Oskar von Niedermayer

Oskar Niedermayer , knight of Niedermayer since 1916 (born November 8, 1885 in Freising , † September 25, 1948 in Vladimir , Soviet Union ) was a German officer , most recently major general in World War II as well as professor and adventurer .

Life

education

Oskar came from a family of civil servants and merchants in Regensburg and was the son of the building authority assessor Friedrich Niedermayer and his wife Emme, née Vogel.

After graduating from the humanistic grammar school in Regensburg, Niedermayer joined the 10th field artillery regiment of the Bavarian Army in Erlangen as a flagjunker on July 15, 1905 . After March 15, 1907 lieutenant had been promoted, he was in the army an opportunity to study the natural sciences , geography and the Iranian languages . He was then given a full salary leave for a two-year research trip, which took him through Persia and India from September 1912 . In doing so, Niedermayer was the first European to cross the Lut desert . Shortly before the outbreak of the First World War , he returned to Germany.

First World War

At the beginning of the war, Lieutenant Niedermayer (since January 7, 1914) was initially deployed as a deputy battery leader in his regular regiment on the Western Front. Shortly afterwards he was transferred to the staff of the Bavarian 5th Division . As early as December 15, 1914, the German Supreme Army Command sent Niedermayer with a small expedition to Afghanistan in order to try, like Lawrence of Arabia later, to incite the Persians, Afghans and neighboring Indians, dominated and dependent by Great Britain , against the colonial power. The Niedermayer-Hentig expedition reached Kabul on September 26, 1915, but could not do anything decisive with the Emir Habibullah and began the dangerous return march in May 1916, which also led through Russian- occupied territory and ended on September 1, 1916 in the Ottoman Empire , where Niedermayer joined the German military mission in the Ottoman Empire under Field Marshal Colmar von der Goltz . In the following months he took over commands with the German troops in the Middle East and was transferred there on June 28, 1917 as a captain to the general staff of Army Group Yıldırım .

It was not until March 1918 that he was ordered back to Germany, where he arrived at the headquarters on March 28th. Niedermayer was initially at the General Command of the Bavarian III. Army Corps before he became Second General Staff Officer of the Bavarian 8th Reserve Division on the Western Front from September 23, 1918 . There he saw the fighting in Champagne and Flanders before the war ended.

For his services on his expedition he was accepted into the Military Max Joseph Order on September 5, 1916 when he was awarded the Knight's Cross . Associated with this was the elevation into the personal nobility and from this point on he was allowed to call himself Ritter von Niedermayer . It could have played a role that Niedermayer described the expedition like a novel by Karl May .

Interwar period

At the end of the war, Niedermayer was given leave of absence and thus had the opportunity to study philology and geography at the University of Munich for two more semesters . He earned the degree of Dr. phil. summa cum laude with a thesis on the inland basins of the Iranian highlands . During this time (from April 29, 1919) he was also head of the advertising departments of the Freikorps Epp , which fought against the Munich Soviet Republic . During this time he got to know Rudolf Hess . On December 12th of the same year Niedermayer was accepted into the Reichswehr . He initially served in the motor vehicle department 23 and eventually became adjutant to the Reichswehr Minister Otto Geßler . On December 23, 1921, Niedermayer officially resigned from the Reichswehr, but only to work for them unofficially in the Soviet Union . From 1928 to 1932, from his office in Moscow, Niedermayer was the sole head of the three large military test stations for aviation , combat vehicles and chemical warfare agents . He wrote to Kurt von Schleicher, head of the ministerial office of the Reichswehr Ministry, with great respect about the ability to suffer and the vitality of the Russian people. Despite ideological differences, he pleaded for German-Soviet cooperation. He then returned to Germany and officially joined the Reichswehr again on May 1, 1932 as a major in the 2nd (Prussian) Artillery Regiment . But as early as January 29, 1933, he resigned from active service as a lieutenant colonel in order to devote himself to an academic career. In 1933 he became a member of the NSDAP . In the NSDAP, Niedermayer was a sympathizer of the Soviet Union because of his work in Moscow.

On July 31, 1933, he completed his habilitation with a thesis on “Growth and Migration in the Russian National Body” and took up a position as a private lecturer for “Defense Geography” and “Defense Policy” at the University of Berlin . From the winter semester of 1933/34 he held lectures there. Niedermayer's teaching and research activities were funded by the Reichswehr Ministry and the German Research Foundation with large funds. Funds from the OKW were added later. Among other things, Niedermayer created military geographic atlases for France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union.

In a letter to the Fuehrer's adjutant in 1935, he expressed self-criticism. He realized too late that the Fuhrer's foreign policy alone was pointing the way. In the meantime he had rejoined the Wehrmacht as a supplementary officer on November 1, 1935 , but when he was given a regular ordinariate on October 1, 1939 , he gave up his post as Colonel in the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW). In September 1936, Niedermayer's appointment as professor failed because of Joseph Goebbels . Goebbels accused Niedermayer of pro-Soviet tendencies . Niedermayer would fail to recognize that the Soviet Union is governed by international Jewry . On July 27, 1937, at Hitler's express request, Niedermayer took over the management of the "Institute for General Defense Studies" at Berlin University. In the spring of 1938, the Institute for Local Research started teaching. Niedermayer had called for such an institute since the spring of 1937 in order to support the leadership of the German struggle through research and publications . Niedermayer himself never worked at this institute, which existed until 1942. From 1939 he was a member of the advisory board of the “ Research Department Jewish Question ” within the National Socialist Reich Institute for the History of New Germany .

Second World War

After the beginning of the Second World War, Niedermayer asked for a position in the Wehrmacht, either at the front or with his institute participating in the administration of occupied Poland . Since the Wehrmacht leadership did not react, he asked some friendly generals to intercede. Nevertheless, the High Command of the Army (OKH) rejected his request again on February 20, 1941. Thereupon, on May 25, 1941, Niedermayer turned personally to Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel , the chief of the OKW. Although he had the opportunity to take part in some courses, it was not until May 30, 1942 that Niedermayer was commissioned to lead the 162nd (Turk) Infantry Division . This was not a regular division , but only a staff that was intended to form auxiliary troops in the occupied hinterland of Army Group South from non-Russian (Caucasian, Turkestan, Georgian, Armenian) prisoners of war to fight against the Soviet Union . This task had been entrusted to him because in the previous years he had made a name for himself as a connoisseur of geography and the peoples of those regions with many articles and memoranda.

The division was initially in the Ukraine, where it provided training for the so-called " Eastern Legions ". In February 1943, however, she moved to Neuhammer on German Reich territory . There it was reclassified from spring to autumn 1943 into a regular field division, but still consisted of Caucasian, Georgian and Turkotarian soldiers. Niedermayer became the commander of this division, which was used in Slovenia and northern Italy in the fight against partisans . In March 1944 she was transferred to Italy . As part of the 10th Army , the division came on June 9, 1944 for the first major mission, in which it did not prove itself. But at this point in time, Niedermayer was no longer in command of the unit. He had already been relieved on May 21, 1944 at the request of the Commander in Chief Southwest Albert Kesselring . A few weeks earlier, Kesselring had written in an assessment of Niedermayer: “The general education is above average ... However, he is more of a learned nature than a troop leader. Too hesitant to make decisions and too slow to command. "

Niedermayer was transferred to the "Command of the Volunteer Associations at Commander-in-Chief West" . Nothing is known about his activities there. It must have been a meaningless desk post. In August 1944 he made derogatory comments on Hitler's policy in front of officers on his staff. To a comment by an officer that the German people must fight to the point of ruin, Niedermayer replied that the German people should never go under for their leadership or a political program. Rather, the leadership should go. Two officers of his staff reported him thereupon, which led to Niedermayer's arrest and charges of undermining military strength and defeatism . Niedermayer was charged by the Reich Court Martial in the Torgau Wehrmacht Prison and sentenced in October 1944. He was expelled from the Wehrmacht and the case was handed over to the People's Court , as it had also been responsible for political offenses by Wehrmacht soldiers since September 1944. Numerous friends wrote entries, u. a. to Heinrich Himmler and recalled Niedermayer's merits. The investigations against him dragged on until the end of the war, whereby a hearing before the People's Court, scheduled for April 11, 1945, did not take place. On April 14th, Niedermayer was still in prison in Torgau. What happened in the following days is unclear.

Some sources claim that Niedermayer was freed from prison in Torgau after the city ​​was liberated on April 25, 1945 ( Elbe Day ) by American soldiers. After that he is said to have stayed temporarily in Regensburg and was then arrested in Karlsbad . Other sources believe it is more likely that he left the prison abandoned by the guards and headed straight for the Soviet-occupied area. In any case, he was arrested by Soviet troops in Karlsbad and taken to Moscow's Lubyanka prison. There he told a fellow prisoner that he had voluntarily gone to Soviet-occupied territory because he suspected that “the Russian era was beginning” for Germany. He probably hoped to be able to build on his contacts in the Soviet Union in the interwar period.

In a trial, Niedermayer was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for alleged espionage in the 1920s, which he was supposed to serve in the Vladimir prison east of Moscow. There he fell ill with tuberculosis and died on September 25, 1948 in the prison hospital.

Works

• as Hajji Mirza Hussein: My return from Afghanistan. Wolf, Munich 1918.
• The inland basins of the Iranian highlands. Wolf, Munich 1920 (Munich, University, dissertation of August 28, 1919 (1920)).
• with Ernst Diez: Afganistan. Hiersemann, Leipzig 1924.
• Under the blazing sun of Iran. War experiences of the German expedition to Persia and Afghanistan. Einhornverlag, Dachau 1925 ( online ).
• War in Iran's deserts. Experiences of the German expedition to Persia and Afghanistan. Hanseatische Verlags-Anstalt, Hamburg 1940.
• Defense geographical consideration of the Soviet Union (= writings on geopolitics. Vol. 4, ZDB -ID 500458-5 ). Vowinckel, Berlin 1933.
• with Yuri Semjonow: Soviet Russia. A geopolitical problem (= writings on geopolitics. Vol. 7). Vowinckel, Berlin 1934.
• Defense policy. An introduction and definition of terms (= Wehr und Wissenschaft. Vol. 4, ZDB -ID 1020299-7 ). Barth, Leipzig 1939.
• as editor: Military Geographical Atlas of France. Reichsdruckerei, Berlin 1939.
• Soldierry and Science. Hanseatische Verlags-Anstalt, Hamburg 1940.
• Defense geography using the example of Soviet Russia. In: Journal of the Society for Geography in Berlin. 1940, No. 1/2, ISSN  1614-2055 , pp. 1-29.
• as editor: Military Geographic Atlas of Great Britain. Reichsdruckerei, Berlin 1940.
• War and science. In: The Empire. No. 21, May 25, 1941, ISSN  0932-2868
• as editor: Military Geographical Atlas of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Reichsdruckerei, Berlin 1941.
• Defense geography. Steiniger, Berlin 1942.

literature

• Christoph Jahr: Major General Oskar Ritter von Niedermayer. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. Volume 1: From the beginning of the regime to the beginning of the war. Primus, Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 3-89678-083-2 , pp. 178-184; 2nd edition in 1 volume, bibliographically updated, subscript 68 CVs . Scientific Book Society WBG, Darmstadt 2013 ISBN 3-534-23980-6 .
• Christoph year:  Niedermayer, Oskar Ritter von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 225 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Steffen Kopetzky : Risk , historical novel about the Afghanistan expedition, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-608-93991-0 .
• Rudolf von Kramer, Otto Freiherr von Waldenfels: VIRTUTI PRO PATRIA - The Royal Bavarian Military Max Joseph Order, War Deeds and Book of Honor 1914–1918 , self-published by the Royal Bavarian Military Max Joseph Order, Munich 1966, pp. 368–369 .
• Peter March : The First World War. Germany between the long 19th century and the short 20th century. Ernst Vögel, Stamsried 2004, ISBN 3-89650-193-3 , ( Berlin & Munich 1).
• Franz W. Seidler : Oskar Ritter von Niedermayer in the Second World War. In: Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau. 20, 1970, ISSN  0342-4847 , pp. 168-174, 193-208.
• Hans-Ulrich Seidt : Berlin, Kabul, Moscow. Oskar Ritter von Niedermayer and Germany's geopolitics. Universitas Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-8004-1438-4 .
• Lukas Herbeck: Oskar Ritter von Niedermayer. A Bavarian captain in the Orient 1912–1918. An exhibition by the Bavarian Archive School, ed. from the Bavarian Main State Archives, Munich 2014.

Web links

• Literature by and about Oskar von Niedermayer in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , pp. 434-435.
2. ↑ Quoted from: Franz W. Seidler: Oskar Ritter von Niedermayer in the Second World War , in: Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau 4/1970, p. 203.
3. ↑ Christoph Jahr: Major General Oskar Ritter von Niedermayer. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 2011. p. 182.