Maximilian de Angelis

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Maximilian de Angelis (born October 2, 1889 in Budapest , Austria-Hungary , † December 6, 1974 in Graz ) was an Austrian major general , German general of the artillery and commander in chief of two armies in World War II .

Life

Angelis was the son of an Austro-Hungarian captain. After attending the military lower secondary school in Eisenstadt and the military upper secondary school in Mährisch-Weißkirchen , he came to the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt and was retired on August 18, 1908 as a lieutenant in the kuk field cannon regiment 42 in Steyr .

First World War

After being promoted to first lieutenant on August 1, 1914 and being appointed commander of the 2nd battery of the regiment on September 7, 1914, he went to fight in Galicia and southern Poland .

On July 1, 1915, de Angelis was transferred to the staff of the Kaiserjägerdivision and from October 9, 1916, he was employed as a general staff officer in the 2nd Kaiserjäger Brigade. He was briefly transferred to the 1st Kaiserjäger Brigade and the 88th Infantry Brigade. During this time he was promoted to captain on May 1, 1917 .

Interwar period

On November 3, 1918, he was taken prisoner in Italy , from which he was released on October 12, 1919. Angelis then joined the Austrian army as a captain and was appointed major on July 8, 1921 . From January 1, 1926, the staff officer worked in the general staff of Brigade Command 3 in St. Pölten and was transferred from there to the Enns Army School on November 1, 1927 as a tactics teacher . During his teaching there he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on January 15, 1929 , whereupon he was appointed deputy commander of the officers' academy on September 1, 1933, and on June 28, 1933, became a colonel .

After his appointment as deputy commander of the 1st Brigade on September 1, 1933, de Angelis came to the Federal Ministry of Defense on September 1, 1934 for the disarmament conference there (chief department 1). On August 1, 1935, he was transferred to Vienna as deputy commander and teacher of operational warfare for the higher officers' courses.

He was one of the most ardent supporters of National Socialism in the armed forces and was ready to take over military command in the city of Vienna after the success of the putschists during the July coup in 1934. From 1937 he headed the illegal National Socialist Soldiers' Ring (NSR) founded in 1936 .

In March 1938 he was State Secretary for National Defense in the short-lived Seyss-Inquart cabinet for three days . He appointed him to his office on March 13, 1938, one day after the " Anschluss of Austria ", and made him head of the ministry as the successor to General of the Infantry Wilhelm Zehner , who a month later, on April 11, 1938 in Vienna was killed under mysterious circumstances. In this function Angelis had a significant influence on the integration of the Austrian Armed Forces into the German armed forces . He was a member of the ominous "Muffkommission" - named after the German military attaché Wolfgang Muff - which collected material against officers who were supposed to be declared by the Nazis to be "unsustainable" and decommissioned, retired and pay cuts (such as for Alfred Jansa or Alois Windisch ) caused.

After his promotion to major general on March 13, 1938, he was assigned to the staff of the 30th Infantry Regiment on July 1, 1938, but on August 5, 1938 he was transferred as an officer to commander-in-chief of the army in Jüterbog . On November 10, 1938 he became artillery commander XV in Jena and on 19 June 1939 in the staff of the army groups - commands placed third

Second World War

During the invasion of Poland , Angelis became the commander of the 76th Infantry Division , which was used at the Siegfried Line . This division was used in the western campaign near Verdun and Toul , on August 1 Angelis was appointed lieutenant general.

During the attack on the Soviet Union , he led his division from Romania against Iassy and Tiraspol via Kremenchug to Artemovsk . On January 26, 1942 he was with the leadership of the XXXXIV. Commissioned by the Army Corps , on February 9, 1942, he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and on March 1, 1942, he became General of the Artillery.

As the commanding general in 1942, he led his soldiers into the West Caucasus until shortly before Tuapse . Fights for the Kuban bridgehead followed in 1943 and, from October, he was deployed on the southern wing of the newly established 6th Army in southern Ukraine, where he was awarded the Knight's Cross Oak Leaves for his leadership on November 12, 1943. From November 22nd to December 19th, 1943, he led the 6th Army on behalf of Karl-Adolf Hollidt . On April 8, 1944, he was reassigned to lead the 6th Army, which had since been pushed back to the Dniester .

From July 18, 1944 until the surrender he was Franz Boehme's successor in command of the 2nd Panzer Army in Yugoslavia. He led this army back to Carinthia and Styria via Belgrade , south-west Hungary and south-east Styria .

post war period

Angelis was taken prisoner of war by the United States on May 9, 1945 , but was handed over to Yugoslav captivity on April 4, 1946 , where he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on October 11, 1948. Shortly after this judgment, on March 5, 1949, he was extradited to the Soviet Union together with Field Marshal Ewald von Kleist . There he was sentenced on the basis of Article 1 of the 43rd decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of April 19, 1943 (crimes of German-fascist perpetrators against the Soviet civilian population) in February 1952 to two times 25 years. In addition, there was an indictment based on Law No. 10 of the German Control Council of December 20, 1945 (crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity), which dealt with his Nazi past in the run-up to the Anschluss in 1938.

Angelis was released on October 11, 1955 after Konrad Adenauer's visit to Moscow . He initially stayed in Hanover , then in Munich to avoid an Austrian arrest warrant. He only returned to Graz after an amnesty . Since he did not receive an Austrian pension, he went to Munich every month until his death to receive his German pension there. He finally died on December 6, 1974 at the age of 85 and was buried in the St. Leonhard Cemetery in Graz .

Awards

literature

  • Dermot Bradley (Ed.): The Generals of the Army 1921-1945. The military careers of the generals, as well as the doctors, veterinarians, intendants, judges and ministerial officials with the rank of general. Volume 1: Abberger – Bitthorn. Biblio Publishing House. Osnabrück 1993, ISBN 3-7648-2423-9 , pp. 69-70.
  • Ludwig Jedlicka: An army in the shadow of the parties. The military-political situation in Austria 1918–1938. Böhlau, Graz / Vienna 1955.
  • The Armed Forces of the Republic of Austria 1918–1968. Catalog for the special exhibition of the Army History Museum in Vienna, 1968.
  • Marcel Stein: Austria's Generals in the German Army 1938–1945. Biblio Verlag, Bissendorf 2002, ISBN 3-7648-2358-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Exhibition Einmarsch '38 in the Army History Museum Vienna 2008.
  2. ^ HA: The fate of General v. Kleist. In: The time. No. 37, September 14, 1950.
  3. ↑ a b Marcel Stein: Austria's Generals in the German Army 1938-1945. Bissendorf 2002, p. 292.
  4. ↑ From Ordinance Gazette No. 7. In:  Oesterreichische Wehrzeitung , June 5, 1936, p. 5 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / add
  5. ↑ 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. 193.


personal data
SURNAME Angelis, Maximilian de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austro-German officer, most recently General of the Artillery in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1974
Place of death Graz