Werner Milch (lawyer)

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Werner Wolfgang Eberhard Milch (born November 15, 1903 in Wilhelmshaven ; † November 17, 1984 in Hemer ) was a German lawyer and officer in the Wehrmacht . His brother was the General Field Marshal and Air Force Inspector General in the Third Reich Erhard Milch , one of whose defenders he belonged in 1947 in the so-called Nuremberg Milk Trial .

Life

Family, studies and starting a career

Werner Milch was born in Wilhelmshaven in 1903 as the son of Anton Milch, chief pharmacist of the Imperial Navy. In 1905 Anton Milch moved in with his wife Clara nee. Vetter (1864–1949), his two sons and three daughters moved to Gelsenkirchen and took over the Neue Apotheke there. The parents of Clara Auguste Wilhelmine geb. Cousins ​​had moved from Berlin to Wilhelmshaven in 1893. Anton Milch's family and his mother-in-law Augusta Vetter later moved to Berlin. The Berlin house was destroyed in the bombing war, Clara Milch fled to Lüneburg, where her daughter Herta married. Herrmann lived.

Werner Milch attended the Grunewald-Gymnasium from 1910 and graduated from high school in March 1923. First he studied at the Technical University of Danzig in Langfuhr, from Easter 1925 law at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin . On June 28, 1928 he passed the first state examination in law, and on May 20, 1930, he received his doctorate as Doctor iuris utriusque. In the fourth semester he was awarded the Prussian Rescue Medal on a ribbon. Milk worked in Erich Koch-Weser's law firm until 1933 , then, until he was drafted into the Wehrmacht, at the Berlin gas works GASAG .

In 1935 he married Ursula Kayser (1913–2013), the pastor's daughter from Wehringhausen . After the war, the family initially lived in Hagen and from January 1, 1952 in Deilinghofen .

Second World War

With the mobilization on August 26, 1939, lawyer Werner Milch was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a lieutenant in the reserve and assigned to the Artillery Regiment 603 (mot) , with whom he witnessed the attack on Poland , the western campaign and the attack on the Soviet Union June 1942 transferred to the 7th Flieger Division , which was renamed the 1st Fallschirmjäger Division on May 1, 1943 .

At the beginning of the invasion of Poland, the staff was under the XIX. Army Corps with the 4th Army, which was also subordinate to the II. Division of Artillery Regiment 48, the II. Division of Artillery Regiment 68 and the Heavy Artillery Division 601 (mot) and which advanced from Pomerania towards Warsaw. At the beginning of the French campaign, the staff was under the III. Army corps with the 12th Army, which advanced through the Ardennes to the French Channel coast.

During the campaign against the USSR, the staff was permanently assigned to the II Army Corps under the 16th Army. The army corps crossed the Lithuanian border south of Schloßberg. Together with the VI. Army corps forced the breakthrough between Mariampol and Kalvarija. On June 25th it crossed the Memel at Kovno, and the Düna east of Dünaburg at Kraslava on July 3rd . By July 8th, the Sarjanka was reached. Subsequently, the corps was involved in the battle of the Newel kettle . Finally it advanced to the Lowat , and on August 2nd, Cholm was taken. Fighting in the Demyansk area and in the Valdai area followed by the end of the year .

Werner Milch, meanwhile promoted to first lieutenant and transferred to the Air Force, to the 7th Flieger-Division , attended the jumping school in Stendal. Under Eugen Meindl and Walter Koch he was deployed as a battery officer of the 5th battery in the central section of the Eastern Front, among other things to defend the Schaikowka airfield . After heavy losses, all units of the "Gruppe Meindl" were detached from the Eastern Front by mid-April 1942.

In the summer of 1942 , the Ramcke Brigade was formed in France from parts of the 7th Flieger Division , which included the 2nd Division of the Parachute Artillery Regiment. She fought in Africa in the second half of the year, where Milch's 10.5 cm light gun 40 platoon, II. Fj. Art. Rgt. 7, in which Deir Alinda was particularly successful. Subsequently, the 2nd Parachute Division was set up in southern France from the Ramcke Brigade, among others .

On July 10, 1943, the Allies landed in Sicily ( Operation Husky ), as a result of which the Axis case was triggered and the 2nd Paratrooper Division flown to Italy. Captain Milch penetrated Rome on September 11, 1943 with his 4th battery, was wounded at the Cestius pyramid and occupied the Trappist monastery of Tre Fontane.

In November 1943 the 2nd Paratrooper Division was transferred to Ukraine. Captain Milch, commander of the 2nd division of the artillery regiment, which was equipped with captured weapons for the "Advent" company (three 8.8 cm FlaK 18/36/37 , two 7.62 cm Pak 36r, four 10.5 cm light field howitzer 18 and a 45 mm anti-tank gun M1937 (53-K) ), then fought in the Shitomir and Novgorodka area . From Petki retreat via Talnoye to Novo Arkhangelsk . On March 4, 1944, the Russian offensive against Army Group South began in the division's section, during which the division had to retreat behind the Dniester in heavy fighting until mid-April 1944. It lost 2,468 men in March 1937. After the Red Army had formed a bridgehead over the Dniester at Butor on April 25, 1944 , the 2nd Paratrooper Division was involved in the counter-attack on May 10 and 11, 1944, in the operation "Bollwerk". Then the division was pulled from the front and relocated to Germany, Cologne-Wahn.

In May 1944, the heavy grenade launcher battalion of the 2nd Paratrooper Division was set up in Verdun . In August 1944, the “Parachute Grenade Launcher Training and Experimental Battalion” with 36 grenade launchers was set up , to which 400 men were added in Saint-Nicolas-de-Port . At the end of the month the battalion was relocated via Lunéville and Nancy to the Moselle position and was placed under Colonel Hans Eggersh's defense, which in turn was subordinate to the 553rd Grenadier Division. Due to the advance of the Allied troops, the battalion could no longer be assigned to the 2nd Paratrooper Division.

When a US battalion formed a bridgehead east of the Moselle in Flavigny-sur-Moselle in September 1944, Captain Milch of his own accord pushed a raid to the bridge. The Moselle position was cleared in mid-September, and in October the battalion from the 553rd Grenadier Division was released to the resting position at Weißewarte . It was set up again as a paratrooper grenade launcher training battalion in March 1945 and reached Hamminkeln on March 20, 1945 . On March 24, 1945, Allied paratroopers were dropped off there as part of Operation Varsity . There followed retreat battles along the route Isselburg , Winterswijk , Lingen (Ems) , Rheine , Bad Bentheim , Meppen , Haselünne , Friesoythe , Edewecht , Osterscheps to Jaderberg / Seefeld (Stadland) , where the until then independent battalion ended the war after the partial surrender of the Wehrmacht in northwest Germany on the Timeloberg near Wendisch Evern on May 4th "with military honors". The commander's adjutant had previously withdrawn from the battalion without permission, while Captain Milch himself shot down an enemy tank on Edewechter Damm shortly before. From Jaderberg, Milch and his battalion, while maintaining the command structure and responsibilities, walked with 120 horses around the Jade Bay to the Hooksiel internment camp .

After the war

After being released from captivity, Milch worked again as a lawyer. Among other things, as associate lawyer of Friedrich Bergold , he defended his brother Erhard Milch in the milk trial , one of the twelve Nuremberg follow-up trials . Their defense strategy of portraying the accused as an apolitical military man who was under pressure and who had no personal responsibility, failed. The process attracted public attention, with the defense of Erhard Milch by his brother Werner Milch being discussed.

Werner Milch (right) with his brother Erhard as a defendant in the visitor room of the American Military Court in Nuremberg

He later worked as a lawyer in Hemer until his death. In 1961 Werner Milch published an essay about his experiences as a parachute artilleryman in Italy.

Awards

Publications

  • The aircraft mortgage . Dissertation, Neustrelitz 1930.
  • As a parachute gunner in Rome. With the monks of the “Tre Fontane” monastery . In: Der deutsche Fallschirmjäger , 1961, issue 2, pp. 9-10.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erich Kuss: The Breslau family Milch and their Jewish or German descendants . Shaker Verlag, Aachen 2016, ISBN 9783844047271 , pp. 11–28.
  2. ↑ Peter Alexander Bösel: Berlin-Grunewald in historical views. Sutton, Erfurt 2005, ISBN 3897028530 , p. 17
  3. ↑ Erich Kuss: The Breslau family Milch and their Jewish or German descendants . Shaker Verlag, Aachen 2016, p. 23.
  4. ↑ Werner Milch: The aircraft mortgage . Neustrelitz, 1930.
  5. ↑ Felix Kraushaar: Departure to New Shores: The private law and legal history dissertations of the Berlin University in the first third of the 20th century in the context of legal and faculty history. Berlin, 2014, pp. 157, 158.
  6. ↑ Humboldt University in Berlin, archive, Best. Jur. Fac. Bis 1945, No. 301, Bl. 421/88; Bl. 32, 32R.
  7. ↑ Erich Kuss: The Breslau family Milch and their Jewish or German descendants . Shaker Verlag, Aachen 2016 p. 76.
  8. ↑ Berlin address book from 1938 to 1943: “Milch, Werner, Dr., Syndikus, Grunewald, Menzelstr. 2 ".
  9. ↑ Erich Kuss: The Breslau family Milch and their Jewish or German descendants . Shaker Verlag, Aachen 2016, p. 82.
  10. ^ Franz Thomas, Günter Wegmann, Manfred Dörr (eds.): The knight's cross bearers of the German Wehrmacht 1939–1945. II paratroopers. Osnabrück 1986, ISBN 3764814616 . Pp. 188, 189, 422.
  11. ↑ Heinz Bliss: "Fallschirmjäger im Kampf um Leningrad 1941/42." In: "Der deutsche Fallschirmjäger," 2001, issue 1, p. 10, issue 2, pp. 15, 16, issue 3, p. 20.
  12. ↑ Hans-Martin Stimpel: The German Parachute Troop 1942-1945 deployments in theaters of war in the east and west. Hamburg, 2001, pp. 28-56.
  13. ↑ Information from Eckart Milch.
  14. ↑ Hans-Martin Stimpel: The German Parachute Troop 1942-1945 deployments in theaters of war in the east and west. Hamburg, 2001, pp. 57-62.
  15. ↑ Ramcke Parachute Brigade (Eng. WP)
  16. ↑ http://digilander.libero.it/frontedeserto/diari/santinimunassib1.htm
  17. ^ Franz Thomas, Günter Wegmann, Manfred Dörr (eds.): "The knight's cross bearers of the German Wehrmacht 1939–1945. II paratroopers." Osnabrück 1986, ISBN 3764814616 . P. 188.
  18. ↑ Willi Kammann: "The way of the 2nd paratrooper division." Munich, 1998, pp. 11-40. Werner Milch: As a parachute gunner in Rome. With the monks of the “Tre Fontane” monastery . In: Der deutsche Fallschirmjäger, 1961, issue 2, p. 9, 10. Un Monaco Cisterciense Trappista: Storia Dell'Abbazia delle Tre Fontane dal 1140 al 1950, Rome 2010, ISBN 9781446665268 , p. 468.
  19. ↑ Willi Kammann: "The way of the 2nd paratrooper division." Munich, 1998, pp. 41-75.
  20. ↑ Hans-Martin Stimpel: The German Parachute Troop 1942 - 1945 deployments in theaters of war in the east and west. Hamburg, 2001, pp. 95-128.
  21. ↑ http://gliederungundstellenbesetzung.blogspot.de/2008/08/fallschirm-granatwerfer-bataillon-2.html
  22. ↑ http://www.histoire-lorraine.fr/index.php/monuments-us/106-la-baitaille-de-pont-de-flavigny
  23. ↑ http://www.coulthart.com/134/bridge.htm
  24. ↑ Willi Kammann: The way of the 2nd paratrooper division. Munich, 1998, pp. 102-105.
  25. ↑ Notes in a forum , accessed on January 18, 2015; Stimpel 383-397l.
  26. ↑ http://www.volksbund.de/fileadmin/redaktion/BereichInfo/Textsammlungen/Ausstellungen/0400_ausstellung_timeloberg/Timeloberg.pdf
  27. ↑ Information from Eckart Milch.
  28. ↑ Jörg Deuter: The wrong picture: for the revision of an icon. Werner Heldt's “Dead Crow at the Window”, the program picture of the prisoners of war. In: Kevin E. Kandt, Hermann Vogel von Vogelstein (ed.): From Hippocrenes Quell ': an album amicorum of art historical contributions on the 60th birthday of Gerd-Helge Vogel, Berlin 2011, ISBN 9783867321044 , pp. 230-252, pp. 233.
  29. ↑ These statements also take Dr. Werner Milch's unpublished memoirs that his son, Eckart Milch, is keeping.
  30. ↑ Erich Kuss: The Breslau family Milch and their Jewish or German descendants . Shaker Verlag, Aachen 2016, p. 81.
  31. ↑ War crimes trial on upholstery: milk not yet heard . In: Der Spiegel . No. 2 , 1947, p. 6 ( online ).
personal data
SURNAME Milk, Werner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Milch, Werner Wolfgang Eberhard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and officer in the Wehrmacht
DATE OF BIRTH November 15, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Wilhelmshaven
DATE OF DEATH 17th November 1984
Place of death Hemer