Wilhelm Kuntner

Wilhelm Kuntner

Wilhelm Kuntner (born November 17, 1915 in Bruck ad Mur ; † May 21, 2001 in Vienna ) was an Austrian general of the armored forces and a military diplomat.

Life

After graduating from high school in 1936, he served his one-year volunteer year in the Dragoon Regiment No. 1 of the Armed Forces . In 1938 he was called up again and in November of that year he was assigned to the German Wehrmacht as an officer candidate at the Dresden War School. On September 1, 1939 he was promoted to lieutenant and took part in the attack on Poland . He soon acquired a reputation as a replenishment expert and was deployed in this field for the next two years, from 1941 on the Eastern Front. During a combat mission in the Caucasus in 1942 he was slightly wounded. He later became a company commander in the tank troops in various operational areas, most recently in the defensive battles in Hungary. Wounded again just before the end of the war, he was able to find his way to his family in Bruck after his release from the hospital. At the end of the war he was a captain.

After his return home, he began his service as Rittmeister in the B-Gendarmerie on December 31, 1951 . In April 1955 he became the commandant of the “Steiermark Fahreinheit”, an armored reconnaissance force. After the conclusion of the state treaty, this association was relocated to Hörsching and formed the basis of the later armored troop school. On January 31, 1956, Kuntner was promoted to captain and on September 1, he was appointed commander of the newly established 4th Panzer Battalion in Graz . From August 1958 he was a listener of the 2nd General Staff Course , after which he was appointed Chief of Staff of the 9th Tank Brigade on September 1, 1960. In this function he was - since January 4, 1961 as Major of the General Staff - the closest collaborator and confidante of the commandant, Colonel Emil Spannocchi , during the establishment of the first armored unit of the armed forces . At the beginning of 1963 the organization was reorganized into the Panzergrenadierbrigade and the changeover to a new training system. Time and again he benefited from his extensive knowledge, his keen intellect, his dazzling art of formulation and his subtle humor.

After Spannocchi took over command of the staff academy in mid-1963, he soon brought his experienced colleague Kuntner to this institution. Since September 2, 1964, he was their deputy commander and commander of the "Comprehensive National Defense" teaching group. In this function, he published numerous articles on security issues and designed a weekly radio program “Strategische Rundschau” for five years. For this he received the Austrian State Prize for journalistic achievements in the interests of intellectual national defense (1969). From 1973, Major General Kuntner was a member of the Austrian delegation to the “Conference for Cooperation and Security in Europe” ( CSCE ). He was the coordinator for the "Military Aspects" agenda and the main speaker of the "Group of Neutral and Non-Alliance" at the conference. He was involved in the formulation of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975 and also in the 1st follow-up conference in Belgrade . In 1975 he was entrusted with the management of the National Defense Academy and was its commander from 1976, since July 1, 1976 as General of the Armored Force .

Appreciation

Kuntner had not only promoted the development of the National Defense Academy into a recognized university in the fields of military science and security policy, but also set new standards in the field of military diplomacy and helped to open up the armed forces to its future international tasks. In doing so, he also laid the foundations on which his successors - in the National Defense Academy General Lothar Brósch-Fohraheim and in the military diplomatic work in the CSCE Lieutenant General Karl Liko - could build on. His contribution to the development of the comprehensive national defense and the creation of the national defense plan was also essential. In close cooperation with the head of the coordination office of the Federal Chancellery, Section Head Brigadier Dr. Richard Bayer, he was significantly involved in its creation and final editing between 1976 and 1985. Since his participation in the establishment of the Austrian tank troops in Hörsching and Götzendorf, he also remained closely connected to his former comrades, including the later generals Friedrich Adrario , Günther Hoy, Robert Lang , Karl Wohlgemuth and many others. Unbureaucratic attitude, practical relevance, a sense of responsibility, but also the art of celebrating parties and maintaining cheerful calm even in difficult situations, Kuntner and the other “Götzendorfer” have set an example for their younger comrades. Because of his merits and, above all, his journalistic activities, he was awarded the title "Professor" by the Federal President in 1990.

literature

• Georg Podlipny, General Kuntner, biography, seminar paper Univ. Vienna, 1982
• Lothar Brósch-Fohraheim, Gen i. R. Prof. Wilhelm Kuntner 1915 to 2001, in Troop Service, Issue 4/2001, p. 305 f.
• Stefan Bader, At the highest point, The Generals of the Federal Army of the Second Republic, Vienna 2004, p. 176 ff.
• Richard Bayer, The History of Comprehensive National Defense, Writings of the National Defense Academy, Vienna 2008