Wilhelm Wetzel
Wilhelm Wetzel (born July 17, 1888 in Sarbske , Lauenburg district in Pomerania , Western Pomerania ; † July 4, 1964 in Hamburg ) was a German officer , most recently general of the infantry in World War II .
Life
Wetzel came on 19 February 1907 as an ensign in the Grenadier Regiment "King Frederick the Great" (3 Ostpreußisches) no. 4 of the Prussian army and was on 18 August 1908. Lieutenant promoted. At the beginning of the First World War in 1914 he served in his main regiment in the 2nd Infantry Division on the Eastern Front and was promoted to captain on April 18, 1916 .
After the end of the war he switched to the provisional Reichswehr and worked as a commander and general staff officer in various units. In 1920 he became chief of the 5th Company of Infantry Regiment 2 in Rastenburg . On February 1, 1929 he became a major and on May 1, 1931 teacher at the Pioneer School in Munich. From the beginning of 1932 he was in command of the 2nd Battalion of the 18th Infantry Regiment in Münster and on July 1, 1933 he was appointed lieutenant colonel . Promoted to colonel on June 1, 1935 , he was appointed commander of the Potsdam War School on October 1, 1936 .
On February 1, 1939 he was promoted to major general , with the beginning of World War II on September 1, 1939, he took over the leadership of the 255th Infantry Division , which was stationed in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia until 1940 . From May 1940 Wetzel took part with his division as a reserve of the 18th Army in the western campaign and was deployed in the second phase of the attack on the Loire , followed by stage security in the Nantes and Bordeaux area . On December 1, 1940, Wetzel was promoted to lieutenant general. In the spring of 1941 the division moved to the Generalgouvernement , from June 1941 his division took part in Operation Barbarossa in the central section of the Eastern Front in the association of the LIII. Army corps as a reserve. He took part in the Battle of Minsk , the Battle of Smolensk and the Typhoon Operation.
On January 12, 1942 he was appointed Commanding General of the V Army Corps and on February 1 General of the Infantry. During the German summer offensive in 1942, he led his corps in the 17th Army on the southernmost section of the Eastern Front. His troops participated in the capture of Rostov and advanced into the Caucasus . In early 1943 he led his corps back to the Kuban bridgehead . On July 1, 1943, he gave up his corps and was temporarily transferred to the Führer Reserve . Between September 7 and December 20, 1943 he was with the leadership of the LXVI. Army corps commissioned in France. From March 1, 1944 until the end of the war, he acted as the commanding general of the Deputy X. Army Corps and was thus also the commander of the military district X in Hamburg .
Awards
- Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class
- Wound badge (1918) in black
- Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with swords
- Friedrich Cross
- Hanseatic Cross Lübeck
- Clasp for the Iron Cross, 2nd and 1st class
- German cross in gold on December 26, 1941
- Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on August 7, 1942
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Ranking list of the German Imperial Army. Ed .: Reichswehr Ministry . Mittler & Sohn publishing house . Berlin 1924. p. 148.
- ↑ a b 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 , p. 782.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wetzel, Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German officer, most recently General of the Infantry in World War II |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 17, 1888 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Sarbske |
| DATE OF DEATH | 4th July 1964 |
| Place of death | Hamburg |