Walter Model

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Portrait of Walter Model
Walter Model in conversation with the Hitler Youth, October 1944

Otto Moritz Walter Model (born January 24, 1891 in Genthin , Province of Saxony ; † April 21, 1945 near Duisburg ) was a German army officer ( General Field Marshal from 1944 ) and Commander-in-Chief of various armies and army groups during the Second World War and, in 1944, Commander-in-Chief West . Because of the atrocities he ordered against the civilian population, he was added to the list of war criminals by the Soviet Union. He was considered a supporter of Hitler by officers of the Wehrmacht and was also called "Hitler's firefighter" in German staffs, because from 1943 he was repeatedly sent to various critical points on the (Eastern) front to bring the situation under control .

Life

Empire and First World War

Walter Model was the older son of the city music teacher Otto Model and his wife Maria, née Demmer.

In his childhood and youth he attended schools in Genthin, Erfurt and Naumburg. His school career ended when he passed the Abitur examination. In 1909 Walter Model joined the infantry regiment “von Alvensleben” (6th Brandenburgisches) No. 52 in Cottbus as a flag boy . In the same year he attended the Neisse War School , now as an ensign . On August 22, 1910 he was appointed lieutenant in the 1st Battalion in Crossen .

Appointments / Promotions

  • February 27, 1909 flagjunker
  • November 19, 1909 Ensign
  • August 22, 1910 Lieutenant
  • February 25, 1915 First Lieutenant
  • December 18, 1917 Captain
  • October 1, 1929 Major
  • November 1, 1932 Lieutenant Colonel
  • October 1, 1934 Colonel
  • March 1, 1938 Major General
  • March 16, 1940 Lieutenant General
  • October 26, 1941 General of the Panzer Force
  • February 28, 1942 Colonel General
  • March 30, 1944 Field Marshal General

At the beginning of the First World War , Model was a battalion adjutant ; before the end of the year he became a regimental adjutant .
On February 25, 1915, he was promoted to first lieutenant and was seriously wounded in May 1915. From April 1916 Model attended a short course for prospective General Staff officers in Sedan and - back on the Western Front - became adjutant in the 10th Infantry Brigade and later company commander in the Leib Grenadier Regiment "King Friedrich Wilhelm III." (1st Brandenburg) No. 8 . Here he was again badly wounded. After his recovery, Model was assigned to the Supreme Army Command (OHL) on June 7, 1917 as an orderly officer . There he was assigned to the head of the operations department and among other things went on a business trip to Turkey. On November 18, 1917, he was appointed captain . On March 10, 1918 Model was transferred as Second General Staff Officer (Ib) to the Guard Replacement Division and on August 30, 1918 as Ib to the 36th Reserve Division .

Weimar Republic

After the armistice of November 11, 1918, the 36th Reserve Division marched back to Gdansk via Aachen and was demobilized there. Model reported for a new use and was from January 19 to July 19, 1919 as General Staff Officer at the XVII. Army Corps assigned to the Eastern Border Guard . After signed on 28 June 1919 Peace of Versailles was Danzig Free State and Model for Reichswehr Brigade placed 7 in Westphalia. From September / October 1919 onwards, Model disbanded reluctant troop units in the Baltic region, especially the so-called Iron Division . For a short time he served in Münster as a company commander in the 2nd Battalion of the 14th Infantry Regiment. In March 1920, Model was assigned to the commander of the security troops in Section II of the 'militarily diluted zone' east of the Rhine, in the Bergisches Land. He took over the MG company in the 1st Battalion of IR 14, which was relocated to Elberfeld-Barmen on March 15, 1920 due to serious unrest during the general strike against the Kapp Putsch . Models Bataillon had to cover the retreat of the Reichswehr troops against the overwhelming power of the rebels. After the consolidation of the Reichswehr in October 1920, Model 1921 became a general staff officer in the “camouflaged general staff” in Münster. In October 1925 he was transferred to the 8th (Prussian) Infantry Regiment and relocated with his wife Herta to Görlitz . There Model wrote the biographical and war history study about Gneisenau , which was published in 1929 in the anthology Führertum . On September 30, 1928, he was transferred to the 3rd Division in Berlin as a general staff officer and taught, among others, the later Bundeswehr generals Hans Speidel and Adolf Heusinger . In 1929 Model was promoted to major and the following year transferred to the military office in the training department. From August 20 to October 1, 1931, Model was on a trip to Russia as part of the secret relations between the Reichswehr and the Red Army . In 1932 Model was involved in activities to bring the "youth who despaired of unemployment [...]" away from the "large paramilitary groups [...]" to join the Reichswehr (Reich Board of Trustees for Youth Enhancement ). "One of the employees of the Reich Board of Trustees, Oblt. A. D. Dr. Boysen, became convinced that Model had become an opponent of the NSDAP because of the eternal difficulties with the SA leadership. ”On November 1, 1932, Model was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

National Socialism

Pre-war period

Soon after Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933, the SA dissolved the “Reichskuratorium”. At the beginning of November, Model was transferred as a battalion commander to Infantry Regiment No. 2 in Allenstein in East Prussia. On October 1, 1934, Model was promoted to colonel and on November 1, 1934 commander of the 2nd (Prussian) Infantry Regiment , also in Allenstein. Model was appointed chief of the newly established technical department in the October 15, 1935 General Staff appointed the army. At Model's suggestion, "the construction of a motorized, armored infantry escort gun ", the assault gun , went back. On March 1, 1938, he was appointed major general and on November 10, 1938, chief of the general staff of the IV Army Corps in Dresden.

Second World War

War against Poland and France

Model began the Second World War as Chief of the General Staff of the IV Corps of the 10th Army of General Walter von Reichenau . Shortly after the end of the attack on Poland , on October 13, 1939, Model was designated by the Chief of the General Staff of the Army, General Franz Halder , as Chief of the General Staff of the new 16th Army under General Ernst Busch . In this capacity, Model took part in the campaign in the west from May 10, 1940 . On April 1, 1940, Model was promoted to lieutenant general. On November 13, 1940, he became the commander of the 3rd Panzer Division , an association that was being dissolved because of numerous charges to North Africa, which he first had to make operational again and which he completely reformed for six months according to his ideas.

War against the Soviet Union
Model (2nd from left) as commander of the 3rd Panzer Division on the Eastern Front, July 1941

On May 31, 1941, the 3rd Panzer Division received orders to relocate to East Germany. The troops thought of using it as a border guard. In mid-June 1941, the division moved into staging rooms in Poland, west of the bow. "Since April 1941, Model must have known what the hour had struck."

March to Moscow

After the attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Models tanks made the breakthrough over the Bug in early July 1941, took part in further battles and closed the Kiev pocket in September 1941 . Promoted to General of the Panzer Force with effect from October 1, 1941 , on October 26, 1941, on his way to Moscow, he received news of his transfer as Commanding General of the XXXXI. Panzer Corps on the central section of the Eastern Front. During the attack on Moscow in early December 1941, Models Corps was moved north of the capital. "On December 5 and 6, 1941, however, the enemy struck back."

Front arch of Rzhev

The 9th Army, Model XXXXI. Corps was subordinate to, was pushed to the southwest on Rzhev. Chief of Staff Halder noted about their commander-in-chief : “ Strauss can no longer”. Model was assigned to command of the 9th Army on January 16, 1942 . The army was almost encircled in the 'Arch of Rzhev' by a pincer attack from Konev's Kalinin front and Zhukov's western front when Model asked for an explanation of the situation. The next day, Model faced Hitler for the first time in Wolfsschanze : He proposed a clarification of the situation through an attack operation. "Hitler was perplexed and said: 'Then do it!'" On February 5, 1942, the situation was resolved - however, the remnants of three Soviet attack armies that had been cut off continued to threaten the back of the 9th Army in the large forest areas. On 28 February 1942 Model became the Colonel-General conveyed and received the Oak Leaves to Knight's Cross. Model was seriously wounded on May 25, 1942. On August 7, 1942, he broke off his convalescence leave in Dresden and flew back to the front, "where all hell had broken out". The battle ended on September 26, 1942 with heavy losses on the Soviet Western Front . At the same time as Operation Uranus , the Soviets under Marshal Zhukov launched Operation Mars on November 24, 1942 for a major attack on the Rzhev Arch, which ended on January 10, 1943 with the next defensive success of Models. Although Model was thinking further offensively, the overall situation had developed in such a way that even Hitler seemed to have to clear the "exhausting Arch of Rzhev". Model organized the "Enterprise Buffalo" as an orderly retreat until the end of March 1943. On April 3, 1943, he received the oak leaves with swords for the Knight's Cross. The heavy battles for Rzhev , which Model fought against a far superior opponent for over two years and ended with a successful retreat, established his fame as a "master of the defensive". The strength saved by the withdrawal encouraged Hitler in his plans for a summer offensive in 1943.

In the war against the Soviet Union, Model was responsible for implementing the scorched earth tactics in his area of ​​command ; this included the destruction of the Russian harvest and the deportation of the civilian population to the west. He also cooperated with the SS and SD Einsatzgruppen . Particularly for his time as commander of the 9th Army, an “ongoing cooperation” with Einsatzgruppe B must be proven. In line with his atrocities against Russian civilians, Model was placed on the list of war criminals by the Soviet Union .

Kursk

As Commander-in-Chief of the 9th Army, Model held a key position in the Citadel Company , the third and final summer offensive of the Wehrmacht in Russia , which began on July 5, 1943. The German soldiers made slow progress due to heavy fighting. In the days between July 5 and 13, 1943, the largest tank battle in history took place as part of the Zitadelle company in the Kursk front arc, in which just over 1,000 tanks were used on the German side and several thousand on the Soviet side . On July 12, 1943, Hitler ordered the offensive to be broken off. On November 5, 1943, Model was transferred to the Führerreserve for two months . Josef Harpe took command of the 9th Army .

Appointment as General Field Marshal

In January 1944, Model was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Army Group North ( Leningrad-Novgorod Operation ) by Adolf Hitler and on March 30, 1944, Field Marshal General, with simultaneous appointment as Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Northern Ukraine . When in the course of June 22, 1944 the 3rd anniversary of the German attack, early Soviet summer offensive , the Army Group Center collapsed, Model sparked Field Marshal Busch from as commander of Army Group on 28 June 1944th He did not give up command of Army Group Northern Ukraine until a month later ( Lviv-Sandomierz operation ). After the failed assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , Model demonstrated his loyalty to Hitler. He did this so explicitly that he exceeded all other addresses of devotion to German field marshals. Model was one of the few who risked contradicting Hitler on warfare issues. His dealings with subordinate officers and commanders of the same rank were gruff and harsh, which is why he was feared and sometimes hated. At the beginning of August he ignored a stop order from Hitler and unauthorized staged a counterattack that led to the tank battle in front of Warsaw on August 1-4, 1944 . Four German tank divisions surprisingly surrounded the 2nd Soviet tank army under Alexei Ivanovich Radsijewski and thus prevented the short-term collapse of the Eastern Front. In the further course of the Warsaw Uprising , which took place at the same time and then continued , at times 13 Soviet armies faced two Germans in the area around Warsaw without advancing.

War in the west
Model (center) on the Western Front, October 1944

After Model had acquired the reputation of being able to stabilize fronts in difficult situations during various assignments in Russia, he was ordered by Hitler from the Eastern Front to Berlin on August 16, 1944 and appointed Commander-in-Chief West (OB West) while simultaneously assuming supreme command on the army group B . On August 17, 1944, he received the diamonds for the Knight's Cross and arrived on the Western Front on the same day. His job there was to consolidate the situation and hold Paris, but at this point - after the battle for Falaise - the front had already collapsed . Since the Seine line could no longer be held, Model immediately organized the withdrawal of the German troops from France. With the defensive success at Arnhem the stabilization of the front on the German border ( Westwall ) succeeded. To relieve him and for propaganda purposes, his predecessor, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt , succeeded him again on September 5, 1944 at the post of Commander-in-Chief West .

After the failure of the Ardennes offensive in December 1944 and the breakthrough of the Allied forces in March 1945 into the Reich territory across the Rhine, Model Army Group B was trapped in the Ruhr basin .

Collapse of the empire

Walter Model's image in the last days of the war is ambivalent. At the end of March 1945 he emphasized to the generals and officers subordinate to him: "The victory of the National Socialist idea is beyond doubt, the decision is in our hands!" He supported Heinrich Himmler's instructions to proceed with inhuman severity against deserters . In Essen he had deserters shot dead. In Düsseldorf , the commander of the police force, Franz Juergens, and a few other people who, as part of Aktion Rheinland, had tried to negotiate surrender negotiations with the American armed forces that had advanced as far as the Rhine, were defeated by a court martial on March 16, which Model had apparently tolerated Sentenced and shot in April 1945. On the one hand, Model swore to the final victory , on the other hand, however, he had recognized the hopelessness of the military situation and finally at least partially used it as a basis for action.

Model carried out the " Nero order ", the complete destruction of all industrial, traffic and supply facilities ordered by Hitler, in the Ruhr area in part, but not completely.

He decided on his own initiative to disband his army group. He instructed his chief of staff, Major General Carl Wagener , to dismiss the very young and old soldiers immediately so that they could return home as civilians. The rest were to decide within the next three days either to return home as well, to surrender individually, or to make their way to the next fighting force. Just two days later, on April 15, 1945, the Allies split the kettle. That same evening the eastern part was overrun. Model's troop now quickly disbanded. Since the thought of a surrender was unbearable for him, he turned down the offer of US General Matthew B. Ridgway on April 17 to surrender and thus spare the civilian population.

death
Grave models at the Vossenack military cemetery

On April 21, 1945, Walter Model shot himself under a group of oaks in the Spee forest, between Wedau and Lintorf not far from the Sechs-Seen-Platte . Because for him the very idea of ​​a surrender as the responsible field marshal to Bernard Montgomery or the Americans was unimaginable. His remaining general staff officers, Colonel Theodor Pilling, Lieutenant Colonel Roger Michael and Major Winrich Behr , buried him on the spot, according to his request. He left the subordinate commanders in the Ruhr Basin with a Nazi message: "The pressure of the war shows that large sections of the German people and thus also the troops are still contaminated by the Jewish and democratic poison of the materialistic way of thinking". The officer's example is decisive in order to force the National Socialist idea to win. On July 26, 1955, Model Feldgrab was found again with the help of Winrich Behr and in the presence of his son Hansgeorg Model and the body was exhumed. He found his final resting place on the Vossenack war cemetery in the northern Eifel. His grave there bears the number 1074. Model's grave slab had to be replaced several times due to theft.

Private life

On May 12, 1921, Model married Herta Huyssen in Frankfurt am Main (born February 4, 1892 in Niederbreisig; † May 5, 1985 in Bonn). From this marriage there were two daughters and one son. The son Hansgeorg was a Brigadier General in the Bundeswehr .

All three child models were baptized by Pastor Martin Niemöller . Model and Niemöller had known each other since 1923. They agreed on many things. Model was a Protestant Christian and went to church and stayed away from the National Socialist " German Christians " , who were also rejected by Niemöller . From 1929 in Berlin, too, Niemöller was a welcome guest at Model.

One of Walter Model's brothers was the lawyer and publicist Otto Model .

The person Models became known to a wider audience through the English-American film " The Bridge of Arnhem " from 1977, in which the events of the allied Operation Market Garden are dealt with. The model is portrayed by the Austrian actor Walter Kohut .

personality

Heinz Guderian described Model as a "bold, tireless soldier". Indeed, Model was a restless, relentlessly hard-working officer. He was rated by many as very ambitious, but always competent. In addition, Model was considered a very uncomfortable person who was not afraid to express his opinion - even to superiors or Hitler personally. Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin mentioned his heated and often unpredictable temperament. When taking on new commands, there were often insults, for example in 1944, when model Georg von Küchler replaced Commander-in-Chief of Army Group North.

Model always tried demonstratively to appear as an apolitical soldier. In doing so, however, he achieved the exact opposite, so that in the end he was considered a staunch supporter of Hitler even among officers of the Wehrmacht. Accordingly, like many other generals, he expressed himself disparagingly about the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944. Model's son Hansgeorg also described his father as a loyal follower of Hitler.

Typical of him was an enormous self-confidence that sometimes in overconfidence degenerated. The following are examples of this: When he took command of the 9th Army on the left flank of Army Group Center in early 1942 , he was asked how many reinforcements he had brought with him (for an imminent attack). His answer: "Me!" When he heard of the Allied airborne operation near Arnhem , he thought it was a commando operation through which he was supposed to be kidnapped. A quirk models was that he only reluctantly suggested unmarried officers for religious or promotion.

Awards (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Walter Model  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Samuel W. Mitcham Jr., Gene Mueller: Field Marshal General Walter Model. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. 68 CVs. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-89678-727-9 , p. 424.
  2. ^ Walter Görlitz: Model. Defensive strategy. Bastei Lübbe, Wiesbaden 1975, pp. 10-12.
  3. ↑ Marcel Stein: Field Marshal Walter Model: A reassessment. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 2008, ISBN 3-7648-2312-7 , p. 19.
  4. ↑ Samuel W. Mitcham Jr., Gene Mueller: Field Marshal General Walter Model. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. 68 CVs. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-89678-727-9 , p. 424.
  5. ↑ "The Ib was responsible for the staff, the processing of replacement and replenishment issues, the accommodation of the troops and their supply."
    (Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the Defensive - Model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2071 -0 , p. 21.)
  6. ↑ Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the defensive model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2071-0 , p. 26 f.
  7. ↑ Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the defensive model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2071-0 , p. 32 .: Without knowledge of the Allies, "the tripling of the army was planned in the case of the defense of the Reich."
  8. ↑ Samuel W. Mitcham Jr., Gene Mueller: Field Marshal General Walter Model. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. 68 CVs. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-89678-727-9 , p. 425.
  9. ↑ Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the defensive model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2071-0 , p. 39. Speidel and Heusinger were involved in building up the German armed forces after the Second World War and took over positions in NATO.
  10. ↑ Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the defensive model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2071-0 , p. 44f .: “The greatest concern was the 400,000 men in Hitler's 'Sturmabteilung' (SA) and 'Schutzstaffeln' (SS) [... ] "
  11. ↑ Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the defensive model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2071-0 , p. 45 f.
  12. ↑ Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the defensive model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2071-0 , p. 55 .: The department developed "ideas [...] about the decisive role of the armored weapon in large units in a possible new war".
  13. ↑ Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the defensive model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2071-0 , p. 88.
  14. ↑ Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the defensive model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2071-0 , p. 103. The general submitted to the retreat: “If he was in front when attacking, he was now facing the last in the front line as he went back the following, freshly armed opponent. "
    (Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the Defensive - Model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2071-0 , p. 104)
  15. ↑ Steven H. Newton: Hitler's Commander: Field Marshal Walter Model - Hitler's Favorite General. Da Capo Press, Cambridge 2006, ISBN 978-0-306-81399-3 , pp. 171 ff.
  16. ↑ Marcel Stein: Field Marshal Walter Model: A reassessment. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 2008, ISBN 3-7648-2312-7 , pp. 96-102.
  17. ↑ Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the defensive model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2071-0 , p. 114 .: “When Model had unsubscribed, Hitler remarked to General Schmundt : 'Did you see the eye? (Model liked to wear a monocle) I trust the man to make it. But I don't want to serve under him myself. '"
  18. ↑ Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the defensive model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2071-0 , p. 124. Model changed four generals. In July 1942 the partisan hunting operation “Seydlitz” took place in the rear area (June 25th - July 27th, 1942).
  19. ↑ Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the defensive model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-8090-2071-0 , p. 133. Here there was the controversial repatriation of Russian civilians and the destruction of infrastructure in order to make it difficult for the enemy to pursue them.
  20. ↑ Samuel W. Mitcham Jr., Gene Mueller: Field Marshal General Walter Model. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. 68 CVs. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-89678-727-9 , p. 427.
  21. ↑ Marcel Stein, Field Marshal General Walter Model. A reassessment. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 2008, ISBN 3-7648-2312-7 , p. VII.
  22. ↑ Steven H. Newton: Hitler's Commander: Field Marshal Walter Model - Hitler's Favorite General. Da Capo Press, Cambridge 2006, ISBN 978-0-306-81399-3 , p. 216.
  23. ↑ Marcel Stein: Field Marshal General Walter Model. A reassessment. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 2008, ISBN 3-7648-2312-7 , pp. 119-116.
  24. ↑ Marcel Stein: Field Marshal Walter Model: A reassessment. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 2008, ISBN 3-7648-2312-7 , p. 2.
  25. ^ Society for Security Policy eV , Karl-Heinz Frieser : The second miracle on the Vistula, The tank battle before Warsaw (August 1944) and its fatal consequences for the Warsaw uprising. , June 12, 2018
  26. ↑ Die Welt, Florian Stark: Four Panzer Divisions saved the Eastern Front , August 1, 2014
  27. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 413.
  28. ↑ Ian Kershaw : The End . DVA, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-421-05807-2 , p. 422.
  29. ↑ IFDT (information for the Force - Journal of Internal guidance of the German Federal Armed Forces); congruent with information from the interview of the editor with a former soldier of the "Ruhrkessel".
  30. ^ Derek S. Zumbro: Battle for the Ruhr: The German Army's Final Defeat in the West . Modern War Studies. Kansas 2006, ISBN 0-7006-1490-7 , p. 378.
  31. ^ Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the defensive . Munich 1975, ISBN 978-3-404-00605-2 , p. 311.
  32. ↑ Manfred Messerschmidt : Article. In: Die Zeit , No. 14/2005.
  33. ↑ Samuel W. Mitcham Jr., Gene Mueller: Field Marshal General Walter Model. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. 68 CVs. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-89678-727-9 , p. 425.
  34. ↑ Walter Görlitz: Strategy of the defensive model . Limes-Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich 1982, p. 34.
  35. ↑ Samuel W. Mitcham Jr., Gene Mueller: Field Marshal General Walter Model. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. 68 CVs. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-89678-727-9 , pp. 424-427.
  36. ^ Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin: Germany's Generals of the Second World War . Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1980, ISBN 3-404-65027-1 , p. 155.
  37. ↑ Marcel Stein, Field Marshal General Walter Model. A reassessment. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 2008, ISBN 3-7648-2312-7 , pp. 119-123.
  38. ^ Hansgeorg Model, Dermot Bradley: Field Marshal General Walter Model (1891-1945) Documentation of a soldier's life. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1991, ISBN 3-7648-1785-2 , p. VIII and Marcel Stein: Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model. A reassessment. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 2008, ISBN 3-7648-2312-7 , p. 8.
  39. ↑ Steven H. Newton: Hitler's Commander: Field Marshal Walter Model - Hitler's Favorite General . Da Capo Press, Cambridge 2006, ISBN 978-0-306-81399-3 , p. 176.
  40. ↑ Also on the following orders Johannes Hürter : Hitler's Army Leader. The German Supreme Commanders in the War against the Soviet Union 1941/42 , Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-57982-6 , p. 649 (accessed from De Gruyter Online).
predecessor Office successor
Günther von Kluge Commander in Chief West
August 16 - September 3, 1944 		Gerd von Rundstedt
personal data
SURNAME Model, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Model, Otto Moritz Walter (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Army Officer, Field Marshal General in the Third Reich
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Genthin
DATE OF DEATH April 21, 1945
Place of death near Düsseldorf