Theodor Tolsdorff

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Theodor Tolsdorff (born November 3, 1909 at Gut Lehnarten ; † May 25, 1978 in Dortmund ) was a German lieutenant general in the Wehrmacht .

Medal awarded by Hitler to various officers on September 15, 1943, Tolsdorff 3rd from right

Origin and education

Theodor Tolsdorff was born as the son of a manor owner on his parents' estate in Lehnarten ( Oletzko district in northeastern Masuria ). He initially learned agriculture and worked in this profession.

Military career

Pre-war period

Theodor Tolsdorff joined the Infantry Regiment 1 of the Reichswehr (from 1935: Wehrmacht ) in Insterburg as a volunteer on October 1, 1934 . On June 1, 1936 he was promoted to lieutenant and on October 1, 1938 to first lieutenant .

War against Poland

Since March 1, 1939 chief of the 14th Company of the 22nd Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division , he led this unit during the raid on Poland . During the fighting for the Góra Kamieńska bunker line , he was wounded in the shoulder and was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross . In the course of the western campaign his wound broke open again, and Tolsdorff stayed in the hospital in Wuppertal from August until the final healing in October 1940 .

War against the Soviet Union

After the attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, he fought with his company in the Baltic States . At the end of November 1941 he was seriously wounded again and again spent the next few months in the hospital. On December 1, 1941 he was promoted to captain , on December 4, 1941 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross .

On April 20, 1942, he returned to his unit and only a short time later was so badly wounded in the fighting south of Schluesselburg that he lost part of his right foot. He stayed with the troops and was awarded the German Cross in Gold during the fighting in the Volkhov region . On August 16, 1942, he took over the leadership of the 1st Battalion of Infantry Regiment 22, but was soon seriously wounded again by a shot in the head.

After his recovery, Tolsdorff took over on January 1, 1943 while being promoted to major in the 1st Battalion of the Fusilier Regiment 22, with which he took part in the Ladoga battles in the northern section of the Eastern Front. For the performance of his battalion during the Third Ladoga Battle , he received the Oak Leaves for the Knight's Cross on September 15, 1943. From November 1, 1943, he led the Fusilier Regiment 22 in Ukraine. During the fighting south of the western Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa (→ Dnepr-Carpathian operation ) he was shot in the stomach. In the hospital he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on April 1, 1944 .

In June 1944 Tolsdorff was transferred to the Fahnenjunkerschule Metz as a tactics teacher . After the start of the Soviet summer offensive (→ Operation Bagration ), which was devastating for the Germans , however, on July 1, 1944, he again took command of the 22nd Fusilier Regiment in Lithuania . This regiment formed the core of an ad hoc combat group that was supposed to strengthen the garrison of the city ​​of Vilnius , which was declared a “ fixed place ” . The Germans had to compete against the Soviet 5th Guards Panzer Army and the 11th Guards Army , as well as forces of the Polish Armia Krajowa (AK) who wanted to gain control of the city from the Red Army. The AK fighters prevented the Tolsdorff combat group from advancing to Vilna with their own heavy losses. Tolsdorff then let his own forces pass over to the defense in a cauldron. After the remaining crew of Vilna, consisting mainly of paratroopers and a total of 4,000 soldiers, had been allowed to retreat to their own lines, around 3,000 of them were able to make their way to the von Tolsdorff group on July 13, 1944. Tolsdorff's combat group was in turn freed from enclosure by Polish and Soviet troops by a simultaneous attack by the 3rd German Panzer Army . For his endurance in the critical situation in front of the Lithuanian capital, Tolsdorff received the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords and the nickname "The Lion of Wilna" on July 18, 1944 while being promoted to colonel .

War in the west

In August 1944 Tolsdorff took part in a division leader training course in Hirschberg and on September 1, 1944 was commissioned to set up the 340th Volksgrenadier Division from the former 340th Infantry Division . With this he first fought on the western front in the Aachen-Jülich area and later took part in the Ardennes offensive as part of the 5th Panzer Army . After a few initial successes, the division finally came to a halt in front of Bastogne and had to retreat to the right bank of the Rhine, badly damaged.

On January 30, 1945 Tolsdorff was promoted to major general, on March 16, 1945 to lieutenant general . He was the youngest commanding lieutenant general of the German army. At the same time he was awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords and Diamonds.

On April 1, 1945 Tolsdorff took over the management of the LXXXII. Army Corps in Bavaria. Under pressure from the approaching US troops, Tolsdorff and his corps withdrew to the Upper Bavarian village of Eisenärzt near Traunstein . According to the military, the place should be defended against the Americans who were already shortly before Siegsdorf .

On May 3, 1945, a few days before the unconditional surrender, Captain Franz Xaver Holzhey , who was on leave, watched the mobilization of the troops and the erection of tank barricades in front of Eisenärzt. Concerned about the loss of further human lives and the wounded civilians who were being cared for in the local nurses' home, a Munich hospital display, he put up a Red Cross sign on the outskirts to prevent American shelling. Holzhey was immediately brought to Tolsdorff and sentenced to death by him for "cowardly surrender" without a proper hearing and exclusion of witnesses . The firing squad , which was immediately appointed , initially resisted the execution order by shooting past Holzhey. Tolsdorff then took up arms himself and killed Holzhey two hours before US troops marched in. Eisenärzt was saved from the Americans by the Red Cross board and taken without a fight. Tolsdorff initially managed to escape from the place. On May 8, 1945 this ended in American captivity, from which he was released on May 9, 1947.

Private and post-war

Tolsdorff was married to Eleonore, née van der Berk (born September 6, 1921, † April 15, 1996). The marriage resulted in two sons. The younger son Jürgen (* September 21, 1944, † March 19, 1957) died in an accident, the older son Peter practices as an ear, nose and throat doctor in Bad Honnef .

After his release from captivity on May 9, 1947, Tolsdorff a. a. as a truck driver in his father-in-law's forwarding company and as a bus driver. From 1960 until his retirement on December 31, 1974 , he worked for Deutsche Asphalt AG (today part of Strabag ).

In the mid-1950s, Tolsdorff was charged with the execution of Captain Holzhey. In the first trial, he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. In an appeal, the Federal Court of Justice overturned the judgment on the grounds that Tolsdorff had complied with the then applicable military criminal law in the Holzhey case, and referred the proceedings back to the Traunstein Regional Court . In the second trial that followed, Tolsdorff was acquitted on June 24, 1960. The legal proceedings and the acquittal caused discussions in the still young Federal Republic of the status of the denazification of the courts and sparked outrage in the population of Traunstein.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e 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. 747.
  2. ^ Frieser: The German Empire and the Second World War. Vol. 8., pp. 563-564.
  3. ↑ a b Samuel W. Mitcham: German Order of Battle: 291st-999th Infantry divisions, named infantry divisions, and special divisions in World War II . Stackpole Books, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8117-3437-0 , pp. 49 ( google.de [accessed on May 1, 2019]).
  4. ^ Sagel-Grande: Justice and Nazi Crimes: Collection of German criminal judgments for Nazi homicide crimes 1945-1966. Volume XVI. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press.
  5. ↑ Sagel-Grande: Justice and Nazi crimes: Collection of German criminal judgments for Nazi homicide crimes.
  6. ↑ Eichmüller: The criminal prosecution of Nazi crimes and the public in the early Federal Republic of Germany 1949-1958.
  7. ↑ https://www.tim-tolsdorff.de/app/download/2844835/Tolsdorff+-+Erschossen+am+Fichtenstamm.pdf
personal data
SURNAME Tolsdorff, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Lieutenant General in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Gut Lehnarten , East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 1978
Place of death Dortmund