Ulrich Kleemann (General)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ulrich Kleemann (born March 23, 1892 in Langensalza ; † January 3, 1963 in Oberursel ) was a German officer , most recently a general of the tank troops in World War II .

Life

Kleemann joined the 2nd Badische Dragoon Regiment No. 21 in Bruchsal in October 1911 as a flag junior . With this he went to the First World War as a lieutenant . After being wounded in May 1915 and a stay in a hospital, he was transferred to Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 83 , but was wounded again only a few months later. In December 1915 he returned to the 2nd Badischer Dragoon Regiment No. 21, with which he remained for the remainder of the war, most recently as first lieutenant and regimental adjutant .

After demobilization , he signed up for the Eastern Border Guard at the beginning of 1919 and became chief of the volunteers - Squadron 12. In September 1919 he joined the Baden Reichswehr Cavalry Regiment 113 in the transitional army . In early 1920 he was assigned to the Hanover Cavalry School for two years . His new main regiment was meanwhile the 18th cavalry regiment of the Reichswehr in Stuttgart-Cannstatt . In its staff he was employed as Rittmeister from 1923 to 1925, then until 1930 as chief of the 3rd Squadron. He was then employed in the staff of the commandant of the Ludwigsburg site until 1933 and was promoted to major here on August 1, 1933 .

In October 1933 he was transferred to the staff of the 15th (Prussian) Reiter-Regiment in Paderborn . A year later, Kleemann became the commander of the 1st Division in the Erfurt Reiter Regiment (formerly the 16th Reiter Regiment ), which was subsequently transformed into the Motorcyclist Battalion 1 of the 1st Panzer Division to be newly established. In January 1938 Kleemann, who had been promoted to lieutenant colonel in March 1936 , became the commander of the 3rd Rifle Regiment of the 3rd Panzer Division . The promotion to colonel followed in October 1938.

Second World War

With the 3rd Rifle Regiment, Kleemann took part in the attack on Poland in 1939 . A little later he became the commander of the 3rd Rifle Brigade. As such, he took part in the western campaign in 1940 and was promoted to major general in November of that year . In 1941 the 3rd Panzer Division (then under Walter Model ) took part in the attack on the Soviet Union . At the beginning of 1942 Kleemann was transferred to the leadership reserve of the OKH in order to take over the leadership of the 90th light Africa division in the Africa campaign in April 1942 .

With his division at Theseus , Kleemann pushed far into the rear of the British associations as far as El Adem . Kleemann also excelled in the pursuit battles at Marsa Matruh and in the First Battle of El Alamein . Shortly after the end of the Battle of Alam Halfa , he was seriously wounded on September 8, 1942, when his car hit a mine.

After his recovery, Kleemann was again transferred to the Führerreserve and at the end of May 1943 was given command of the newly formed Rhodes Storm Division . In September 1943, he and his division disarmed the Italian garrison on the island of Rhodes, which belongs to Italy, in the Axis case, and took its commander Inigo Campioni prisoner. This contributed significantly to the failure of the British Dodecanese campaign .

In July 1944, a three-man SD command led by SS-Obersturmführer Anton Burger reached Rhodes to carry out the deportation of the Jews living there. On July 13, 1944, Kleemann, as commandant of the East Aegean , ordered the arrest of the Jews. After clear protests by German soldiers, he tried to dispel doubts about the necessity of a radical solution to the Jewish question in an order of July 16, which could not easily be judged from the limited military point of view. The further course of the deportation to mainland Greece and the confiscation of the property of the deportees were carried out with Kleemann's cooperation and with the use of his authority. Investigations against Kleemann for murder were discontinued after the war.

In September 1944, after the Red Army's breakthrough in the Balkans, the Wehrmacht began to withdraw from Greece. In this context, Kleemann's division was withdrawn from Rhodes. Kleemann's successor on Rhodes was Major General Otto Wagener . In September 1944, Kleemann was temporarily given the tour of the LXXXXI. Army Corps z. b. V. , then during the Debrecen operation via the newly formed IV Panzer Corps (later renamed the Panzer Corps "Feldherrnhalle"). With this he took part in the battle for Budapest , in which it was destroyed and had to be rebuilt. At the end of the war, Kleemann became an American prisoner of war , from which he was released in 1947.

Kleemann died on January 3, 1963 at the age of 70 in a traffic accident.

Awards

literature

  • Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. : Rommel's Desert Commanders: The Men Who Served the Desert Fox, North Africa, 1941-1942. Greenwood Publishing, 2007. ISBN 0-2759-9436-8 .
  • Dermot Bradley : The Generals of the Army 1921–1945 The military careers of the generals, as well as the doctors, veterinarians, intendants, judges and ministerial officials in the general rank Volume 6: Hochbaum-Klutmann, Biblio Verlag, Bissendorf 2002, ISBN 3-7648-2582-0 , Pp. 496-497.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See on the complex: Gerhard Schreiber: The Italian military internees in the German sphere of influence, 1943–1945. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1990. ISBN 3-486-55391-7 .
  2. ↑ Götz Aly: Hitlers Volksstaat , Fischer Verlag 2005, ISBN 3-10-000420-5 , p. 303
  3. ^ Dörte von Westernhagen: Oskar von Westernhagen - officer and SA leader. In: Claudia Glunz, Thomas F. Schneider (Eds.): From Paraguay to Punk 2011: Media and War from the 19th to the 21st Century. Universitätsverlag Osnabrück, 2011. ISBN 978-3-89971-853-9 . Pp. 7-44, passim.
  4. ↑ a b c d Ranking list of the German Reichsheeres , Ed .: Reichswehr Ministry , Mittler & Sohn Verlag , Berlin 1932, p. 131
personal data
SURNAME Kleemann, Ulrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently General of the Armored Force in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Langensalza
DATE OF DEATH January 3, 1963
Place of death Oberursel