Siegfried von Waldenburg

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Siegfried von Waldenburg (1944)

Siegfried von Waldenburg (born December 30, 1898 in Groß Leipe ; † March 27, 1973 in Hanover ) was a German major general in World War II .

Life

origin

Siegfried was the son of the Silesian landowner Friedrich von Waldenburg (1872-1925) and his first wife Marie, born von Kessel (1876-1917). His grandfather was the landscape painter Alfred von Waldenburg .

Military career until World War II

Waldenburg joined the Kaiser Alexander Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 1 at the age of 17 during the First World War in early 1916 and was deployed as platoon and company commander on the Western Front and was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross . Towards the end of the war he was taken prisoner by the British .

At the beginning of 1920 he was released from captivity and due to the downsizing of the army also from the army. He joined the self-protection of Upper Silesia . In 1922 Waldenburg was accepted into the Reichswehr and deployed as a cavalryman in the 11th (Prussian) cavalry regiment . Further uses and training at the war academy followed .

Military career in World War II

During the Second World War, as a major , he was First General Staff Officer (Ia) on the staff of the 6th Infantry Division . He held this position from mid-1937. In the French campaign he was first general staff officer of the VI. Army Corps . In October 1940 he succeeded Ferdinand Jodl as Chief of the General Staff of the XII. Army Corps appointed. He fought on the Eastern Front . There he worked, since there were differences in assessing the situation, until March 3, 1942, to then serve as deputy military attaché in Rome and chief of staff at the German general at the headquarters of the Italian armed forces. In 1944 he was employed as commander of the 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment in Russia and the Ukraine, and from September 1944 he was entrusted with the command of the 116th Panzer Division as a colonel . In this role he took part in the Battle of the Bulge . He led the division until the German surrender in April 1945. On December 9, 1944, Waldenburg received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and was appointed major general.

Waldenburg was then a prisoner of war for three years. During this time he received preferential treatment as an officer in the Historical Division of the US Army and published various writings for the US Army.

After the world war

After the war, Waldenburg got involved in the so-called military OK Hanover and was a major critic of Gerhard von Schwerin .

family

From the end of 1924 he was married to Jutta Hertha Luise von Alten (* 1905) and had three daughters with her.

Works (selection)

  • Commitment of the 116th Panzer Dision in the Ardennes. Historical Division, US Army Europe, MS A-873, 1945.
  • 116th Panzer Division (November 1-9, 1944). Historical Division, US Army Europe, 1954.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Christer Bergstrom: The Ardennes, 1944–1945 . Casemate / Vaktel Forlag, 2014, ISBN 978-1-61200-315-3 , p. 80 ( google.de [accessed on February 27, 2018]).
  2. ↑ Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the count's houses. Volume 115, Perthes, Gotha 1942, p. 7.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Samuel W. Mitcham Jr: Panzers in Winter: Hitler's Army and the Battle of the Bulge . Stackpole Books, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4617-5144-1 , pp. 178 ( google.de [accessed on February 27, 2018]).
  4. ^ A b Samuel W. Mitcham Jr: Panzer Commanders of the Western Front: German Tank Generals in World War II . Stackpole Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-8117-4922-0 ( google.de [accessed February 27, 2018]).
  5. ↑ Hans-Joachim Geupel, Peter M. Quadflieg , René Rohrkamp , Martin Borgmann: 70 Years of Peace and Freedom in Aachen: 1944–2014 . Meyer & Meyer Verlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-89899-951-9 , pp. 73 ( google.de [accessed on February 27, 2018]).
  6. ↑ 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 .
  7. ↑ Esther-Julia Howell: Learn from the vanquished ?: The historical cooperation of the US Army and the former Wehrmacht elite 1945–1961 . Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2016, ISBN 978-3-11-041568-1 ( google.de [accessed on February 27, 2018]).
  8. ^ Peter M. Quadflieg: Gerhard Graf von Schwerin (1899–1980): Wehrmacht general - chancellor advisor - lobbyist . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2016, ISBN 978-3-657-78229-1 ( google.de [accessed on February 27, 2018]).
personal data
SURNAME Waldenburg, Siegfried von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German major general in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Great Leipe
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 1973
Place of death Hanover