Kurt von Westernhagen

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Kurt von Westernhagen (born June 28, 1891 in Hagenau , † April 14, 1945 in Greiz ) was a German officer .

Life

Before World War II

Kurt Udo Hagen Friedrich was the son of the Prussian Lieutenant General Eduard von Westernhagen (1851-1921) and his wife Clara, née Sentker (1863-1949).

In 1909 he joined the Jäger Regiment on Horseback No. 6 in Erfurt , with which he took part in the First World War . In 1918 he quit his job as Rittmeister and devoted himself to equestrian sport. In 1934, as a successful men's rider , he received the Golden Riding Badge for sixty victories in the racing saddle .

Second World War

Even before, at the latest with the beginning of the Second World War , Westernhagen was doing service in various Wehrmacht agencies, including a. in a commission for the purchase of horses. From the end of 1940 he was in command of the Army Prisoner Collection Point 3 (AGSSt) in France and Holland. From Rotterdam he visited the former German Emperor Wilhelm II. In his exile in Doorn several times . In June 1941, when the attack on the Soviet Union began , the AGSSt 3 was deployed in Belarus , where it marched after the fighting troops and set up reception camps for the immense numbers of prisoners .

The conditions in the improvised camps were pathetic, and the death rate was correspondingly high. In addition, there were the shootings by Himmler's SD Einsatzgruppen , who systematically searched the camps for Soviet political officers and Jewish prisoners on the basis of the Commissar's order .

Since Westernhagen had repeatedly borrowed small amounts of money from a subordinate, he was relieved of his post at the beginning of August 1941, transferred to main camp 319 Chelm and from April 1942 to main camp 359 in Poniatowa west of Lublin for nine months . What had happened here, and was still going on when Westernhagen took up his duties, must have been the most terrible thing he experienced. Due to the hunger crisis of winter 1941 / spring 1942, hard work, typhus and arbitrary shootings, 22,000 of the 24,000 prisoners perished. There were 32 mass graves on the camp site . From October 1942 the camp became the responsibility of the SS . The first Jewish prisoners came in January 1943. At that time, Westernhagen was transferred to Landesschützen- Ersatz- Bataillon 3 in Strausberg, but had to go to the Beelitz reserve hospital until the end of 1943 because of an inflammation of the vocal cords. He was then transferred to the 193 Construction and Labor Battalion, a unit active in the pioneering field .

Westernhagen's last stop was Langenwetzendorf an der Leuba in the Thuringian Vogtland , six kilometers from Greiz an der Weißen Elster . He was the company commander of a demolition squad that came from Gera with the remains of the 11th Panzer Division and was supposed to blow up the bridges over the White Elster, the line of defense, in order to stop the advance of the Americans . A small group of citizens of Greiz, who tried to prevent the defense of the city, had found out about the planned destruction of the bridges in a roundabout way, went to Westernhagen and convinced him of the pointlessness of the demolition. As a result, Westernhagen released his people on the morning of April 14th, removed his badges from their uniforms and set out on foot in the direction of Saxony. His wife lived in Oschatz . People from a village near Greiz reported the apparent deserter . The head of the Gestapo Weimar arrested Westernhagen and had him shot on the same day after a brief "reading of the verdict" by three SS Untersturmführer on Marienplatz, then "Platz der SA".

After Westernhagen's death

Westernhagen's decision not to blow up the bridges had no effect, as on April 14th, 15th and 16th another pioneer unit of the Wehrmacht on the orders of the military command "Elsterabschnitt Süd" (11th Panzer Division) first opened the railway bridge, then the City bridges and the upstream bridge on Papiermühlenweg blew up. At this time, tanks of the US troops were already on the western approach to Greiz. They occupied the city on April 17th. They had crossed the Elster by a ford, so that the destruction of the bridges by the Wehrmacht proved superfluous.

Honors

The city of Greiz named the former "Platz der SA" Von-Westernhagen-Platz. A plaque commemorates the honorable actions of Western Hagens.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Jahn: In memoriam Kurt Udo Hagen Friedrich von Westernhagen. In: Greizer Sonntagspost. No. 621, 1987, pp. 68 f.
  2. ↑ Federal Archives-Military Archives Freiburg. 23/170 pp. 55 f, 65 ff, 106 ff, 131, 188.
  3. ^ Christian Streit: No comrades. The Wehrmacht and the Soviet prisoners of war 1941–1945. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart, 2nd edition 1980, p. 31 ff, p. 128 ff.
  4. ↑ Federal Archives Ludwigsburg. B 162/27741, pp. 90 ff.
  5. ↑ Marlis Gräfe, Bernhard Post, Andreas Schneider (ed.): Sources for the history of Thuringia. The Secret State Police in the NS Gau Thuringia 1933–1945. 2nd half volume, Erfurt 2004, p. 511 ff.
  6. ^ Wilfried Rettig: The Elstertal Railway. The history of the railroad between Gera, Greiz, Plauen and Weischlitz. Freiburg 2006, p. 78, According to Rettig's announcement on August 16, 2010, the railway tunnel was not blown up. Volkmar Schneider: Zero hour in Greiz. In: Greizer home calendar. 2004 (Volume 2005), pp. 190-198. Gerhard Strauss: The war events in April 1945 in Greizer Land. In: Greizer home calendar. 2005 (Volume 2004), pp. 180-189.
personal data
SURNAME Westernhagen, Kurt von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer
DATE OF BIRTH June 28, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Haguenau
DATE OF DEATH April 14, 1945
Place of death Greiz