Jean de Lattre de Tassigny

Jean de Lattre de Tassigny (1946)

Jean Joseph-Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny (born February 2, 1889 in Mouilleron-en-Pareds , Département Vendée , † January 11, 1952 in Paris ) was a French general and commander-in-chief of the 1st French Army , which at the end of the Second Southwest Germany conquered during World War II .

Life

Training and First World War

De Lattre was born into a Franco- Flemish family, attended the Collège Saint Joseph in Poitiers , from 1898 to 1904 the Naval Academy and from 1908 to 1911 the Military Academy of Saint-Cyr . Then he attended the cavalry school in Saumur . In 1912 he was transferred to the 12 ^e régiment de dragons (12th dragoon regiment) in Pont-à-Mousson , France-Lorraine , and took part in the First World War as captain of the 93 ^e régiment d'infanterie . He was wounded four times.

Interwar period

From 1919 to 1921 he was transferred to the 49 ^e régiment d'infanterie in Bayonne , after which he took part in the Rif War in Morocco from 1924 to 1925 . In 1927 he married Simone de Lamazière, with whom he had their son Bernard in 1928. In 1929 he was promoted to Chief de bataillon des 5 ^e régiment d'infanterie in Coulommiers . In 1932 he was posted to the General Staff under General Maxime Weygand , Vice President of the Supreme War Council, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel . Three years later he was commandant of the 151 ^e régiment d'infanterie in Metz with the rank of colonel . In 1935 he was appointed head of the Saint-Cyr Military Academy. Between 1937 and 1938 he took courses at the Center of the High Military School and became Chief of the General Staff of the Governor of Strasbourg . On March 23, 1939 he was promoted to the youngest Général de brigade in French history and on September 2, 1939 appointed Chief of the General Staff of the 5th Army.

Second World War

Commanded from the January 1, 1940 de Lattre de Tassigny the 14 ^e régiment d'infantry in Rethel . It fought against the German invaders on the front in Champagne and on the Yonne until the armistice .

De Lattre remained as commander of the 13th military region of the Vichy-French armed forces, initially in Clermont-Ferrand until 1941 , then as Général de division in Tunisia until the end of 1941. He then took over as Général de corps d'armée, the 16th division in Montpellier . When the Wehrmacht invaded the “unoccupied, free zone” at the end of November 1942 because of the Allied landing in North Africa ( Company Anton ), he began to organize a force against the German occupiers near Cette-Eygun on the edge of the Pyrenees To create resistance. He refused to be ordered not to fight, which earned him an arrest and a ten-year sentence.

After de Lattre was able to escape from the prison in Riom on September 3, 1943 , he reached Algiers via London on December 20, 1943 , where General Charles de Gaulle gave him the command of the so-called French B Army with the rank of Général d 'Armée was transferred to General Henri Giraud's successor . The French B Army was one of two armies of the Southern Group of Armies , also known as the American 6th Army Group , that was set up to take part in the invasion of the south of France ( Operation Dragoon ). The other army was the US 7th Army , commanded by General Alexander M. Patch . De Lattre landed in Provence in the south of France on August 16, 1944, and his troops began their march to liberate France by taking Toulon and Marseille . On September 25, 1944, the French B Army was renamed the 1st French Army.

The troops of the Wehrmacht withdrew very quickly (sometimes hastily) up the Rhone ; the Western Allies (including de Lattres army) advanced very quickly and with little loss. Encouraged by General de Gaulle, the members of the French Resistance who wished to continue the fight were integrated into the 1st Army by General de Lattre. In September and October 1944 there was only local fighting.

From November 12, 1944 to December 19, 1944 the battle for Alsace-Lorraine took place. The Battle of the Bulge forced the Western Allied troops on December 19 to break off the attacks and to regroup the 3rd Army. As a result, there was calm in Alsace and Lorraine until December 31, 1944; then the last German offensive on the western front began there with the company Nordwind .

Around April 1, 1945, Lattres army crossed the Rhine as part of the Allied expeditionary forces and advanced south of the Danube through southern Germany to Vorarlberg and Tyrol . Although US Army General Jacob L. Devers , commander of the 6th Army Group, had ordered Stuttgart from Heilbronn So, take out from the north, ordered de Lattre on the direct orders of General de Gaulle two divisions from the direction of Horb from the south to Stuttgart. They successively took Tübingen (April 18), Reutlingen (April 19), Esslingen (April 21) and Stuttgart (April 22). On 16./17. In April 1945, under his command, there was a devastating attack on the city of Freudenstadt . There was criticism in particular on the basis of reports of rape of women by de Lattres troops. (see also Allied war crimes in World War II # France )

When the road between Oberkirch and Freudenstadt was available as a parade and supply route from April 19 , de Lattre began a pincer movement to the south in order to defeat the XVIII. Downing SS Army Corps . Attempts to break out by the encircled Wehrmacht divisions between Villingen and Donaueschingen were almost completely unsuccessful. On April 23, the French troops reached Radolfzell on Lake Constance and on April 29, 1945 the war in southwest Germany was ended with the capture of Markdorf . De Gaulle forbade de Lattre the surrender of the city of Stuttgart demanded by General Jacob L. Devers on April 26, 1945 to the troop commander Joseph de Goislard de Monsabert .

De Lattre represented France when the representatives of the German armed forces in the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in Reims signed the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht on May 7 and 8, 1945 in the headquarters of Marshal Schukow in Berlin-Karlshorst , or lived there, alongside General Spaats / USA as a witness. He later represented France in the Allied Control Council in Berlin.

post war period

On May 12, 1945 he moved into the Villa Wacker in Lindau in Lake Constance .

Between December 1945 and March 1947 he became inspector general and chief of staff of the army . In March 1947 he became inspector general of the army and commander in chief of the land forces of the Western Union . From October 1948 to December 1950 he was Commander-in-Chief of all NATO forces in Western Europe in Fontainebleau .

De Lattre was from 1950 to 1952 High Commissioner and Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Corps in Indochina and East Asia and set up the Vietnamese National Army . Deeply affected by the death of his son Bernard in the Indochina War and suffering from cancer, he returned to France. He died of complications from an operation and was buried in his birthplace, Mouilleron-en-Pareds .

In 1952, the Paris government posthumously awarded him the honorary title of Marshal of France . On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of the Marshal, then French President Jacques Chirac unveiled a plaque of honor for De Lattre in the Cathédrale Saint-Louis-des-Invalides in January 2002 .

Fonts

• Première Armée Française. Ordres du jours et messages . Strasbourg, 1945
• Textes du général de Lattre de Tassigny . Paris, 1947
• Histoire de la 1re Armée française . édition Plon, 1949.
• Général de Lattre, la victoire à Berlin 1945 . Paris 1949
• Oeuvres Libres . Paris 1949
• Ne pas subir - Écrits 1914-1952 . Paris 1984
• Reconquérir: 1944-1945 . Textes réunis et présentés by Jean-Luc Barre, Plon, 1985

Web links

Commons : Jean de Lattre de Tassigny  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
• Biography (french)
• Newspaper article about Jean de Lattre de Tassigny in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Stiftung Deutsches Historisches Museum, Stiftung Haus der Geschichte of the Federal Republic of Germany: Just seen on LeMO: LeMO biography: Jean Joseph-Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny. Retrieved February 26, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Chapter XV. At the End of March (US War Diary)
3. ↑ Chapter XVIII. The Myth of the Redoubt (US War Diary). Page 432 ff .: The Stuttgart Incident
4. ↑ Cf. Edgar Wolfrum, Peter Fässler, Reinhard Grohnert: Years of Crisis and A Time to Start p. 24 f.
5. ^ Gerhard Hertel: The destruction of Freudenstadt. The inferno on 16./17. April 1945. Geiger-Verlag 1984. ISBN 978-3-924932-02-2
6. ↑ Cf. Edgar Wolfrum, Peter Fässler, Reinhard Grohnert: Years of Crisis and A Time to Start p. 25
7. ↑ In occupied Lindau, residents have to vacate houses ( memento from April 9, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ Unveiling of the roll of honor on the 50th anniversary of the death of Marshal Jean-Marie de Lattre de Tassigny  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.