Richard Pellengahr

Richard Johannes Pellengahr (born August 19, 1883 in Wiedenbrück , † October 9, 1964 in Bielefeld ) was a German lieutenant general in World War II .

Life

origin

He was the son of the magistrate and later President of the Senate at the Prussian Court of Justice in Berlin, Gottfried Pellengahr and his wife Margarethe, née Weglau. His older brother Ludwig Pellengahr was head of the cultural policy department in the Reich Ministry of the Interior in Berlin until he was recalled by the Nazi rulers in the spring of 1933 .

Military career

After attending secondary school, Pellengahr joined the Prussian Army as a flag junior on May 28, 1902 and decided to become a career officer . He initially served in the Clevischer Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 43 in Wesel , where he received the lieutenant's license on August 18, 1903 . In 1912 he was promoted to first lieutenant and at the beginning of the First World War he was made captain . As a front officer he served in the following years on the Western Front in the battles in Flanders, Arras, the Somme, Amiens, Campagne and Verdun . His achievements were recognized by the award of both classes of the Iron Cross and the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords.

After the end of the war, Pellengahr was taken over into the 100,000-man army of the Weimar Republic and found u. a. six years as a teacher at the Infantry School of the Army . On April 1, 1926 he became a major in the staff of the 2nd (Prussian) Artillery Regiment in Schwerin , in 1931 a lieutenant colonel and finally on May 1, 1933, a colonel . In the following year he was given command of Artillery Regiment 18 in Glogau . While still in command of the regiment, he was promoted to major general in 1936 , in 1937 he was promoted to artillery commander 6 in Bielefeld and in 1938 received the character of lieutenant general. In August 1939, just before the outbreak of war, he was appointed commander of the 196th Infantry Division .

Pellengahr led his division in the " Weser Exercise Company ", the occupation of Norway and Denmark . In the battle of Otta he succeeded in repelling the English who had landed. In recognition of his military services, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on May 9, 1940 .

Although he had received the best professional assessments from his superior, Colonel General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst , to the last , Lieutenant General Pellengahr was dismissed from active service at the age of 58 in the course of a desired rejuvenation of the officer corps on June 30, 1942 and from then on lived with his wife in Bielefeld. There he wrote a comprehensive report on his participation in the Weser Exercise company.

Pellengahr's uniform with the rank of Lieutenant General can be seen today in the Forsvarsmuseet in Akershus Fortress in Oslo .

family

In 1935 he married the from Düsseldorf-Oberkassel native Dr. Dorothea Linnenbrink, who worked as a high school teacher. The marriage remained childless.

Fonts

• Report on the preparation and implementation of the Norwegian campaign of the 196th Infantry Division in 1940, Münster 1999.

literature

• Walter Hubatsch: Weser exercise. Goettingen 1960.
• Dorothea Linnenbrink: The Anglo-Russian Entente of August 31, 1907 and Germany. Bochum-Langendreer 1930 (also Phil. Diss. Univ. Münster from October 15, 1930)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Reichswehr Ministry (Ed.): Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres. ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1930, p. 120.
2. ↑ 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. 586.