Otto Wöhler

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Otto Wohler (* 12. July 1894 in Großburgwedel , † 5 February 1987 ) was a German officer (most recently General of Infantry ), who in World War II in various positions Staff Officer and most recently commander of the 8th Army and then the Army Group South was .

General of the Infantry Wöhler (left) with Colonel General Ferdinand Schörner at a briefing on April 11, 1944 in Barlad, Romania

Life

origin

Wöhler comes from a long-established Lower Saxon farming family in Burgwedel, who provided community leaders as early as the 19th century. His father Heinrich (1868–1953) was the community leader from 1908 to 1935. His mother Emma Henke died in 1895 at the age of twenty-two. Wöhler later lived in the Heinrich-Wöhler-Strasse in Großburgwedel, named after his father, where the Museum Heimatstube Großburgwedel is located today .

Military career up to World War II

He chose a career as a professional soldier, took part as a lieutenant (May 20, 1914, patent from 1912 "without protection") in the First World War, where he last commanded a battalion in the  1st Upper Alsatian Infantry Regiment No. 167 at the front and in November 1918 led the rest of his regiment back to the Kassel garrison as deputy regimental commander . He has received multiple awards and was wounded three times.

Wöhler stayed after the end of the war in 1919 as a regimental adjutant in the Reichswehr Rifle Regiment 22 in Kassel in the Reichswehr , where he was promoted to first lieutenant in 1923 and to captain in 1925 and completed the general staff course in 1926. In 1932 he was a major , in 1935 a lieutenant colonel and in 1938 a colonel in the general staff of the Wehrmacht Academy in Berlin.

World War II and sentencing

At the beginning of the Second World War Wöhler was First General Staff Officer ("Ia") of the 14th Army ( Colonel General Wilhelm List ) during the attack on Poland and in 1940 Chief of Staff of the  XVII. Army Corps ( Vienna ) in the western campaign . From October 1, 1940 to 1942, he was Chief of Staff of the 11th Army , in which he served from September 1941 under the command of Erich von Manstein , from January 1942 to the rank of major general , and later that year promoted to lieutenant general. In 1943 he received the Crimean Shield for his role in the conquest of Crimea in 1941 . From April 1942 he was Chief of Staff of Army Group Center under General Field Marshal Günther von Kluge . In 1943 he was commanding general of the  1st Army Corps (from East Prussia ) of Army Group North , from June 1943 in the rank of general of the infantry. In January 1943 he was involved in the unsuccessful attempt to relieve the enclosed Velikiye Luki fortress . In July / August 1943 he and his corps were involved in repelling the attack by two Soviet armies in the Third Battle of Lake Ladoga , for which he was mentioned by name in the Wehrmacht report (August 12, 1943). In the same month he received the Knight's Cross. On August 22, 1943, he took over command of the newly established 8th Army , the former Kempf Army Group, which, however, was not reinforced. General of the Panzer Force Werner Kempf had been relieved of his position because he thought it was impossible to hold Kharkov, and Wöhler finally gave up Kharkov. Wöhler led the army group in retreat skirmishes step by step from the Dnepr to Romania. His chief of staff was temporarily the future NATO general Hans Speidel . In the basin battles of Operation Jassy-Kishinew in Moldova in August 1944 , he was only able to save part of the 8th Army to Hungary, where in December (officially on December 28) he took over command of Army Group South, which he took over almost until the end of the war retained (on April 7, 1945 he was transferred to the Führerreserve ). On November 28, 1944 he was awarded the Oak Leaves for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his participation in the defensive battles near Debrecen , after he had received the Romanian Order of Michael the Brave in the same year . Hitler refused promotion to colonel general on the grounds that he was a good general, but a bad National Socialist.

After the war, Wöhler, like his former boss Manstein later, was tried by an Allied court for the Einsatzgruppen activities during his time as Chief of Staff of the 11th Army (under Ritter von Schobert and, after he had fallen, Manstein), although he had the leeway The SD-Einsatzgruppe D under Otto Ohlendorf tried to severely restrict the situation in 1941, for example in the Army Group Center, and also used it to fight partisans. Manstein suggests this in his memoirs: Wöhler would have “spoken properly German” with a high-ranking SS officer, one of Himmler's protégés . In the trial in Nuremberg, in which Ohlendorf testified as a defense witness, however, his influence had a negative effect, as it proved that he knew about the shootings by Einsatzgruppen. Wöhler also expressly forbade members of the Wehrmacht to take photos of these shootings and Wehrmacht units to take part in them. The decisive factor for the conviction in Nuremberg, however, was not the question of how much Wöhler knew, but an order Wöhler that assigned the task forces directly to an area of ​​operation that was assigned to his authority (and not that of his superior Manstein). Wöhler was sentenced to eight years in prison in Nuremberg in 1948 (" OKW trial "), but was released in January 1951.

Next life

Wöhler was represented on the council in Burgwedel for many years, was chairman of the Fuhrberg Forest Association, on the administrative board of the Pestalozzi Foundation and was active as a patron of many associations. He is buried in Burgwedel next to his only son Gert, who went down as a midshipman with his ship in the Gulf of Finland in 1944 . He was married twice, his first marriage to Hildegard Miltner from Kassel (he had a son with her), and his second marriage to the gardener Gertrud Zinn. After his death, he left part of his assets to a social foundation named after him, which was made up of the income from the assets and the like. a. Supported those in need. The General Wöhler Foundation also owns the written estate including an autobiography of Wöhler.

Awards

literature

  • Erich Stoll: Großburgwedel Chronik , Hannover 1972, p. 128 ff. (With family tree p. 127 and a Low German poem by Wöhler).
  • Erich von Manstein : Lost victories , Athenäum Verlag 1955.
  • Jörg Friedrich: The law of war - the German war in Russia and the trial against the high command of the Wehrmacht , Piper Verlag, 3rd edition 2003, 1050 pages, ISBN 3-492-22116-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Erich Stoll: Großburgwedel Chronik, Hannover 1972, p. 128 ff.
  2. ↑ Manstein expresses himself in Lost Siege , 1955, repeatedly praising Wöhler, who had been a valuable support to him during the Crimean campaign through his unshakable calm (p. 208). On p. 259 he emphasizes his iron nerves, his constant kindness and his feeling for the special needs and needs of the troops.
  3. ↑ Stoll, loc. Cit., P. 132.
  4. ↑ Johannes Hürter "Hitler's Heerführer" 2007, p. 526. Wöhler interpreted the Wagner-Heydrich Agreement, which provided for the Wehrmacht to issue instructions if enemy activities in the rear areas would disrupt operations, very generously.
  5. ↑ Manstein Lost Siege , p. 533.
  6. ↑ Ohlendorf testified that he had not explicitly discussed orders for the extermination of the Jews with Wöhler, since he assumed that the accused knew about the program. Friedrich, The Law of War p. 956.
  7. ↑ Ralf Bierod, report in the North Hannoversche Zeitung, December 1, 2007. Friedrich, loc. P. 608. Wöhler in his order: Gazing at such events is below the dignity of the German soldier .
  8. ↑ Friedrich, loc. Cit. P. 957 on the judgment
  9. ^ General Wöhler Foundation and Heimatstube , Großburgwedel
  10. ↑ a b c d e Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Ed .: Reichswehrministerium , Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin 1930, p. 140.
  11. ↑ 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. 793.
personal data
SURNAME Wöhler, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently General of the Infantry in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH July 12, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Großburgwedel
DATE OF DEATH 5th February 1987
Place of death Großburgwedel