Theodor Busse

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Busse as Commander-in-Chief of the 9th Army (1st from right) at a briefing with Hitler

Theodor Busse (born December 15, 1897 in Frankfurt (Oder) , † October 21, 1986 in Wallerstein ) was a German infantry general in World War II .

Life

Bus father Ernst Karl August buses was a sergeant in the body Grenadier Regiment of King Friedrich Wilhelm III (1st Brandenburg) # 8. He joined in 1915 as an officer cadet in the Grenadier Regiment "Prince Carl of Prussia" (2nd Brandenburg) no. 12 of the Prussian Army . He took part in the First World War and was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross , the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords and the Wound Badge in black for his achievements . After the war ended as a lieutenant in the Reichswehr , he was first lieutenant when Hitler came to power in 1933 and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the Army General Staff until the start of the war in 1939 . Busses younger brother was the major and military pastor Alfred Heinrich Busse.

In October 1940 Busse became First General Staff Officer (Ia) of the 11th Army , which came under the command of Erich von Manstein in 1941 . In the spring of 1943 he was appointed chief of the general staff of Army Group South and in March 1943 major general. Only six months later he was promoted to lieutenant general .

In the late summer of 1944 Busse was initially given command of the 121st Infantry Division and four weeks later was appointed commanding general of the 1st Army Corps . He was promoted to General of the Infantry on November 9, 1944. After the Soviet breakthrough at Baranów Sandomierski , he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the 9th Army in January 1945 , which he commanded during the Oder-Neisse battle and the battle for Berlin .

On April 24, buses and around 200,000 German soldiers were trapped by the Red Army in the Halbe pocket. Although he had been offered surrender, Busse ordered his last armored troops to fight free the safe way to the west. Via Massow, Kummersdorf, Märtensmühle, Hennickendorf, Dobbrikow, Rieben and Beelitz-Schönefeld, these units reached the 12th Army with buses and his staff south of Beelitz on the morning of May 1st . Walther Wenck had met him with his army from the west to enable the divisions of the 9th Army to take American captivity. Around 30,000 German soldiers and around 10,000 civilians were killed, and 120,000 German soldiers were taken prisoners of war . The Red Army lost 20,000 deaths. One of them was the future Federal Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher , then a member of the "Wenck Army". In his memoirs he reports that the first soldiers of the 9th Army who met him were staff officers , like Busse himself, with submachine guns slung around their necks. Busse himself withdrew.

In July 1945 he was caught by the Americans and imprisoned until 1947, among other places, in the Allied prison in Landsberg am Lech .

post war period

After his captivity, Busse was active in leading positions in civil defense and civil defense , published several works on military history and was involved in the Himmeroder memorandum on the establishment of the Bundeswehr and rearmament in the Federal Republic of Germany. Busse worked in the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) as head of Organization Staff VII in the development of the emergency laws , where he drafted important cornerstones for civil-military cooperation in the event of war or crisis. With his work in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, he laid the foundation for the construction of the government bunker in the Ahr valley. Even before its completion in the eastern section, Busse retired . His consulting contract with the BMI expired. And yet, at the personal request of the Federal Minister of the Interior, he was reactivated a short time later for a function at a crucial point: In the first NATO exercise " Fallex 66 " in the government bunker in 1966, he took over the overall management on the German side.

Busse had a deep friendship with Walther Wenck and Erich von Manstein .

Awards

Fonts

  • Kursk: The German View ( Kursk: The German view ) by Steven H. Newton. Discussion and military analysis of Operation Citadel (The great tank battle near Kursk) worked out with General Theodor Busse, who presented the perspectives of tank units, infantry and air force commands in military interaction.

literature

  • Günter G. Führling: Final battle on the Oder front - memory of Halbe. Langen Müller, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7844-2566-6 .
  • Richard Lakowski, Karl Stich: Halbe's cauldron - The last drama. Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin around 2004, ISBN 3-87748-633-9 .
  • Antony Beevor : Berlin 1945 - The End. Goldmann, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-442-15313-1 .
  • Günther W. Gellermann: The Wenck Army - Hitler's Last Hope. Bernard and Graefe, Koblenz 1997, ISBN 3-7637-5870-4 .

Web links

Commons : Theodor Busse  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ emergency: Send bachab . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 1967 ( online ).
  2. ↑ 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. 256.
personal data
SURNAME Busse, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German infantry general in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt (Oder)
DATE OF DEATH October 21, 1986
Place of death Wallerstein