Otto Schellert

Otto Schellert (born January 16, 1889 in Farsleben , † August 16, 1975 in Kassel ) was a German officer , most recently a general of the infantry in World War II .

Life

Origin and marriage

Schellert was the son of the superintendent of Farsleben. He married Charlotte Gerstenberger on September 23, 1927.

Military service until World War I

After visiting a school Schellert occurred on March 4, 1907 as a cadet in the Infantry Regiment "Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia" (second Magdeburgisches) No. 27 of the Prussian army and was there on 18 November 1907 Ensign promoted. He attended war school , was promoted to lieutenant on August 18, 1908 , and was assigned to his regiment as a company officer. From October 1, 1912, he was assigned to the Badischer Pioneer Battalion No. 14 in Kehl for one year . This was followed by a further assignment as adjutant to the Burg District Command .

First World War

During the mobilization at the beginning of the First World War , Schellert was transferred to Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 217 as a regimental adjutant. With this regiment he took part in the battles for the Verdun fortress as a staff officer for a month . Until August 1918 he was then used on the Eastern Front. On November 28, 1914, he was promoted to first lieutenant . At the end of 1915 he was transferred as an adjutant to the 93rd Reserve Infantry Brigade, where he was promoted to captain on April 18, 1916 . From autumn 1916 he was an adjutant in the 35th Reserve Division . From summer to November 1918 Schellert was deployed on the western front as leader of the 1st battalion in the infantry regiment "von Alvensleben" (6th Brandenburgisches) No. 52 . The time as battalion leader was his first assignment as a unit commander . He experienced the armistice with his unit on the Meuse .

In addition to both classes of the Iron Cross , Schellert was awarded the First Class Knight's Cross of the Order of Frederick with Swords as well as the Hanseatic Cross of the City of Hamburg and the Friedrich Cross .

Weimar Republic

When unrest broke out in Berlin in December 1918, Schellert was an adjutant in the 5th Infantry Division , helping to suppress it. On October 1, 1919, he was taken over into the Provisional Reichswehr with other 400,000 soldiers and appointed adjutant of Reichswehr Brigade 5. The Reichswehr Brigade 5 was deployed in border guards on the Polish-Brandenburg border. Even when the army was further downsized in early 1920 to a 200,000-strong transitional army, he remained at his post. With the Reichswehr Brigade 5 he was deployed in March 1920 during riots in Friedrichshagen , Köpenick and Herzfelde . When the 100,000-man army of the Reichswehr was formed on January 1, 1921, Schellert was one of 4,000 officers from around 34,000 officers of the German Empire who remained in the army. He was transferred to the 1st Battalion of the 8th (Prussian) Infantry Regiment and leader of the 3rd Company in Frankfurt an der Oder . On October 1, 1925 he was transferred to the staff of the 1st Battalion of the 8th (Prussian) Infantry Regiment in Frankfurt an der Oder. On April 1, 1927, he was transferred to Berlin to inspect the infantry (In 2) in the Reichswehr Ministry. On February 1, 1929, he was promoted to major and transferred to the Army Administration Office . There he was employed for one year in the Army Accommodation and Training Area Department (V 2) and one year in the Army Catering and Clothing Department (V 3). On May 1, 1931, he became the commander of the 1st Battalion in the 16th Infantry Regiment in Bremen .

time of the nationalsocialism

Pre-war period

On July 1, 1933, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel . From April 1, 1934, Schellert was again active in the Reich Ministry of Defense and as head of Departments V 3 and later V 5. On May 15, 1936 he was appointed commander of the newly established 81st Infantry Regiment. On June 1, 1935, he was appointed colonel . On October 6, 1936, he was given command of Infantry Regiment 88, which was renamed Infantry Regiment 106 on October 12, 1937. On March 1, 1939, he was promoted to major general.

Second World War

When the Second World War began, Schellert became commander of the z. Division in September 1939. b. V. 405. Later the name was changed to Division 405. On October 10, 1940, he was transferred to the Wehrmacht's reserve for the first time . On May 1, 1940, he was given command of Division No. 166. All of these three divisions were training units for the reserve army . This was followed on January 1, 1941, when he was promoted to lieutenant general . On March 15, 1941, he replaced Lieutenant General Fritz Kühne as commander of the 253rd Infantry Division . At that time, the division was in northern France as an occupation unit. During the preparations for Operation Barbarossa in the spring of 1941, the division was relocated to East Prussia . From June 22, 1941, he took with his division, as part of the Army Group North on the Soviet German war part. Schellert soon received both clasps for his Iron Crosses. For his service in the Battle of Moscow he received the German Cross in Gold on December 26, 1941 .

On March 27, 1942, the Wehrmacht report reported : "The Rhenish-Westphalian 253rd Infantry Division repulsed 120 attacks by the enemy, some of which were supported by tanks, in weeks of tough defensive battles, and destroyed the bulk of several Soviet divisions." a call for it to be mentioned in the Wehrmacht report. In a status report to the Wehrmacht High Command on March 13, 1942, Schellert demanded the recognition and mention of the division with the addition of Rhenish-Westphalian , which was in the most difficult battles with heavy losses, in a public announcement.

On January 1, 1943, like some other senior officers, he was transferred from the division commander up on the Eastern Front to the Fuehrer's reserve. As part of the “Winter Resistance” campaign, the Army Personnel Office transferred those generals “who are unlikely to be able to cope with the high demands of the Russian winter” either in the Führer reserve or on commands in the reserve army. From May 1, 1943, Schellert was Commanding General of the Deputy General Command of the IX. Army Corps and from Wehrkreis IX based in Kassel . On July 1, 1943, he was appointed General of the Infantry . From January 1944 to April 1944 he was represented by General of the Cavalry Philipp Kleffel . In July 1944 he was seriously injured in a car accident . On December 9, 1944, he was reassigned to the Führerreserve until he was finally retired from active service on March 31, 1945.

Assessment of Schellert 1943 and death sentences of the 253rd Infantry Division under Schellert

In Schellert's assessment of January 15, 1943, he was certified as having above-average tactical and training abilities. Although since 1942 the Wehrmacht had been required to comment on the National Socialist attitudes of the person being assessed when making assessments, Schellert's assessment lacked any reference to his attitude towards National Socialism . There is also no reference to a leader personality or an energetic leader personality , which is often found in assessments by officers of the Wehrmacht.

In the winter of 1941/42 Schellert successfully campaigned for the pardon of a soldier in his division who had been sentenced to death for self-mutilation . Under Schellert's command, soldiers in the division were sentenced to four death sentences from 1941 to 1942. All four death sentences were passed for self-mutilation. The death sentences were not carried out.

post war period

After the end of the war he was arrested and he remained in American captivity until June 1947 . He later lived in Kassel.

Work for the Historical Division

Schellert worked, like about 300 other German high officers, for a time for the German department of the war history research group of the United States Army , the Operational History (German) Section or the Historical Division for short . Schellerts prepared the study Winter Fighting of the 253d Infantry Division in the Rzhev Area in 1941-42 . The study was never printed. The study is located in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, DC

literature

• Christoph Rass: "Human material": German soldiers on the Eastern Front. Interior views of an infantry division 1939–1945. Schöningh Publishing House. 2003. ISBN 978-3506744869 ( online ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The article is based on data in Christoph Rass: Menschenmaterial. Paderborn 2003, pp. 209–210, facts which are not based on the given section are backed up with evidence.
2. ↑ Reichswehr Ministry (Ed.): Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres. ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1924, p. 148.
3. ↑ Klaus D. Patzwall , Veit Scherzer : The German Cross 1941-1945. History and owner. Volume II. Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall, Norderstedt 2001, ISBN 3-931533-45-X , p. 402.
4. ↑ The reports of the High Command of the Wehrmacht. (5 volumes), Cologne 2004, Volume III, p. 70.
5. ↑ Christoph Rass: Human material. Paderborn 2003, pp. 104-105.
6. ↑ Christoph Rass: Human material. Paderborn 2003, p. 214.