Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach

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Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach (left) with Friedrich Paulus in Stalingrad, 1942

Walther Kurt von Seydlitz-Kurzbach (born August 22, 1888 in Hamburg , † April 28, 1976 in Bremen ; mostly just Walther von Seydlitz ) was a German artillery general in World War II . In Soviet captivity, he campaigned in vain for the formation of a corps of captured German soldiers to fight on the side of the anti-Hitler coalition .

Life

origin

He came from the family of the lords and barons of Seydlitz and the Counts of Seidlitz, which was first mentioned at the beginning of the 13th century. Many members of the family served in the Prussian army. Among others, Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz-Kurzbach , general of the cavalry under Frederick the Great , and Major Florian von Seydlitz, adjutant of the later Field Marshal Yorck von Wartenburg, became known .

He was a son of the Prussian Lieutenant General Alexander von Seydlitz-Kurzbach and his wife Helene, born von Guenther (1856-1933). She was a daughter of the Prussian President of the Province of Poznan William Barstow von Guenther .

Military career

Seydlitz-Kurzbach graduated from high school in 1908 and joined the 2nd West Prussian Field Artillery Regiment No. 36 of the Prussian Army in Danzig as a flag junior . After graduating from war school , he became a lieutenant in 1910 . In 1914/18 he took part in the First World War on both fronts, in 1916/17 in the west on the Somme and in 1918 in the east. In 1915 he was promoted to first lieutenant and in 1917 to captain . Seydlitz received both classes of the Iron Cross , the Hanseatic Cross (Hamburg), the Wound Badge in silver and in 1918 the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords.

In the Weimar Republic , Seydlitz served as a career officer in the Reichswehr , which employed him in 1919 in the Eastern Border Guard as an adjutant of a field artillery brigade, in 1920 as a regimental adjutant in Schwerin and around 1925 as head of a training battery. From 1929 he worked as an adjutant to the head of the Army Arms Office in the Reichswehr Ministry. In 1930 he was promoted to major and in 1933 transferred to Verden as commander of a mounted detachment of an artillery regiment , where his family lived until the post-war years. In 1934 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and in 1936 to colonel, as well as being appointed commander of the 22nd Infantry Division's newly established Artillery Regiment 22 in Verden .

Second World War

At the end of September 1939 he gave up his command (commander of the 22nd artillery regiment). He was appointed artillery  commander 102 (Arko 102) in Potsdam. On December 1, 1939, he was promoted to major general. At the beginning of March 1940 he gave up his command as Arko 102 again. For this he was then appointed commander of the 12th Infantry Division . He led this in May 1940 in the western campaign. After just a few days, he was awarded both clasps for his iron crosses.

After the end of the French campaign, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on August 15, 1940 . His division remained in France as an occupying force until 1941.

In June 1941 his division took part in the attack on the Soviet Union as part of the 16th Army . On December 1, 1941, he was promoted to Lieutenant General and on December 31, he was awarded the Knight's Cross with the Oak Leaves. In 1942 he gave up command of the 12th Infantry Division and in March 1942 became the leader of the Seydlitz group . He was given the difficult job that Demyansk pocket , were stuck in the nearly 100,000 men to break from the outside. At the beginning of April it was possible to re-establish the land connection with the encircled people (" bridge building company "). This success led Seydlitz to the promotion to general of the artillery on June 1, 1942 and the appointment to the commanding general of the LI. Army Corps .

Stalingrad

The corps belonging to General Friedrich Paulus' 6th Army was deployed from September 1942 in the Battle of Stalingrad in the German attack on the city. When the Soviet pincers closed in the rear of the Stalingrad Army on November 22, 1942, the Demyansk "horror" had become one of the more than 250,000 encircled. No one among the high-ranking Stalingrad generals called for the breakout from the kettle as emphatically as Seydlitz, even against Hitler's order to hold out. With the sinking of the 6th Army, he was taken prisoner by the Soviets on January 31, 1943, including in prisoner-of-war camp 5110/48 Woikowo .

To Stalingrad

Meeting of the NKFD; Sitting:
left: General Seydlitz
right: Chairman Erich Weinert

Seydlitz was involved in the establishment of the Association of German Officers (BDO) on 11/12. September 1943 in the prison camp Lunjowo near Moscow and became its president. The BDO remained as an organization until November 2, 1945. Eleven of the 22 generals in Stalingrad (including General Field Marshal Paulus) joined the BDO. Two months after its founding, the BDO joined the National Committee Free Germany (NKFD), an association of prisoner-of-war German soldiers and officers with exiled German communists , which was founded in July 1943 as an independent organization .

The BDO published on 11./12. September 1943 the following declaration of principle:

“We, the surviving fighters of the 6th German Army, the Stalingrad Army, generals, officers and soldiers, we turn to you at the beginning of the fifth year of the war to show our homeland, our people, the escape route. All of Germany knows what Stalingrad means. We went through a hell. We have been pronounced dead and have risen to new life. We can no longer be silent! We have the right like no one else to speak, not just in our own name, but in the name of our dead comrades, on behalf of all the victims of Stalingrad. Every thinking German officer understands that Germany lost the war. The whole people feel that. We therefore turn to the people and the armed forces. Above all, we speak to the military leaders, generals and officers of the Wehrmacht. A big decision is in your hands! The National Socialist regime will never be ready to open the way that alone can lead to peace. This realization commands you to declare war on the pernicious regime and to stand up for the creation of a government based on the trust of the people. Do not deny your historical calling! Call for the immediate resignation of Hitler and his government! Fight side by side with the people to remove Hitler and his regime and save Germany from chaos and collapse! "

In two memoranda dated September 22, 1943 and February 4, 1944, Seydlitz asked the Soviet leadership to allow a corps of German volunteers to be set up. He asked Josef Stalin to give officers and soldiers of the Wehrmacht who so wish the opportunity, weapon in hand, to contribute to the smashing of the Hitler regime and the end of the war. He campaigned for a corps with about 40,000 men. However, a “Seydlitz Army” did not materialize, not even in the beginning. So it was left with propaganda calls to the Wehrmacht soldiers to surrender to the Soviet troops.

Seydlitz intended to use the planned corps to support the Red Army in their struggle with the aim of smashing National Socialist Germany . But at the same time he strove to preserve Germany within the borders of 1937 under a new democratic government, to which the corps was to be available for defense purposes. This was already set as a goal in the founding document of the BDO: "... 3. Prevention of the dismemberment of Germany, 4. Preservation of the army for defense purposes". Also in the memorandum sent to General Melnikow (not to Stalin) on the formation of a German unit of February 4, 1944, it can be read that an operation at the front is only planned "as soon as the political and psychological conditions are created ie larger German troop units are ready to join the German Liberation Army ... "

For example, on January 30, 1944, Seydlitz gave the following address:

“The 6th Army perished in Stalingrad because, on Hitler's orders, they continued a militarily senseless resistance in a hopeless situation. Hundreds of thousands of comrades who were dear to us and dear to us were sacrificed. [...] It is not dishonorable, but a commandment of the preservation of our people, if you refuse to continue the war in a hopeless situation. Do not rely on unfounded promises. We will fulfill the legacy of the dead comrades of Stalingrad when we show you the way to salvation, to life. We survivors of Stalingrad preceded this path, follow us for the salvation and preservation of our people! "

Consequences for Seydlitz

His cooperation with the Soviet war opponent led to his sentencing to death for high treason by the Reich Court Martial and to kinship liability for his family. His wife Ingeborg was the daughter of the surgeon Arthur Barth . In July 1944 she and her eldest daughters Mechtild and Dietlind were transferred by the Gestapo to the police prison in Bremen and later transferred to Silesia. The younger daughters Ingrid and Ute were interned in the Bad Sachsa children's home in Borntal . In December, his wife was forced to divorce him. The divorce was reversed after the war, and the court martial was overturned. Seydlitz also outlawed the armed forces generals. The knight's cross awarded to him was revoked. The withdrawal was lifted in 1956 by a court ruling.

After the war

Immediately after the end of the war hoped many people in the destroyed Berlin that Germany a division could escape. In their opinion, Stalin had advocated this variant, which was known as the Seydlitz solution .

In January 1949 Seydlitz asked for repatriation to the Soviet zone of occupation . However, he was not released, but charged with alleged murder of the civilian population and captured Red Army soldiers . On July 8, 1950, a Soviet military tribunal sentenced him to death, but then converted the sentence to 25 years of correctional camp. In the course of the return of the last ten thousand prisoners of war , Seydlitz was also released to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955 and returned to Verden. The Verden district court overturned the death sentence from the Third Reich in 1956 . After the death of his mother-in-law, the Seydlitz family moved to Bremen, where he died at the age of 87.

Seydlitz 'memoirs appeared - as determined by him - only after his death.

On April 23, 1996, the Moscow Public Prosecutor's Office posthumously overturned the 1950 judgment (the USSR disintegrated in 1991 ).

Commemoration

Stumbling block

The former residential building "Burgberg 3" in Verden has meanwhile been torn down. The stumbling block for Walter v. Seydlitz-Kurzbach no longer exists here.

Works

  • Stalingrad - conflict and consequence. Memories. Stalling, Oldenburg 1977.

literature

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 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. 703.
  2. ↑ Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach: "We went through hell". In: Der Spiegel from August 29, 1977
  3. ↑ bundesarchiv.de
  4. ↑ "We went through hell": From the memoirs of General Walther von Seydlitz . In: Der Spiegel . No. 36 , 1977, pp. 68–82, here: 72/74 . ( Online - Aug. 29, 1977 ).
  5. ↑ German Broadcasting Archive
  6. ↑ Obituary notice of the family In: Mecklenburgische Zeitung. May 7, 1927.
  7. ↑ Margret Boveri reports on it : Days of Survival. Berlin 1945. p. 280: “11. August 1945: Stalin wanted to push through the so-called Seydlitz solution - even if in the end it was not the generals but only the communists who formed the government; and many here in Berlin, who above all wanted to preserve the unity of the empire, saw hope in this. "
  8. ↑ The decree 43 that looked for the death penalty before: (online at: library.fes.de )
  9. ↑ Seydlitz writes in his memoirs that on July 8, 1950, he was only sentenced to death and only 1 ½ hours later the death penalty was converted into 25 years' imprisonment. "This thought - I was 62 years old at the time - was so terrible for me that I asked the court to be shot on the spot." In: Seydlitz: Stalingrad - Conflict and Consequence. Stalling Verlag, 1977, ISBN 3-7979-1353-2 , p. 373; the Soviet Union abolished the death penalty on May 25, 1947, but reintroduced it on January 12, 1950 for a range of offenses. Apparently, due to an ambiguous statement in the relevant decree, it was not clear to the court whether it could impose the death penalty in accordance with the norm of Ukas 43. Wording of the decrees In: Wilhelm Gallas (transl. And ed.): Criminal Code of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic of November 22, 1926 in the version valid on January 1, 1952 with ancillary laws and materials. (= Collection of extra-German penal codes, published by the Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law University of Freiburg / Br. LX). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1953, p. 71.
  10. ↑ Seydlitz: Traitor or Resistance Fighter? In: Der Spiegel . No. 36 , 1977, pp. 67 f . ( Online - Aug. 29, 1977 ). The memoirs (Stalingrad - Conflict and Consequence. Memories) were published by Stalling-Verlag, Oldenburg.
personal data
SURNAME Seydlitz-Kurzbach, Walther von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Seydlitz, Walther von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German general of the artillery
DATE OF BIRTH August 22, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 1976
Place of death Bremen