Udo Ritgen

Udo Ritgen (born June 22, 1916 in Danzig ; † October 11, 2010 in Pullach ) was a German officer , most recently a Brigadier General of the Bundeswehr and a lawyer .

Life

Ritgen comes from a West Prussian landowner family. He spent his youth with his four siblings on Gut Groß Falkenau in the Rosenberg district in West Prussia . He attended the Gymnasium in Deutsch Eylau and the Gymnasium Marienwerder and passed his Abitur in 1935. On April 1, 1936, Ritgen joined the 3rd Infantry Regiment in Deutsch Eylau as a flag junior and began his career as a professional soldier in the Wehrmacht . During the Second World War he was used as a command officer on several fronts . On April 11, 1942, he was awarded the German Cross in Gold as a first lieutenant and was promoted to major in 1945 . From March 1945 he was in the general staff and head of the Hela naval command post . The Army High Command East Prussia commissioned him with the evacuation and repatriation of around half a million refugees and soldiers from East and West Prussia from Hela by sea.

After his captivity in Belgium and Munster near Hanover, Ritgen was released to Westphalia in the spring of 1947. In 1948 he began to study law in Frankfurt (Main), which he completed in 1952 with the 1st state examination. In March 1953 Ritgen continued his military career at the forerunner organization of the Bundeswehr , the Amt Blank . As a general staff officer , he was responsible for observing, analyzing and assessing military-political issues. In addition, he worked in the operational procurement (east) of the Federal Intelligence Service . After retiring in 1975, he continued to give lectures on defense policy and took on journalistic activities. Ritgen was a long time member of the board of directors of the East and West Prussia Foundation Bavaria, for which the Bavarian regional group of the West and East Prussia Landsmannschaft awarded him the gold Albertus pin in June 2006 .

Works

• Groß-Falkenau , LangenMüller-Verlag 2000, ISBN 978-3-7844-2743-0 .

Web links

• Reinhard Krohn: Former head of the Hela maritime control center has passed away. In: Preussische Allgemeine Zeitung . October 30, 2010, p. 11 , accessed on July 24, 2014 (No. 43).