Siegfried Westphal

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Westphal (back) and Rommel in North Africa (1941)

Siegfried Carl Theodor Westphal (born March 18, 1902 in Leipzig ; † July 2, 1982 in Celle ) was a German officer , most recently a general of the cavalry in World War II , manager and author.

Life

Westphal was born in Leipzig in 1902 as the son of a postal director. He attended the secondary schools in Bromberg and Frankfurt / Oder. In 1918 he joined the cadet corps and in 1919 passed the matriculation examination at the main cadet institute in Berlin-Lichterfelde . On November 10, 1918, during the First World War , he became a flagjunker of the Grenadier Regiment "Prince Carl von Prussia" (2nd Brandenburg) No. 12 of the Prussian Army .

Westphal was accepted into the provisional Reichswehr after the end of the war, transferred to the 3rd Squadron of the 11th (Prussian) Cavalry Regiment on December 1, 1922 and promoted to lieutenant at the same time . 1932 visited Lieutenant the Military Academy .

Wehrmacht

Westphal, 1937 to captain i. G. promoted, was on September 1, 1939 First General Staff Officer (Ia) of the 58th Infantry Division and on March 5, 1940, Ia of the XXVII. Army Corps. In this position he was awarded the German Cross in Gold on December 19, 1941 . He was seriously wounded on June 1, 1942. After he was promoted to Colonel i. G. was promoted, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the German-Italian Panzer Army in Africa on October 6 of the same year . There Westphal was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on November 29, 1942 . His appointment as head of the command department at Supreme Commander South on February 1, 1943 was followed by promotion to Major General on March 1, 1943. Westphal was appointed Chief of Staff at Supreme Commander Southwest on November 21, 1943 and on April 1, 1944 as Chief of Staff at Supreme Commander West. On February 1, 1945 he was promoted to general of the cavalry . He was a US prisoner of war from May 8, 1945 to December 1947 .

economy

He then worked as head of the press department at Ruhrstahl AG and, after its integration into the Rheinstahl group, in 1963, as director of the Rheinische Stahlwerke and head of the Rheinstahl liaison office in Bonn . He retired in 1972.

Others

He was u. a. Chairman of the Association of Former Members of the German Africa Corps and the Rommel Social Work, Vice-President of the German Section of the European Union of Warring Associations and President of the Ring of German Soldiers Associations.

In 1973 Westphal was seen as a contemporary witness in the British documentary series Die Welt im Krieg .

family

Westphal, Protestant, was married to a Baroness von Sewaldt and the father of two children.

Awards

Fonts (selection)

  • Army in chains. From the papers of the Chief of Staff von Rommel, Kesselring and Rundstedt. Athenaeum, Bonn 1950.
  • Fate North Africa. Edited by the Association of Former Members of the German Africa Corps eV in connection with the Rommel Social Work. Europa-Contact Verlags-Gesellschaft, Döffingen 1954.
  • Memories. v. Hase and Koehler, Mainz 1975, ISBN 3-7758-0886-8 .
  • The German General Staff in the dock. Nuremberg 1945–1948. v. Hase and Koehler, Mainz 1978, ISBN 3-7758-0946-5 .

literature

  • Rolf Düsterberg : Soldier and War Experience. German military memorial literature (1945–1961) on the Second World War. Motives, terms, evaluations (= studies and texts on the social history of literature . Vol. 78). Niemeyer, Tübingen 2000, ISBN 3-484-35078-4 , p. 266.
  • Geoffrey P. Megargee : Siegfried Westphal . In: David T. Zabecki (Ed.): Chief of Staff. The Principal Officers Behind History's Great Commanders . Volume 2: World War II to Korea and Vietnam . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 2008, ISBN 978-1-59114-991-0 , p. 39 ff.
  • Siegfried Westphal , in Internationales Biographisches Archiv 44/1982 of October 25, 1982, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 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. 782.