Walther Wenck

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Walther Wenck (1943)

Walther Wenck (born September 18, 1900 in Wittenberg ; † May 1, 1982 near Ried im Innkreis , Upper Austria ) was a German officer, most recently a general of the armored forces , and manager .

The 12th Army , which was subordinate to him in 1945 and was also known as the Wenck Army , represented Hitler's last hope in the successful defense of the Reich capital Berlin . However, in view of the military situation, Wenck carried out Hitler's order, which he personally received from Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel not from.

Life

Career

The third son of the officer Maximilian Wenck joined the Prussian army at Easter 1911 as a cadet in the Naumburg Cadet House . He had been in the main cadet institute in Berlin-Lichterfelde since the spring of 1918 . In February 1919 Wenck served in the Reinhard Freikorps and took part in the assault on the Berlin newspaper district during the suppression of the Spartacus uprising , in which he was wounded and which earned him promotion to NCO . He then went over to the Oven Freikorps . Wenck was accepted into the Reichswehr in January 1921 . He attended the Central Infantry School in Munich until February 1923 . Wenck was then transferred to the 9th Infantry Regiment and thus made a lieutenant. He married Irmgard Wehnelt on October 3rd, 1928 and had twins on August 1st, 1930.

National Socialism and World War II

Wenck signed up for the Kraftfahrttruppe (a camouflage name for the armored force banned by the Versailles Treaty ) and on May 1, 1933, he was transferred to the 3rd Motor Vehicle Department in Berlin-Lankwitz . He owed this transfer to Lieutenant Colonel Heinz Guderian (at that time chief of staff for the inspection of motorized troops in the Reichswehr Ministry ), who followed his career closely. He was promoted to captain on May 1, 1934. Wenck attended the military academy from 1935 to 1936 . He then took over a post in the command of the tank troops in Berlin (in the general staff ). He was also an adjutant to Colonel General Hans von Seeckt . Wenck became chief of the 1st Company of the 2nd Panzer Regiment in Eisenach on November 10, 1938 . After this assignment he served in the staff of the 1st Panzer Division from August 18, 1939 .

When the war began on September 1, 1939, Wenck was appointed major and three weeks later, on September 18, 1939, he was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd class. Just two more weeks later, on October 4, 1939, he was honored with the Iron Cross 1st Class. Wenck was promoted to lieutenant colonel for special tactical skills in the western campaign in 1940 during the rapid conquest of the city of Belfort (June 18, 1940) . Guderian was his superior. On January 26, 1942, he received the German Cross in Gold and, after his promotion to Colonel on June 1, 1942, was assigned to Berlin as a teacher for general staff courses. Wenck became chief of the LVII General Staff on September 3, 1942 . Panzer Corps and then Chief of Staff to the Romanian Army Commander Colonel General Petre Dumitrescu .

He received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on December 28, 1942 and was appointed Major General on March 1, 1943 . Wenck became chief of the general staff of the 1st Panzer Army of General of the Cavalry Eberhard von Mackensen on March 11, 1943 . From 24 March 1944 he was Chief of Staff of Army Group A . In this position he was promoted to lieutenant general on April 1, 1944. After July 20, 1944, Wenck became chief of the general staff under Colonel General Guderian and held this post until February 1945 when he was seriously injured in a car accident.

At the end of the war, on April 7, 1945, Hitler appointed him commander-in-chief of the new 12th Army and at the same time, retrospectively, promoted General of the Panzer Troops to October 1, 1944 . Wenck's unit was supposed to advance towards Berlin at the end of April and thus intervene in the battle for the capital of the Reich. However, since the 12th Army was not set up for such a project in terms of personnel or material and, in his opinion, Berlin could no longer be held against the Red Army, Wenck refused to carry out this order.

Wenck instead marched east with his 12th Army. There were the remnants of the 9th Army under the command of Theodor Busse , which were surrounded by Soviet troops near the village of Halbe . In the Halbe pocket there were tens of thousands of soldiers, civilians and forced laborers who were pushing west. The Soviet artillery fired from the outside into the area held by the Germans. Indeed, Wenck's men managed to reach the trapped army. Then he led all troops westward toward the advancing US forces. Among them were the young soldiers Hans Dietrich Genscher and Dieter Hildebrandt . Before that, Wenck's troops had succeeded in evacuating around 3,000 wounded and staff from hospitals in the Beelitz sanatoriums through their Scharnhorst infantry division . At Tangermünde they reached the Elbe in early May . Numerous soldiers and civilians managed to cross the river there on a provisional wooden footbridge over the partially destroyed Elbe bridge at Tangermünde . In the town hall of Stendal the 12th Army finally capitulated to the US armed forces, Wenck was taken prisoner of war.

post war period

At Christmas 1947 Wenck returned from captivity and from September 1948 worked in an auxiliary commercial activity at Hubert Schulte GmbH, apparatus and pipeline construction, in Bochum-Dahlhausen , a subsidiary of Dr. C. Otto & Comp. , Refractory factories, Dahlhausen. A short time later it was taken over by the main company. Here he was appointed to the management in 1954 and chaired it in the following year, 1955. Wenck was to take over at the head of the German armed forces after the establishment of the German armed forces; However, this offer was withdrawn after his demands for this office (personnel changes; instead of inspector general a commander in chief of the Bundeswehr, etc.). From 1960 Wenck was general director of the Diehl Foundation in Nuremberg in the field of defense technology and armaments, he retired in 1966 and has since lived in Bad Rothenfelde in Lower Saxony .

Walther Wenck had a fatal accident during a trip to Austria on May 1, 1982 when his car crashed into a tree and was buried a few days later in his home town of Bad Rothenfelde.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Crash kills retired Gen. Wenck, who defied Hitler's suicidal order . Chicago Tribune, May 8, 1982, p. 10. Retrieved March 3, 2017.
  2. ↑ on the quick conquest of Belfort see here (p. 132) : Wenck reached Montbéliard around midnight; Guderian allowed him to advance further, for which the tanks had enough fuel. On June 18, all three forts in Belfort were attacked to surrender.
  3. ↑ Died: Walter Wenck . In: Der Spiegel . No. 19 , 1982 ( online - May 10, 1982 ).
personal data
SURNAME Wenck, Walther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lieutenant general, commander in chief of the 12th Army in World War II, and manager
DATE OF BIRTH September 18, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Wittenberg
DATE OF DEATH May 1, 1982
Place of death near Ried im Innkreis , Upper Austria