Rudolf Hübner (Lieutenant General)

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Rudolf Erich Edgar Huebner (born April 29, 1897 in Erlenthal ; † February 28, 1965 in Lemgo ) was a German officer , most recently lieutenant general in World War II .

Life

During the First World War, on July 25, 1916, Huebner volunteered in the replacement battalion of the Grenadier Regiment "Prince Carl of Prussia" (2nd Brandenburg) No. 12 . In 1916 he came to the front with the 4th Lower Silesian Infantry Regiment No. 51 . From 1917 until the end of the war he was with Sturm-Battalion No. 16. In this he was promoted to lieutenant on September 27, 1918 and then assigned to an officers course, where he experienced the end of the war. He was released from active service on November 28, 1918.

He then began studying dental medicine, which he called Dr. med. dent. completed. Huebner then worked as a general dentist.

In 1934 he joined the Reichswehr as an additional officer candidate . In the spring of 1935 he was deployed as a company commander in the supplementary battalion Opole A (later supplementary battalion 41) and on June 1, 1935, he was appointed supplementary officer. On July 15, 1936, as part of the armament of the Wehrmacht, he was taken over into active service. On March 1, 1937, he was appointed chief of the 6th Company in the 18th Infantry Regiment.

During the mobilization before World War II, he was appointed company commander in Infantry Regiment 167, which belonged to the 86th Infantry Division . At the end of January 1940 he was appointed commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 529 Infantry Regiment and on March 1, 1940 he was promoted to major . He led the battalion in the western campaign , which ended on June 22, 1940 with the surrender of France . In the spring of 1941 he gave up his command. It has not been used at the front for almost a year. On April 1, 1942, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. On April 9, 1942, he was entrusted with the command of the 529 Infantry Regiment, which belonged to the 299th Infantry Division . On August 26, 1942, he was appointed commander of the 529 Infantry Regiment. From its renaming in October 1942 he was in command of the Grenadier Regiment 529. On December 1, 1942 he was promoted to colonel . On April 21, 1943 he was awarded the German Cross in Gold . In May 1943, Huebner published his memorandum on military training (title What are we fighting for? ), 300,000 copies of which were distributed to the officers' corps by the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) . On July 1, 1943, he gave up his command and was transferred to the Führerreserve . In September 1943 he was transferred to the Army Personnel Office. From the spring of 1944 he was assigned to the National Socialist Management Staff of the OKW (see National Socialist Management Officer ).

From August 1, 1944, he was appointed Chief of Staff by the National Socialist leadership staff of the OKH . On January 1, 1945, he was promoted to major general. On February 1, 1945 he gave up his command and was entrusted with the command of the 303rd Infantry Division . On March 1, 1945 he was promoted to lieutenant general and eight days later awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross .

On March 10, 1945 he was appointed commander of the " Flying Stand Court West ". This previously non-existent court was founded after the Ludendorff Bridge was lost in Remagen . With his assessors, Lieutenant Colonel Anton Ehrnsperger and Lieutenant Colonel of the Reserve Paul Penth, they moved to the headquarters of Army Group B in Rimbach near Oberirsen in the Westerwald , where they arrived on March 11, 1945 and, after negotiations that lasted until March 14, 1945, Majors Hans Scheller , August Kraft and Herbert Strobel, Captain Willi Oskar Bratge and First Lieutenant Karl-Heinz Peters were sentenced to death by shooting . Four judgments were carried out on the same day; Captain Bratge was an American prisoner of war and was sentenced in absentia . Only Scheller, Bratge and Peters were personally present at the bridge, Peters had nothing to do with the defense as commander of a rocket launcher unit and had been withdrawn before the bridge was taken. Kraft and Strobel were just Bratge's direct superiors. The sentences were overturned after the war.

On April 28, 1945, Hübner was appointed combat commander of Munich on the orders of Albert Kesselring . During the last days of the war, 200 people were hanged or shot under his command . Huebner resigned himself "without singing and sounding" (quote from Henke) when Munich was taken on April 30, 1945. On May 8, 1945, Hübner was first captured by the US and later by British captivity . From this he was released in April 1948.

In a post-war trial in Munich, he was sentenced to four years in prison for the Rimbach death sentence.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 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. 408.
  2. ^ March 7, 1945. The Remagen Bridge. ( Memento from November 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on landeshauptarchiv.de
  3. ^ Klaus-Dietmar Henke: The American occupation of Germany. P. 856. ( Online in Google Book Search)
personal data
SURNAME Huebner, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hübner, Rudolf Erich Edgar (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently lieutenant general in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Erlenthal
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1965
Place of death Lemgo