Wilhelm Adam (General, 1877)

Wilhelm Adam (1938)

Wilhelm Adam (born September 15, 1877 in Ansbach ; † April 8, 1949 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen ) was a German army officer, from 1939 Colonel General in the Army of the Wehrmacht .

Life

family

His parents were the Amberg businessman Theodor Ignaz Maria Adam (* 1850) and his wife Maria Margaretha Engerer (* 1853). He married Isabella Buchner on September 29, 1906. The marriage had two children.

Bavarian Army

After attending a humanistic grammar school in 1897, he joined the Bavarian Army's railway battalion as a two-year-old volunteer . In 1899 he became a lieutenant . From 1907 to 1910 Adam graduated from the War Academy , which made him qualified for the General Staff. The following year he was promoted to captain and transferred to the Ingolstadt fortification . In 1912 he was appointed company commander in the 3rd Pioneer Battalion, also stationed in Ingolstadt .

At the beginning of the First World War he was deployed with the battalion in Lorraine and France. Adam later served on various division and army staffs . In December 1917 he was promoted to major . Adam received several awards during the war, including both classes of the Iron Cross , the Prince Regent Luitpold Medal , the Bavarian Military Order of Merit III. Class with swords and the Knight's Cross II. Class of the Order of Albrecht with swords.

Weimar Republic

After the war, Adam was accepted into the Reichswehr and from 1923 to 1924 he was a battalion commander in Passau . From 1924 to 1927 he was Chief of Staff of Military District VII in Munich , then commander of the 19th (Bavarian) Infantry Regiment and Colonel . As chief of staff of Group Command I , he moved to Berlin in 1929 , and on February 1, 1930, he was appointed major general. On October 1, 1930 Adam was appointed chief of the troop office, on December 1, 1931 he was promoted to lieutenant general .

time of the nationalsocialism

From October 1, 1933, he served as a commander in Military District VII and was also the commander of the 7th Division . As part of the rearmament of the Wehrmacht under Hitler , Adam became General of the Infantry and Commanding General of the VII Army Corps in 1935 . From October 1 of the same year he took over command of the newly founded Wehrmacht Academy . This commando was a deportation post to which Adam was transferred after criticizing his superior, Reich Minister of War Werner von Blomberg . While still in charge of the troop office, he had written a report in 1933 in which he described the Wehrmacht as incapable of waging a major war. Remarks such as “One should be careful not to make the people drunk” and “How could one wage a war if not even every soldier has a helmet” were not conducive to his career. Adam still pursued the goal of building the academy into a cadre forge for the general staff of the Wehrmacht. He did not succeed, however, and the Wehrmacht Academy was closed again after he left.

Because of his critical attitude towards the expansion of the Siegfried Line and Hitler's risky war plans, Adam was called a brakeman and defeatist. Adam's last transfer was his appointment as Commander in Chief of Army Group Command 2 in Kassel in the spring of 1938.

When the Sudeten crisis came to a head in 1938 , Adam was involved in the September conspiracy together with Colonel General Ludwig Beck . He also informed Colonel General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord about this and assured him that he and Beck would arrest Hitler. Due to the Munich Agreement , however, these plans were abandoned.

In October 1938 he submitted his departure to forestall his release. He was released from active service on November 10, 1938 and retired on December 31, 1938 with the character of Colonel General. He received the authorization to wear the uniform of the 98 Mountain Infantry Regiment - stationed in Mittenwald and Garmisch-Partenkirchen at the time - probably in recognition of his interest, already as a colonel and later as head of the troop office to promote and expand the mountain troops . This expansion began during his time as commander in military district VII with the establishment of a mountain brigade , from which the various mountain divisions later emerged.

Shortly before the start of the Second World War , Adam was made available to the Wehrmacht on August 26, 1939, but was not given any use. His mobilization provision was lifted on May 31, 1943.

His critical attitude towards the war brought him into difficulties again in 1944, after he had expressed himself pessimistically about the outcome of the war in a skat round with Richard Strauss .

post war period

During the Nuremberg Trials Adam made himself available as a witness .

His widow did not agree to the barracks being named after him in Garmisch-Partenkirchen , planned and proposed by the Bundeswehr in the 1950s . The militaria still preserved by him and his two sons who died in the World War have been in the Military History Museum of the Federal Armed Forces in Dresden since 1996 and found space in an exhibition before the building was converted.

His written records from the years 1920 to 1945, around 700 handwritten pages, are in the Freiburg Military Archives .

literature

• Othmar Hackl : The Bavarian War Academy (1867-1914). CH Beck´sche publishing house bookstore. Munich 1989. ISBN 3-406-10490-8 . P. 393.
• Friedrich-Christian Stahl: Colonel General Wilhelm Adam. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. 68 CVs . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-534-23980-1 , pp. 1–8.
• Gerd F. Heuer: The Colonel General of the Army. Owner of the highest German command posts. Moewig, Rastatt 1988, ISBN 3-8118-1049-9 , pp. 1-8.
• Fritz von Siegler:  Adam, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 53 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Wilhelm Adams estate (ED 109) in the archive of the Institute for Contemporary History Munich – Berlin (PDF; 1.94 MB)
• Witness statements by Wilhelm Adam (ZS-0006) in the archive of the Institute for Contemporary History Munich – Berlin (PDF; 6.3 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Othmar Hackl: The Bavarian War Academy (1867-1914). CH Beck´sche publishing house bookstore. Munich 1989. ISBN 3-406-10490-8 . P. 393.
2. ^ Gerd F. Heuer: The Colonel General of the Army owner of the highest German command posts. Moewig. Rastatt 1988. ISBN 3-8118-1049-9 . P. 19.
3. ↑ Hans Magnus Enzensberger : Hammerstein or the obstinacy. A German story. Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp 2008, ISBN 978-3-518-41960-1
4. ↑ Estate ( Memento of the original from March 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. and biographical information in the holdings of the Federal Archives , viewed May 6, 2010.