Walter von Reichenau

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Walter von Reichenau. Photo from 1941

Walter von Reichenau (born October 8, 1884 in Karlsruhe , † January 17, 1942 on the air transport from Poltava to Lemberg ) was a German army officer (field marshal since 1940 ). Since 1933 he was in charge of integrating the Reichswehr into the Nazi state . During the Second World War , Reichenau played a leading role in war crimes in the Soviet Union as Army and Army Group Commander in Chief .

Life

Empire and First World War

Walter von Reichenau was the son of the later Prussian Lieutenant General Ernst August von Reichenau (1841-1919). One of his brothers was Ernst von Reichenau . After graduating from high school in 1903, he joined the Prussian Army . At the beginning of the First World War Reichenau was adjutant of the 1st Guards Field Artillery Regiment and in this position he was promoted to captain in the course of 1914 and awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd and 1st class. The following year he was transferred to the General Staff and in the course of 1915 he served as Second General Staff Officer (Ib) of the 47th Reserve Division and then as First General Staff Officer (Ia) of the 7th Cavalry Division .

Weimar Republic

In the period from the armistice to his takeover in the Reichswehr , Reichenau was a general staff officer at the Eastern Border Guard in Silesia and Pomerania .

Reichenau was used in various positions until the early 1930s. In 1924 he was promoted to major and in 1929 to lieutenant colonel. From 1930 he was chief of staff in the East Prussian military district I / 1st Division , whose commander was Werner von Blomberg , who later became Minister of Defense . On February 1, 1932, he was promoted to colonel .

He married Countess Alexandrine Maltzan Freiin zu Wartenberg and Penzlin (1895–1984) in April 1919.

Role in sport

Von Reichenau was active as a track and field athlete until the First World War , later he played tennis and went skiing . As a track and field trainer in Münster , he discovered Hans Hoffmeister , the German champion in the discus throw from 1926, 1930 and 1931 and an Olympian from 1928 . He was also an avid soccer player. In 1909 he organized a football championship in the Prussian Guard Corps. As a member of the Berliner SC , he got to know Carl Diem , with whom he remained on friendly terms. Together, the two men developed the concept of the sports badge, which was awarded from 1913, and were then the first two graduates. He was a member of the organizing committee of the 1936 Games in Berlin and then became a member of the IOC at Diem's ​​instigation .

For Reichenau, sport was “only a means to an end, not an actual goal”. This goal was the preparation of military training with popular sport, because "a good sportsman is a good soldier". He attached particular importance to team sports, as they would promote the “subordination of the individual will to the collective will”. His ideal was to level differences in class through sport. But even as a “sports general”, as he was called, he was unable to enforce his ideas in the Wehrmacht.

time of the nationalsocialism

Pre-war period

Walter von Reichenau as major general and head of the ministerial office. Photo from 1934

Even before he came to power, Reichenau made contact with the NSDAP and with Adolf Hitler himself, with whom he had a personal interview in April 1932 - probably for the first time. Reichenau's career also advanced from 1933: with the appointment of Blomberg as Reichswehr Minister on February 1, 1933, he became head of the ministerial office in the Reichswehr Ministry . In this position he renounced the political neutrality that the Reichswehr had shown towards all governments of the Weimar Republic and formulated the slogan: "Into the new state, this is the only way we can maintain our position." On February 1, 1934 , shortly after his promotion to major general, he became head of the newly created Wehrmacht Office in the course of the restructuring of the Reichswehr and thus remained Blomberg's closest advisor.

At first Reichenau had no reservations about the SA , with which he had already worked well in 1933 in the East Prussian border guard. In June 1933, he presented plans for a "military state" in which all young people were to be trained in military sports, pre-military training and conscription. In this concept, the SA should take over the entire training of recruits. He negotiated with the SA chief Ernst Röhm that his organization should take over the Reich Board of Trustees for Youth Training, a cover organization founded in 1932 for rearmament. In the future it should be subordinate to the SA Obergruppenführer Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger . With this concept, Reichenau broke with the traditional idea of ​​the military as the “school of the nation”. The modern and pragmatic thinking officer imagined the future Reichswehr to be the organization of armed specialists in warfare. Reichenau's friendly attitude towards the SA was also evident in his instruction of October 1933 to the military district command to take the interests of the SA into account as much as possible.

It was not until February 1934 that Reichenau came into conflict with Röhm, whom he insinuated to demand skills in mobilization and warfare for his troops and to leave the Reichswehr with military training. This seemed to threaten the monopoly of the Reichswehr as the only "arms bearer of the nation". That is why Reichenau and Blomberg urged Hitler to act on June 27, 1934: The SA had to be disempowered, as did the conservative elites around Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen , who still stood in the way of the Nazis' complete seizure of power. When Papen asked for an audience with President Paul von Hindenburg on June 28, 1934, Blomberg, Reichenau and Reinhard Heydrich , the chief of the SS security service, put their troops on alert. On June 29, 1934, the leading cadre of the SA were murdered in the Röhm murders , as were several conservative opponents of the regime and the Reichswehr generals Kurt von Schleicher and Ferdinand von Bredow , both of Reichenau's predecessors as head of the ministerial office. Reichenau belonged with Hermann Göring and the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler to the "terrible triumvirate [...] that decided between life and death on June 30, 1934": The three men went through lists of names together and decided who would die by shaking their heads or nodding had to.

After Hindenburg's death on August 2, 1934, Blomberg and Reichenau ordered all members of the Reichswehr to take a personal oath of allegiance to Hitler without any legal basis for doing so. It was important to them to forge the alliance between the Reichswehr and the Führer even closer and to fend off competing claims to power by the party and the SS. The text of the swearing-in came from Reichenau himself. It was jointly responsible for the introduction of the swastika as a symbol of sovereignty in the Reichswehr and the application of the Aryan paragraph among soldiers. Reichenau was instrumental in building up the Wehrmacht and integrating it into the National Socialist state.

On October 1, 1935, he was appointed commanding general of the VII Army Corps and Military District VII in Munich, combined with his promotion to Lieutenant General . A year later, he was promoted to general of the artillery . In 1938 Reichenau was entrusted with the management of Army Group Command IV in Leipzig in connection with the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis . As commander of the 10th Army, he was involved in the invasion of the Sudetenland and later in the " smashing of the rest of the Czech Republic ".

Reichenau, who had been one of Hitler's admirers since his first meeting in 1931, “propagated and promoted” the integration of the Reichswehr into the National Socialist system like “nobody else”. That is why he is also referred to by historians as the (first) "political general". He publicly confessed to the "National Socialist Wehrmacht", demanded from soldiers a National Socialist worldview and the preservation of the "eternal values ​​of our nation of blood and race". Despite these confessions, according to his staff, he was not a staunch National Socialist himself. Rather, his military policy aimed to secure a strong position for the professional officers in the "defensive" Nazi system.

Second World War

From left to right: Gerd von Rundstedt , Johannes Blaskowitz and Walter von Reichenau (Warsaw Airport). Photo taken in September 1939

On the invasion of Poland Reichenau took over as commander of the 10th Army, the main Shock Army on Warsaw, in part. On 30 September 1939, he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross , on 1 October 1939 he was appointed Colonel-General conveyed.

In the western campaign in 1940 Reichenau commanded the 6th Army and in this position accepted the surrender of Belgium . On July 19, 1940, after the victory over France, he was appointed Field Marshal General.

Walter von Reichenau July 1941 in the Ukraine

From the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, Reichenau was under the 6th Army of Army Group South . She fought, among other things, in September 1941 in the Battle of Kiev . Due to Hitler's dissatisfaction with Gerd von Rundstedt , Reichenau was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Army Group South on the Eastern Front in Rundstedt's place on December 1, 1941 . On Reichenau's recommendation, his successor in the 6th Army, surprising to many, was his former chief of staff Friedrich Paulus .

He spoke out against the campaign in the west as well as against Operation Barbarossa. In the winter of 1941 he protested against a sweeping advance to the east. In order to maintain discipline, he ordered soldiers to be severely punished in Poland in 1939 for crimes such as looting, rape and murder. He expressed doubts about the advisability of the German occupation policy in Ukraine. The ruthless exploitation is forcing the population to armed resistance and is therefore a serious threat to the troops and their connections to the rear.

War crimes in the Soviet Union

In the war against the Soviet Union , Reichenau, as a staunch supporter of Hitler, propagated the “Weltanschauung” against “ Bolsheviks ” and Jews. He initially commanded the 6th Army. In this function he was (jointly) responsible for massacres in his area of ​​responsibility: On August 22, 1941, Reichenau ordered the murder of 90 Jewish children in Belaya Tserkov , whose parents had been shot. When the Wehrmacht officer Helmuth Groscurth , bypassing official channels, asked the Army High Command to make a decision about the fate of the children who had initially been spared, Reichenau confirmed that the children should also be shot.

Due to close contacts with the leader of the Sonderkommando 4a , SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel , there was also close cooperation between the Wehrmacht and the Sonderkommando in the largest massacre in the occupied Soviet Union during the Second World War, the Babyn Yar massacre , in which over 33,000 Jews within were shot two days (September 29-30, 1941). Members of the Wehrmacht guarded the place during the murder and after the massacre they covered the bodies with earth by means of explosions.

On October 10, 1941, he issued the so-called "Reichenau Order", which was distributed and read out down to the company level:

“[...] The main goal of the campaign against the Jewish-Bolshevik system is the complete smashing of the means of power and the eradication of Asian influence in the European cultural area. This also creates tasks for the troops that go beyond the traditional one-sided soldiers. In the east, the soldier is not only a fighter according to the rules of the art of war, but also the bearer of an inexorable nationalist idea and the avenger for all bestialities inflicted on German and related nationalities. [...] Therefore the soldier must fully understand the necessity of the harsh but just atonement for Jewish subhumanity . It has the further purpose of nipping in the bud uprisings in the rear of the Wehrmacht, which experience shows were always instigated by Jews. [...] "

Adolf Hitler and Walter von Reichenau at the headquarters of the 6th Army in Zhitomir . Photo taken in September 1941

Adolf Hitler described the Reichenau order as “excellent” and ordered all army commanders-in-chief on the Eastern Front to follow Reichenau's example.

death

On January 14, 1942, Reichenau suffered a severe stroke after running in the forest at minus 40 degrees Celsius . Reichenau died on the plane between Poltava and Lemberg on the air transport to Germany for treatment on January 17, 1942 . He was buried in the Berlin Invalidenfriedhof .

In 1944 his descendants received an endowment of real estate worth 1.01 million Reichsmarks.

Awards (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Walter von Reichenau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Timm C. Richter: Field Marshal General Walter von Reichenau, war criminal and IOC member . In: Athletes in the "Century of the Camps". Profiteers, resistors and victims . S. 45 .
  2. ↑ a b c Christian Kättlitz: Field Marshal Terror . Military & History August / September 2020. pp. 32–37.
  3. ^ Timm C. Richter: Field Marshal General Walter von Reichenau, war criminal and IOC member . In: Athletes in the "Century of the Camps". Profiteers, resistors and victims . S. 47 .
  4. ^ Timm C. Richter: Field Marshal General Walter von Reichenau, war criminal and IOC member . In: Athletes in the "Century of the Camps". Profiteers, resistors and victims . S. 48 .
  5. ^ Timm C. Richter: Field Marshal General Walter von Reichenau, war criminal and IOC member . In: Athletes in the "Century of the Camps". Profiteers, resistors and victims . S. 49 .
  6. ↑ a b c d Johannes Hürter : Hitler's army leader. The German commanders-in-chief in the war against the Soviet Union in 1941/42. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-57982-6 , pp. 130 f.
  7. ^ Thilo Vogelsang : Hitler's letter to Reichenau of December 4, 1932 . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 7th year (1959), issue 4, p. 430 ( online ).
  8. ↑ Quoted from Heinz Höhne : "Give me four years of time". Hitler and the beginnings of the Third Reich . Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 1996, p. 71.
  9. ↑ Heinz Höhne: "Give me four years". Hitler and the beginnings of the Third Reich . Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 1996, p. 182, 208 f. and 224.
  10. ↑ Heinz Höhne: "Give me four years". Hitler and the beginnings of the Third Reich . Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 1996, pp. 266-275 (here the quote).
  11. ↑ Heinz Höhne: "Give me four years". Hitler and the beginnings of the Third Reich . Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 1996, p. 287.
  12. ↑ Hans-Erich Volkmann : From Blomberg to Keitel - The Wehrmacht leadership and the dismantling of the rule of law. In: Rolf-Dieter Müller , Hans-Erich Volkmann (Hrsg.): The Wehrmacht. Myth and Reality. On behalf of the Military History Research Office . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-486-56383-1 , pp. 47-65, here: p. 50.
  13. ^ Brendan Simms: Walter von Reichenau. The political general. In: Ronald Smelser, Enrico Syring (ed.): The military elite of the Third Reich. 27 biographical sketches. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-548-33220-X , pp. 423–445, here: p. 424; and German Biographical Encyclopedia . KG Saur, Munich / Leipzig 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-25030-9 , Volume 8, p. 262. Alexander Mühle, Arnulf Scriba: Walter von Reichenau. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
  14. ↑ Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 1939-1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 618.
  15. ↑ Bernd Boll: Field Marshal General Walter von Reichenau. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. Volume 1. Primus, Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 3-89678-083-2 , pp. 195-202.
  16. ^ Ernst Willi Hansen: Basic course in German military history. Volume 2: The Age of World Wars. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58099-0 , p. 217.
  17. ↑ Wolfram Wette : The Wehrmacht. Enemy images, war of extermination, legends. Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-596-15645-9 , p. 111f. Christian Hartmann (Ed.): Crimes of the Wehrmacht. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52802-3 , p. 64.
  18. ^ Sven Oliver Müller: Nationalism in German War History. In: Jörg Echternkamp (Hrsg.): The German Reich and the Second World War. Volume 9/2. ISBN 3-421-06528-4 , pp. 75 f.
  19. ^ Christian Hartmann : Wehrmacht in the Eastern War. Front and military hinterland 1941/42. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-486-70225-5 , p. 2. Johannes Hürter : Hitler's Heerführer. The German commanders-in-chief in the war against the Soviet Union in 1941/42. Munich 2007, ISBN 3-486-58341-7 , p. 584.
  20. ↑ allworldwars.com This is what the former officer boy Reichenau, Hain, told his new Commander-in-Chief Friedrich Paulus after their capture in Stalingrad (interception protocol of the NKVD). According to Hain, who was also on the plane, Reichenau died about an hour after take-off and BEFORE the plane crash-landed in Lemberg.
  21. ↑ Gerd R. Ueberschär , Winfried Vogel : Serving and earning. Hitler's gifts to his elites. Frankfurt 1999, ISBN 3-10-086002-0 , p.
  22. ↑ 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. 653 (accessed from De Gruyter Online).
personal data
SURNAME Reichenau, Walter von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German field marshal and war criminal
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Karlsruhe
DATE OF DEATH January 17, 1942
Place of death Lviv