Walter Stettner Knight of Grabenhofen

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Walter Stettner Ritter von Grabenhofen, Montenegro in June 1943

Walter Karl Hugo Stettner Ritter von Grabenhofen (born March 19, 1895 in Munich , † October 18, 1944 near Belgrade ) was a German officer , most recently lieutenant general of the mountain troops in World War II .

Parentage and family

Stettner was born the son of Hans Friedrich Heinrich Richard Stettner Ritter von Grabenhofen and his wife. The family comes from an old rich noble family, the Emperor Leopold I in 1670 the kingdom knighthood reaffirmed and the Royal Bavarian 1842 Adelsmatrikel was taken.

On January 17, 1925 he married in Waffenbrunn Amanda Walburga von Paur, daughter of Joseph Carl von Paur, landowner to Waffenbrunn. From this marriage a son and two daughters were born.

Stettner was related by marriage to the later major general Alexander Conrady .

Military career

Bavarian Army

After briefly attending Munich's Luitpold High School , Stettner moved to the Bavarian Cadet Corps in 1908 . In August 1914 he joined the Royal Bavarian Infantry Body Regiment as an ensign . With his unit, which belonged to the 1st Royal Bavarian Division , Stettner moved into the field. In March 1915 he was promoted to lieutenant without a patent. Shortly thereafter, his unit was incorporated into the newly founded German Alpine Corps .

With his regiment, Stettner took part in trench warfare on the Somme and in the Upper Alsace, in the battles in the Dolomites , in the battles in Champagne and around Verdun , in the twelfth Isonzo battle and in pursuit battles up to the Piave . After serving in the fighting in Lorraine , the battles at Armentières , Roye and Lassigny , Nesle and Noyon, and in defensive battles on the Somme. This was followed by trench warfare in Romania on the Putna and Sereth rivers and the breakthrough battle on the Putna.

At the end of the war, Stettner's units were engaged in retreat battles in Serbia . On his return he was sent to the officers' school in Munich.

Promotions

Weimar Republic

In February 1919 Stettner was a member of the Freikorps Epp involved in the suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic . Since the members of the Freikorps were taken over into the Reichswehr , Stettner then served in the 19th Bavarian Infantry Regiment and trained as an assistant teacher in physical education. He then became a weapons and sports officer in his unit. After training as a guide assistant at Military District Command VII in 1924, Stettner received the first lieutenant's license the following year and was transferred to the 13th Mountain Mine Throwing Company of the 19th Bavarian Infantry Regiment at the same time. Between 1925 and 1927 he completed courses for mine throwing officers and high mountain pioneers as well as driving and equipment training at the 7th Bavarian Driving Department. Chief of the 16th company of the regiment for a year, Stettner was promoted to captain in February 1930 . In the following year he took over the leadership of the 10th Company.

time of the nationalsocialism

In 1934, like all members of the Wehrmacht, Stettner took the oath to Adolf Hitler . In the following year he joined the staff of the Mountain Brigade, from which the 1st Mountain Division later emerged. Only a little later he was promoted to major . In 1937 he was given the position of commander of the 1st battalion of the 98 Mountain Infantry Regiment, which was stationed in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. After the " Anschluss of Austria ", Stettner was transferred to Innsbruck , where he took over the leadership of the 1st battalion of the 136th Mountain Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Mountain Division of Major General Valentin Feurstein , which was to be newly created from the Tyrolean Jäger Regiment . Since he had easily mastered the integration of the Austrian soldiers into the Wehrmacht , he was appointed lieutenant colonel . With the Mountain Infantry Regiment 136, Stettner first took part in the German invasion of Poland and later in the occupation of Norway .

In Norway he took over the leadership of the Mountain Infantry Regiment 99 in August 1940. However, he gave this up again at short notice when he was appointed commander of the Mountain Infantry Regiment 91 of the newly formed 4th Mountain Division under Major General Karl Eglseer . With this regiment, Stettner was deployed in Romania and Yugoslavia . After the capture of Belgrade , the regiment was transferred to Slovakia . The unit penetrated the Soviet Union via Lviv and, after fighting in Vinnitsa , Uman and Stalino , with some losses, advanced into the Caucasus by the end of 1942 .

Stettner, who had already been made a colonel in August 1941 , replaced Lieutenant General Hubert Lanz as commander of the 1st Mountain Division in March 1943 . It fell to him to carry out the withdrawal from the Soviet Union. After fighting with partisans , he had all men between the ages of 16 and 50 arrested in the villages and had to do forced labor building positions. Stettner, who was also merciless towards his own soldiers, expressly pointed out that civilians should be treated like Red Army soldiers .

Stettner, who was known as a good tactician , managed to lead the 1st Mountain Division back from the Caucasus to the Kuban bridgehead despite the progressing thaw and to push the superior Soviet troops into the swamps on the south bank of the Azov Sea . The losses were very high on both sides. Stettner received the Knight's Cross for his performance and was promoted to major general at the same time .

In April 1943, Stettner and the 1st Mountain Division were sent from Bulgaria to work against Titopartisans in northern Albania and Montenegro . Relocated to the Albanian-Greek border in the Epirus region three months later , the division was supposed to fend off an expected Allied invasion . Instead, individual units were used to fight partisans. The High Command of the Wehrmacht had stated before the occupation rates, which number is to shoot hostages for dead soldiers. After Stettner had these requirements implemented without questioning, there were several arguments with his superior Lanz, with whom Stettner repeatedly had disagreements. Division members were otherwise ruthless against civilians. Stettner issued the order to shoot the male population if they were suspected of cooperating with partisans. In addition, individual units carried out massacres of the civilian population, for example in Kommeno , without being held accountable by Stettner. After the war ended, Stettner and others were put on a wanted list for war criminals by the Allied War Crimes Commission in London because of the Kommeno massacre . However, the initiated proceedings were discontinued because Stettner was missing and had been pronounced dead.

After Italy's armistice with the Allies, parts of the 1st Mountain Division occupied the Greek island of Kefalonia, which had been secured by Italian troops in September 1943 . The High Command of the Wehrmacht ordered no Italian prisoners to be made. As the commander of the 1st Mountain Division, Stettner was responsible for ensuring that soldiers of the division disarmed several thousand Italian soldiers and their officers and that they were shot in the massacre on Kefalonia . This approach blatantly contradicted the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War .

From January 1944, Stettner's division, which had been promoted to Lieutenant General in November 1943 , was again used to fight partisans in Bosnia and Croatia . After the occupation of Hungary in March 1944, she was moved to Serbia . In September 1944 the 1st Mountain Division stood wide apart on the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border in heavy defensive battles. On the retreat from the Soviet superiority, the division was withdrawn in October to the area south of Belgrade. On October 17, 1944, in contradiction to his instructions, Stettner had to give up the intended breakthrough on Belgrade. He decided to break through to the west in order to avoid an impending encirclement. All weapons that could not be taken should be destroyed. Wounded persons unable to walk should be left in the care of medical personnel. On October 19, 1944, however, the division was included again. 5000 mountain troops remained in the basin south of Belgrade, including Stettner. He has been missing on Mount Avala near Belgrade since October 18, 1944 .

Orders and decorations

literature

  • Josef M. Bauer: Company "Elbrus". The Caucasian Adventure. Factual report. Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-548-33162-9 .
  • Ian Baxter: Hitler's Mountain Troops 1939-1945. The Gebirgsjager. Images of War. Pen & Sword Books, Barnsley 2011, ISBN 978-1-84884-354-7 .
  • Roland Kaltenegger: Lieutenant General Walter Stettner Ritter von Grabenhofen. From alpine corps fighter in World War I to bearer of the Knight's Cross in World War II. Verlag Flechsig, Würzburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8035-0050-2 .
  • Hubert Lanz, Max Pemsel: '' Gebirgsjäger. The 1st Mountain Division 1935–1945 ''. Podzun Publishing House, Bad Nauheim 1954.
  • Hermann Frank Meyer: '' Bloody edelweiss. The 1st Mountain Division in the Second World War '' , Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-86153-447-9 .
  • Franz Thomas, Günter Wegmann (ed.): The knight cross bearers of the German armed forces. 1939-1945. Part 6, The Mountain Troop. Volume 2, L-Z. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1994, ISBN 3-7648-2430-1 , p. 429 ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Maximilian Gritzner (arrangement): Maximilian Gritzner (arrangement): Status surveys and acts of grace of German sovereigns during the last three centuries. According to official sources . tape 1 . Anhalt to Bavaria. Verlag CA Starke, Görlitz 1881, p. 457 .
  2. ^ A b Franz Josef Prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst: Genealogical manual of the nobility enrolled in Bavaria . tape 4 . Verlag Degener & Co., Neustadt an der Aisch 1953, p. 420 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Hermann Frank Meyer: Bloody edelweiss. The 1st Mountain Division in World War II . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-86153-447-9 , p. 102 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Franz Thomas, Günter Wegmann (ed.): The knight's cross bearers of the German Wehrmacht. 1939-1945 . Part 6, The Mountain Troop. tape 2 , LZ. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1994, ISBN 3-7648-2430-1 , p. 432 ff .
  5. ^ Roland Kaltenegger: Lieutenant General Walter Stettner Ritter von Grabenhofen. From alpine corps fighter in World War I to bearer of the Knight's Cross in World War II . Verlag Flechsig, Würzburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8035-0050-2 , p. 11 .
  6. ^ Hermann Frank Meyer: Bloody edelweiss. The 1st Mountain Division in World War II . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-86153-447-9 , p. 103 ff .
  7. ^ Franz Thomas, Günter Wegmann (ed.): The knight's cross bearers of the German Wehrmacht. 1939-1945 . Part 6, The Mountain Troop. tape 2 , LZ. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1994, ISBN 3-7648-2430-1 , p. 429 f. f .
  8. ^ Hermann Frank Meyer: Bloody edelweiss. The 1st Mountain Division in World War II . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-86153-447-9 , p. 106 ff .
  9. ↑ Mark Mazower: Inside Hitler's Greece. The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44. Yale University Press, New Haven / London 2001, ISBN 978-0-300-08923-3 , pp. 191 f .
  10. ^ Hermann Frank Meyer: Bloody edelweiss. The 1st Mountain Division in World War II . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-86153-447-9 , p. 118 ff .
  11. ^ Hermann Frank Meyer: Bloody edelweiss. The 1st Mountain Division in World War II . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-86153-447-9 , p. 129 ff .
  12. ^ Gerhard Schreiber: German war crimes in Italy. Perpetrator, victim, law enforcement . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-39268-7 , p. 80 ff .
  13. ^ A b Hermann Frank Meyer: Bloody edelweiss. The 1st Mountain Division in World War II . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-86153-447-9 , p. 653 ff .
  14. ^ Franz Thomas, Günter Wegmann (ed.): The knight's cross bearers of the German Wehrmacht. 1939-1945 . Part 6, The Mountain Troop. tape 2 , LZ. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1994, ISBN 3-7648-2430-1 , p. 429 ff .
personal data
SURNAME Stettner Knights of Grabenhofen, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stettner Ritter von Grabenhofen, Walter Karl Hugo; Knight Stettner von Grabenhofen, Walter; Knight Stettner von Grabenhofen, Walter Karl Hugo; Stettner von Grabenhofen, Walter; Stettner, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer and lieutenant general of the mountain troops in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH October 18, 1944
Place of death near Belgrade