessful.

After the end of World War II, Zeitzler was a British prisoner of war until the end of February 1947 . He appeared as a defense witness at the Nuremberg Trials and then made himself available to the Operational History (German) Section of the Historical Division of the US Army.

Zeitzler died of lung cancer in Hohenaschau in 1963 .

Awards

• Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class
• Friedrich Cross
• Wound badge (1918) in black
• Knight's Cross of the Bulgarian Order of Military Merit with Swords
• Wehrmacht service award IV. To I. class
• Clasp for the Iron Cross, 2nd and 1st class
• Freedom Cross 1st Class with Star and Swords

literature

• Friedrich-Christian Stahl: Colonel General Kurt Zeitzler. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. From the beginning of the war to the end of the world war. Volume 2. Primus, Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 3-89678-089-1 , pp. 283-292.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 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. 803.
2. ↑ Othmar Hackl : General Staff, General Staff Service and General Staff Training in the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht 1919–1945. Studies of German generals and general staff officers in the Historical Division of the US Army in Europe 1946–1961. Biblio, Osnabrück 1999, ISBN 3-7648-2551-0 , p. 67 ff.
3. ↑ The mirror. 40/1963: Died
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ranking list of the German Imperial Army. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1930, p. 146.