Theodor Poretschkin

Theodor Poretschkin (born  November 22, 1913 in Saint Petersburg , †  April 1, 2006 in Bonn ) was a brigadier general in the army of the Bundeswehr . During the Second World War he served as an intelligence officer for the secret radio reporting service in the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW).

Life

Soldier of the OKW's secret radio reporting service (1939)

One year before the outbreak of World War I , Theodor Poretschkin was born in the Russian Empire as the son of the Russian banker Theodor Poretschkin and his wife Elisabeth, née Paschke . Due to all the confusion in the then capital of the Russian Empire, the mother, a German by birth, moved with the then three-year-old Theodor and his sister Irene to the comparatively safe Caucasus during the October Revolution , to Kogan on the Black Sea, before moving to the Black Sea in 1922 German Reich emigrated. A year earlier, she had divorced her husband, who was in prison. The brother of Theodor's mother Adolf Paschke (born 1891) helped with the move of the Poretschkin family to Germany.

The Poretschkin family first settled in Sonnenwalde near Berlin and later in Berlin. Theodor Poretschkin also attended school here and graduated from high school on March 3, 1933. On the advice of his uncle Adolf Paschke, he took up officer training in the Reichswehr in the 3rd Prussian News Department in Potsdam Nedlitz in 1933 . On December 20 of the same year he was promoted to NCO. After completing his officer training in 1935, he was employed in Potsdam's intelligence department 43. As early as April 1, 1936, he was assigned to Panzer News Department 39 and in June of the same year he moved into the news object in Stahnsdorf. In the middle of 1937 he was promoted to first lieutenant and in this position he took part in the invasion of the Sudetenland from October 1, 1938. Even when Czechoslovakia was occupied a year later on March 15, 1939, he was present at the invasion of Prague. Here he met his future wife Gerta Schneeberger. Just a month later he returned to his location in Stahnsdorf .

Second World War

From then on the preparations of the German armed forces for the attack on Poland took place. He had only been aware of this war goal since August 25, 1939, due to his work in the intelligence service of the Wehrmacht. At this point in time, he was aware that the so-called war trigger, the attack on the Gleiwitz transmitter on August 31, was just a fictitious action. He took part in the aggression against Poland in September 1939 as a company commander of the Panzer Intelligence Company 90. Immediately after the surrender of the Polish state on October 6, 1939, preparations for the campaign against France began. As a company commander, it was his job to maintain stable communications between the individual units and to ensure the encryption and decryption of commands and information, especially using the “ Enigma ” encryption technology . For the " yellow case " his unit was the XIX. Assigned to Panzer Corps under General Heinz Guderian (1888–1954). From May 10, 1940 Porechkin took part in the fighting against France. But as early as June 1940, the 10th Panzer Division, to which his intelligence department belonged, was placed under General Ewald von Kleist (1881–1954) and stationed in the East Prussia area. From here the preparations for the attack on the Soviet Union took place. On April 1, 1941, he was promoted to captain and was promoted to adjutant to the news leader Hans Negendank (1894–1986).

Assault on the Soviet Union

Theodor Poretschin was involved in the attack on the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 as commander of the 11th Panzer Intelligence Unit. The first demoralization within the troops became apparent to him when the planned capture of Moscow went wrong, the USA entered the war on December 7, 1941, and the difficulties of the Russian winter among the soldiers and the war material were clearly noticeable. After several changes in command and the assignments of its news department to ever new units at the front, he was now with the rank of Major , on August 1, 1943 / the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW), Ausland defense added, and here as Head of Unit Ii used. Shortly afterwards, on September 15, 1943, the radio defense, the secret radio reporting service, was integrated into Department I (secret reporting service) of the Abwehr (intelligence service) . Department I i was under the command of Kurt Rasehorn (1897-missing from 1946). Their tasks consisted of ensuring radio connections for all departments, including those abroad. Also in the training of radio operators, the establishment of a secret radio communication to the defense branch offices (branch) and the agents deployed. This took place at the locations in Stahnsdorf, Wurzen , and later also in Nieschwitz near Leipzig and Belzig - the OKW branch . Above all, Belzig was responsible for ensuring radio communications with overseas agents and building powerful small transmitters. With increasing pressure from the areas of the security service of the SS, the Gestapo and the NSDAP , those responsible around Poretschkin saw an urgent task in removing their area of ​​responsibility from the threatening influence, especially of the SD. In order to take this step, they planned an immediate modernization of the Belzig location and the establishment of the 506 intelligence regiment under their direction.

But the year 1944 contained several events that made it clear that the “Thousand Year Reich” was coming to an end. In February 1944 Theodor Poretschkin learned of the impeachment of the head of the Abwehr Wilhelm Canaris (1887–1945). For him that was a sure sign that the Reich Security Main Office was beginning to attack the "Abwehr". In May 1944, the members of the Abwehr were invited to the Mirabell Palace in Salzburg. The aim of this event was the handover of the office / foreign / defense to Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945). This set in motion the subordination of the German secret services to the newly created Office Mil and at the same time the dissolution of the "Abwehr". A corresponding agreement was made between OKW and RSHA in May, as was presented to him as Head of Division I i. It did not go unnoticed that his direct superior Georg Hansen (1904–1944) had less and less influence. The climax was then the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944 in Wolfsschanze. Poretschkin himself was able to see the arrest of Egidius Schneider (1893-1958) at his place of work in Potsdam Eiche himself. He found out about the immediate arrest of his former superior Erich Fellgiebel (1886–1944) on the day of the assassination. And Poretschkin himself was questioned by the interrogator appointed to investigate the background to the assassination attempt by Walter Huppenkothen (1907–1978).

In September 1943 Theodor Poretschkin, together with his work area and the 506 intelligence regiment, was assigned to the Office Mil E. It had thus become part of Office VI under Walter Schellenberg , who did not miss the opportunity to carry out an inspection at the Stahnsdorf and Belzig locations. During this time the training of "Wehrwolfen" started. Otto Skorzeny (1908–1975) was a lecturer for this , but nothing worked anymore, as Poretschkin himself made clear. At the beginning of 1945 he began to relocate individual parts of the intelligence regiment to Thuringia and Franconia in order to prevent them from being accessed by the approaching troops of the Soviet and American armed forces. Then he set off with some executives from his work area in the direction of Chiemsee. They were then captured by American units near Ochsenfurt. However, since they were considered "insignificant", they were released on July 13, 1945. But on November 23, 1945 Poretschkin was arrested again and interned for questioning in Höchst (today Frankfurt-Höchst ) and Oberursel . He was only released on March 18, 1947 when he was moved to Frankfurt am Main.

In the years 1947 and 1948, Theodor Poretschkin tried to work as a harvest helper and other temporary work to earn a living and to find a meaning for a new life. At times he was also called in for support and assessments in the context of the IG paint process in Nuremberg. He now lived on an agricultural estate in Wesel am Rhein, had brought his mother there and, after an inevitable divorce from his first wife, found a new partner in Prague.

In the Federal Republic of Germany

On April 27, Theodor Poretschkin was brought to the Blank office as a consultant and appraiser for the development of the future armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. With the formation of the Bundeswehr , he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on November 1, 1955 and was appointed head of the department for the personnel of the future telecommunications troops in the Federal Ministry of Defense . On February 7, 1966 he was promoted to brigadier general and commander of the command telecommunications brigade 700 in Meckenheim. On April 1, 1970, he was put into temporary retirement. But Theodor Poretschkin remained active into old age. The 90-year-old Brigadier General  a. D. In 2003, the oldest participant in the "Fernmeldering", an annual meeting of active telecommunications operators with former members of the news force . He died on April 1, 2006 at the age of 92 in Bonn.

literature

• Reinhard Gehlen, The Service. Memories 1942–1971, Mainz 1971
• Hans Gorg Kampe, The Army News Group of the Wehrmacht 1935–1945, Berlin 1994
• Laslo Mago and Sebastian Rosenboom: Theodor Poretschkin - As an intelligence officer in the Abwehr and Reich Security Main Office. Bebra-Wissenschaftsverlag , Berlin 2019, ISBN 3954102587 .
• Walter Schellenberg, Hitler's last head of the secret service. Memories, Beltheim-Schnellbach, 2015
• Jürgen W. Schmidt (ed.), Canaris, the Abwehr and the 3rd Reich, records of a secret service colonel, Berlin 1917
• Karl Heinz Wildhagen, The role of General Fellgiebel in the military resistance, Emden 1970

Web links

• 40 years of the Lions Club Rheingoldstraße with portrait photo of Theodor Poretschkin on page 6.
• 50 years of telecommunication ring

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans Gorg Kampe, The Army News Group of the Wehrmacht 1935–1945, Berlin 1994
2. ↑ Laslo Mago and Sebastian Rosenboom: Theodor Poretschkin - As an intelligence officer in the Abwehr and Reich Security Main Office. Bebra-Wissenschaftsverlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 3954102587 , pp. 195ff., Accessed on June 5, 2019.
3. ↑ Laslo Mago and Sebastian Rosenboom: Theodor Poretschkin - As an intelligence officer in the Abwehr and Reich Security Main Office. Bebra-Wissenschaftsverlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 3954102587 , pp. 1204ff., Accessed on June 5, 2019.
4. ^ Walter Schellenberg, Hitler's last head of the secret service. Memories, Beltheim-Schnellbach, 2015
5. ↑ 50 years of telecommunications, p. 10, accessed on June 5, 2019.