Udo Beitzel

Brigadier General Ret. D. Udo Beitzel (2009)

Udo Beitzel (born September 30, 1940 in Koblenz ) is a retired Brigadier General . D. of the army of the Bundeswehr and was most recently General of the Army Air Defense and Commander of the Army Air Defense School in Rendsburg .

Military career

In 1959, after graduating from high school, Beitzel entered the service of the German Armed Forces as an officer candidate for the Army Air Defense Force , in 1961 he was appointed lieutenant and initially deployed as a platoon driver officer , before he switched to the Army Air Defense School in 1963 as a lecture director for officer and non-commissioned officer training. In 1966 he was transferred to the Technical Academy of the Air Force (TAkLw) in Neubiberg , today's University of the Bundeswehr in Munich , and began studying electrical engineering. After completing his academic training in 1969, Beitzel returned to the troops as an engineer grad. And was initially employed as an anti-aircraft radar officer (FlaRadarOffz), then as battery chief.

From 1972 to 1974, Beitzel completed the 15th Army General Staff Course at the Command Academy of the Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg. As part of this course, he wrote an annual thesis on the topic “The Bundeswehr is the largest service company in the Federal Republic of Germany” versus “The Bundeswehr is not a company”. In this thesis, Beitzel examined similarities and differences between the Bundeswehr and companies, a topic that is again becoming increasingly important in the context of the transformation of the Bundeswehr and the associated privatization of service areas.

After completing the general staff training, he was employed as a G3 staff officer and in 1976 he was transferred to the 12th Panzer Division in Veitshöchheim , where he was deployed as a G4 staff officer. Two years later he returned to Rendsburg and received his first troop command there by taking over the air defense training battalion 610. As early as 1980 he gave up the leadership of the battalion and took over the post of head of staff division G1 of the 11th Panzer Grenadier Division in Oldenburg . As a result, he was transferred to Hardthöhe in Bonn in 1982 , where Beitzel was active in the Army Command Staff (FüH) as a consultant in Department I (Personnel, Training, Organization). In 1984 he changed posts within the management staff and served until 1986 as a general staff officer with the chief of staff FüH, major general Harald Schulz and his successor major general Hartmut Behrendt . In the course of 1986 Beitzel was made a colonel and attended a course lasting several months at the NATO Defense College in Rome .

Back from Italy he served in the III. Corps in Koblenz as corps anti-aircraft commander. He then moved to the Army Office in Cologne to take over the leadership of Division IX and at the same time the office of General of the Army Air Defense. As part of the reclassification of the Army Office in 1994, the post of general of the military branch was combined with the post of commander of the respective military school. Beitzel changed posts and kept the post of general of the army air defense and became commander of the army air defense school in Rendsburg. On October 1, 1995, he was appointed Brigadier General .

During his second troop command, the barracks in which the Army Air Defense School was stationed was renamed by the then Federal Minister of Defense Rudolf Scharping von Rüdelkaserne as Feldwebel-Schmid-Kaserne . The decision of the minister to change the name on May 8, 2000 led to great controversy and media attention, especially since Scharping's decision was not undisputed. On October 1, 2000, Beitzel handed over office and command to Brigadier General Dieter Schuster and was retired.

Others

Udo Beitzel is married and has a son and a daughter. He is a founding member of the Army Air Defense Force Community and was its president from its founding in September 2007 to September 2016.

swell

• Handbook of the Bundeswehr and Defense Industry 1999, Bernard & Graefe publishing house, November 1999, ISBN 3-7637-5991-3

Web links

• Homepage of the Army Air Defense Force Community