Wilhelm Bleckwenn

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Wilhelm Hermann Bleckwenn (born October 21, 1906 in Berge (Lower Saxony) , † May 10, 1989 in Saarbrücken ) was a German army officer, most recently major general .

career

police

Bleckwenn grew up in the mountains on the outskirts of Osnabrück, resigned as police recruits in the April 16, 1925 Police Academy Hildesheim A, was born on October 1, 1925 to sub-constable appointed and on April 1, 1926 Police Wesermünde added. He was born on January 1, 1927 police sergeant and on June 1, 1930 police sergeant . After participating in the 14th officer candidate course at the state police school for weapons service and physical training in Spandau and the higher state police school in Potsdam - Eiche , he passed the officer examination in September 1930, was appointed police officer candidate on August 11, 1932 and participated from September 20 to November 30, 1932 in a shooting instructor course and an armored car training at the School for Technology and Traffic in Berlin-Tempelhof. On April 1, 1933 he was promoted to police lieutenant and on July 1, 1934 to police lieutenant . On October 1, 1934, he switched to the staff of the Hanover State Police Group as an MG officer , where he served as a platoon leader in the 2nd State Police Hundred Hanover.

Wehrmacht

After the German Empire as part of the upgrade of the Wehrmacht , the German on April 1, 1935 state police adopted and their quartered units on July 3, 1935 in the Wehrmacht had incorporated, stepped Bleckwenn on 20 May 1935, the Wehrmacht and was on July 17, 1935 transferred to the legal relationship of a soldier as first lieutenant with effect from August 1, 1935 . After taking part in a course for MG platoons at the Döberitz Infantry School from September 23 to October 12, he became a company officer of the 3rd company of MG Battalion 1 on October 15, 1935 he was promoted to captain and on October 17, 1937 , transferred to the 10th MG Battalion as chief of the 2nd Company. From 10 July to 10 August 1938 he took part in an officer's course at the military academy Dresden part. On November 10, 1938, he became chief of the 2nd company in MG Battalion 14. On January 4, 1940, he became the commander of the 1st Battalion in the Border Infantry Regiment 127, which provided security service on the Siegfried Line. On November 22, 1940 he was commander of the III. Battalion of Infantry Regiment 690, which emerged from the 1st Battalion of Border Infantry Regiment 127. On 26 March 1941 he was the leader of reserve of OKH added, and as an officer instructor for Infantry Replacement Battalion 63 in Ingolstadt commanded.

Two months after the start of the German attack on the Soviet Union , Bleckwenn became commander of the III. Battalion of the 256th Infantry Regiment ( 112th Infantry Division ), which at that time was fighting in the Bobruisk area southeast of Minsk . On September 9, 1941, he was seriously wounded and, after a stay in the hospital, was transferred to infantry replacement battalion 256 to recover and then to the command reserve of Army Group Center on October 31, 1941 . On October 15, 1941, retroactive to September 1, he was appointed major . Already on November 4th he took over the III. Battalion and then on November 27th the 1st Battalion of Infantry Regiment 467 ( 267th Infantry Division ). On January 18, 1942, he took over the leadership of the 487 Infantry Regiment (also 267th Infantry Division). Around the same time, he suffered a severe personal blow: his wife and first son died shortly after he was born in Saarbrücken, where he lived. When his commanding general offered him a business trip to Saarbruecken, Bleckwenn declined because there was a vacation ban and he could not grant subordinates any vacation even in similar cases. With his promotion to lieutenant colonel retrospectively to August 1, 1942, he also became the commander of this regiment, which was renamed the 487 Grenadier Regiment on October 15, 1942. On November 8, 1943, he was promoted to colonel , retroactively to September 1, 1943. In the course of the Soviet winter offensive north of Gomel from February 21, 1944, Bleckwenn's regiment helped the hard-pressed 31st Infantry Division on the interface between the 4th Army and the 9th Army and thus prevented a potentially serious break-in into the front of Army Group Center. For this he was awarded the Knight's Cross on April 6, 1944 .

With effect from August 14, 1944, Bleckwenn was to be transferred to the OKH's Führerreserve and appointed combat commander of Trier , but the collapse of Army Group Center as a result of the Soviet operation Bagration prevented his departure. With the remnants of his own regiment, as well as the 532 grenadier regiment and the 31st artillery regiment, he marched in 44 days behind the advancing Soviet lines from the Dnieper through Belarusian forests to East Prussia . For this he was awarded the Knight's Cross Oak Leaves on October 18, 1944 . From October 19 to November 15, 1944 Bleckwenn took part in the 15th Division Leader Course in Hirschberg , and on November 15, 1944 he was appointed to the leadership of the LXIV. Army Corps, 19th Army , in Alsace standing 708. People Grenadier Division commissioned, whose commander he was on 30 January 1945th The division was largely destroyed in the first week of February during the fighting over the so-called Alsace bridgehead near Colmar and then dissolved. Bleckwenn himself was promoted to major general on February 8, 1945 (with effect from January 30, 1945) and on February 21, transferred to the command reserve of the OKH at Military District Command XII in Wiesbaden.

At the request of Himmler as Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula , and Grand Admiral Dönitz as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy , he was appointed Commander of the 1st Marine Division at the end of February 1945 and on February 28, 1945 took over the official business from the previous Commander, Rear Admiral Hans Hartmann . Bleckwenn succeeded in initiating the conversion of the troops into a combat division based on the scheme of a Volksgrenadier division of the army and the positions of regimental and battalion commanders to be immediately filled with army officers. With effect from March 1, 1945 Major General Bleckwenn changed from the command area of ​​the Army to the command area of ​​the High Command of the Navy (OKM).

When taking command, the division was deployed on the Oder front between Schwedt and Zehden . After a few days, on the orders of the OKH, it was shifted in several phases by battalion and regiment to the area southeast of Stettin in order to close gaps in the crumbling front of the 3rd Panzer Army and the southern section of the Greifenhagen - Altdamm bridgehead , which was being built to take over. Under rather confused conditions of command, the large formation was torn into three parts, only one of which remained under Bleckwenn's tactical leadership. A reinforced regiment defended as "fire brigade" of the deputy. II Army Corps used the southern entrances to the Szczecin motorway for six days. By March 8th most of it was worn out; Remnants of the regiment fought their way back towards the Autobahn. Another regiment, under Bleckwenn's personal leadership, fought off all Soviet attacks against the Oder Bridge in Greifenhagen for a week . Soon after the bridge was blown up, the remaining parts, led by the division commander, escaped enclosure at the last moment and fought their way to their own lines. The majority of the last regiment was only gradually moved towards Stettin , without, however, being used there in the long term. After the division was nominally upgraded on March 10th by renaming it to "1st Marine Infantry Division" by order of Hitler, it was pulled out of the bridgehead front a week later and relocated to the west bank of the Oder. The reorganization began under Bleckwenn's direction in the refreshment room southwest of Stettin.

At the beginning of April the division was relocated to the south wing of the 3rd Panzer Army southwest of Schwedt and the XXXXVI. Subordinated to Panzer Corps. At the beginning of the Battle of Berlin in mid-April, defensive battles with heavy losses occurred on the left wing at the interface with the 9th Army in the Hohensaaten area , in which all attempts to break into the central front were thrown back. After the breakthrough of the 1st Belorussian Front on the Seelow Heights and the successful transition of the 2nd Belorussian Front over the lower Oder, the shift of the division to the north was ordered on April 22nd, in order to close a front gap between Tantow and Gartz with one regiment and prepare yourself with the rest of the parts behind it. Bleckwenn's attempts to prevent the shift were unsuccessful.

Due to the lack of transport space and because of the enemy air threat, the relocation of troops dragged on for a long time. The operation itself was completely uncoordinated, so that companies and battalions had to line up without the support of heavy weapons, their lines were broken, encircled and smashed. As a result, the division was completely torn apart, so that Bleckwenn lost control of the leadership. On April 26th, at his command post in Eickstedt, east of Prenzlau, he personally participated in the defense against a Soviet tank advance. With a few hundred men, the last soldiers of his division willing to fight, he reached the Feldberg area in eastern Mecklenburg the following day in the chaos of the retreat. There he received the order to remove the still combatable parts of the 1st Marine Infantry Division from the front of the XXXXVI. Pull out Panzer Corps and collect them west of Neustrelitz. When his forward command post was threatened again on April 28th by enemy armor, it went even further west and the division began to disband for good. Major General Bleckwenn was captured by a unit of the 8th US Division on May 2nd at the corps command post in Rastow -Pulverhof near Schwerin.

Captivity and the post-war period

Very soon it was passed on by the Americans to the British, who at the end of May 1945 transferred it to the interrogation center in Kensington Palace in London, the so-called 'London District POW Cage' , where high-ranking German officers were examined for possible involvement in war crimes . The external conditions there were inhumane; the methods of interrogation used included brutal torture. In January 1946 he was taken to a prisoner of war camp in Wales, the Island Farm "Special Camp 11" in Bridgend , where he was held for the next eighteen months. The inmates included his predecessor in the 1st Marine Division, Rear Admiral Hans Hartmann . At the beginning of August 1947 Bleckwenn was transferred again to Kensington Palace, where he was interrogated because of a possible involvement in war crimes on French soil. The British then extradited him to the French authorities and he spent a few months in their custody. He was released on October 25, 1947 and returned to his family in Stockelsdorf near Lübeck in Schleswig-Holstein in the winter of 1947/48 , where he found work. In February 1952 he lived in Saarbrücken , the capital of the French Protectorate Saarland , which was then separated from the Federal Republic of Germany . There he built up an existence, made contacts with fellow officers from the ranks of the army and, for almost two decades, exchanged letters with the last commander in chief of Army Group Vistula , Colonel General ret. D. Gotthard Heinrici .

Awards

Web links

literature

  • Bernd Bölscher : On the banks of the Oder. Genesis of an end to the war. BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2014, ISBN 978-3-7357-4146-2 .
  • Walther-Peer Fellgiebel: The bearers of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939–1945. Podzun-Pallas, Friedburg, Germany: 2000, ISBN 3-7909-0284-5 .
  • Werner Jähnig: From marine vocational school to the navy. Engelsdorfer Verlag, Leipzig, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8670-3556-9 .
  • Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 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 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Letter dated December 20, 1981, partial estate of Wilhelm Bleckwenn, BArch, MSg1, No. 2873.
  2. ^ Partial estate of Wilhelm Bleckwenn, BArch, MSg1, no. 2871, 2872, 2873.
  3. ^ War diary of Army Group Vistula, March 1945. - BArch, RH 19 XV / 7a, 7b, 8.
  4. ↑ Werner Jähnig: From the maritime vocational school to the navy. Engelsdorfer Verlag, Leipzig, 2007, ISBN 978-3-86703-556-9 , p. 120 ff.
  5. ^ Partial estate of Wilhelm Bleckwenn, BArch, MSg1, no. 2871, 2872, 2873.
  6. ↑ Bernd Bölscher: On the banks of the Oder. Genesis of an end to the war. BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2014, ISBN 978-3-7357-4146-2 , pp. 220–338
personal data
SURNAME Bleckwenn, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bleckwenn, Wilhelm Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German army and naval officer, most recently major general and rear admiral in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH October 21, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Mountains (Lower Saxony)
DATE OF DEATH May 10, 1989
Place of death Saarbrücken