Wolff von Stutterheim

Wolff von Stutterheim (born January 17, 1893 in Königsberg , † December 3, 1940 in Berlin ) was a German officer , most recently major general in the Air Force in World War II .

Life

Wolf von Stutterheim came from the noble family von Stutterheim , from which numerous generals and seven knights of the order Pour le Mérite had emerged. Eleven members of the family died in World War I , including Stutterheim's father and two of his uncles.

On April 1, 1912, Stutterheim joined the Kaiser Alexander Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 1 of the Prussian Army in Berlin as a flag squire .

First World War

At the outbreak of the First World War he was a lieutenant and platoon leader of the 3rd company of his regiment . With his unit he took part in the invasion of neutral Belgium, fought at Namur , then at St. Quentin and then on the Marne . In October Stutterheim became the leader of the 5th Company, which he commanded until he was seriously wounded on December 31, 1914. After his recovery, he returned with the Iron Cross , First Class Award in February 1915 as Adjutant of the Fusilier - battalion to his regiment back, which at this time on the Eastern Front was. In May 1915 he was wounded again in the fighting at Tuchla east of the San . After a short stay in the hospital, Stutterheim acted as leader of the 4th Company for one month from June 22, 1915, before he was wounded again in close combat. At the beginning of August he was back with his troops until a serious wound near Brest-Litovsk put him out of action for the next six months.

On March 1, 1916, Stutterheim was able to work again. His regiment had meanwhile been transferred back to the Western Front . During the fighting in the Battle of the Somme , Stutterheim was appointed adjutant of the II Battalion on August 23, 1916 and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords for his achievements on October 31, 1916 . In the spring of 1917, during the Battle of the Aisne, he once again distinguished himself as a shock troop leader on Winterberg, where Stutterheim suffered wounds for the seventh time on May 6th from fragments of hand grenades. On September 16, he was promoted to lieutenant and on October 7, 1917, he was appointed regimental adjutant. Despite this post he took part in the fighting in the front line in the coming months and distinguished himself in the assault battle on the Marne in July 1918 that his regimental commander Friedrich von Wedekind submitted him to the Pour le Mérite . On August 29, 1918, Wilhelm II awarded him the highest Prussian bravery award through AKO . For the nine wounds he had suffered by the end of the war, he was also awarded the gold wound badge .

After the Compiègne armistice , Stutterheim marched back home with the remnants of the regiment. At the end of November 1918, the former army command began to set up a volunteer battalion from demobilized parts. Stutterheim joined this formation as a company commander who took over the Lublinitz section of the Eastern Border Guard . Here Stutterheim had an accident on December 24, 1918 while riding down the outpost, falling from his horse so badly that he broke his skull . He then spent the next four and a half years in hospitals and sanatoriums . In the meantime he was placed at the disposal of his regular regiment on September 5, 1919 and released from military service on May 15, 1920.

Interwar period

After his recovery, Stutterheim completed a degree in law and forest science at the University of Münster by July 1927 . This was followed by a legal traineeship until September 30, 1929 in the forest service. He then spent two months as a forest assessor at the forestry office Rheinberg then to a job as a forester on forest office Ilfeld in Südharz to take over. There he remained after his appointment as state forest master on April 1, 1934.

Third Reich

Grave of Wolff von Stutterheim at the Invalidenfriedhof Berlin, as of 2013

On July 1, 1935, Stutterheim was reactivated as a major when he entered the air force of the Wehrmacht . At first he was at the special disposal of the Reich Minister of Aviation and Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force Hermann Göring . He completed his pilot training at the Luftgau Reserve Magdeburg. On June 28, 1936, he crashed an airplane and suffered serious injuries again. As a lieutenant colonel from October 1, 1936, after his recovery, he was assigned to the staff of Luftkreis-Kommando II. From there, after three months, he joined the staff of Luftgau-Kommando III and four months later to the IV. Group of Kampfgeschwader 152 . With the promotion to colonel on January 1, 1939, Stutterheim was group commander in this squadron.

On August 27, 1939, the Tannenberg Day, Stutterheim was given the character of Major General.

After the beginning of the Second World War , Stutterheim became a squadron commodore of Kampfgeschwader 77 in September 1939 . From this post he was then briefly recalled from March 23 to May 30, 1940, when he was transferred to the Führer Reserve . Soon he took over the squadron again, which he subsequently led in the western campaign . On June 15, 1940, Stutterheim was seriously wounded in an aerial battle over France. First he was taken to a hospital , then due to his injuries to the Berlin Charité , where he died on December 3, 1940.

For his special achievements as commodore of Kampfgeschwader 77, Stutterheim received the Knight's Cross for the Iron Cross on July 4, 1940 .

Stutterheim was buried in the Berlin Invalidenfriedhof .

Web link

Commons : Wolff von Stutterheim  - Collection of Images

literature

• Eckart von Stutterheim, Kurt von Stutterheim: The gentlemen and barons of Stutterheim / Alt-Stutterheim. Verlag Degener & Co. Neustadt an der Aisch 1965. pp. 197-198, 240-243. Plate after p. 240.
• Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Christian Zweng: The knights of the order Pour le Mérite of the First World War. Volume 3: P-Z. Biblio Verlag, Bissendorf 2011, ISBN 3-7648-2586-3 , pp. 386-388.
• Hanns Möller: History of the knights of the order pour le mérite in the world war. Volume II: M-Z. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Berlin 1935, pp. 394–396.