Seidlitz-Kurzbach, Walter von

Born in the family of a Hauptmann (captain), who later became a lieutenant general, Alexander von Seidlitz-Kurzbach, was the third of ten children in the family. Two of his brothers died on the fronts of the First World War : the eldest, Henry, in 1914 ; the youngest, Wolfgang, in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme River , in which Walter also participated. The wife of Walter von Seidlitz-Kurzbach - Ingeborg, nee Bart, the family had four daughters.

September 18, 1908 joined the army with the rank of fanenjunker. He completed military training in Danzig and at the military academy in Hanover . Since January 27, 1910 - lieutenant, served in the 36th (2nd West Prussian) field artillery regiment, stationed in Danzig.

Participation in World War I

Member of the First World War . In 1914-1915 he fought on the Eastern Front , in 1914, in the battle of Gumbinen , he was wounded three times, and lost the index finger of his left hand. Since January 1915 - Lieutenant . In July 1915, he was wounded for the fourth time - in his left foot. In the fall of 1915, together with his regiment, he was transferred to the Western Front , where he participated in the Battle of the Somme (1916), in the Battle of Ypres (1917), in the battle in Flanders (1917), in the trench warfare in the region of Saint-Quentin (1917-1918 ), in “the advance of Ludendorff ” (1918). Since April 1917 - Hauptmann, he served as adjutant of the battalion, regiment and artillery headquarters of the 36th Infantry Division. He was awarded the Iron Cross of the 1st and 2nd classes, the Order of the Hohenzollern House , the Hanseatic Cross and the silver badge for wounds.

Interwar Service

He was known as a passionate rider, participated in horse racing. Since 1919 he was the commander of the battery. In 1920, his regiment was renamed the 2nd artillery and transferred to Schwerin . His regiment commander was the future commander in chief of the ground forces, Baron Werner von Fritsch , who was highly respected by Seidlitz-Kurzbach, who continued to serve in the regiment as regimental adjutant.

In 1929 - 1933 he was an adjutant in the arms department of the War Department in Berlin . Since 1930 - major. Since 1933 - commander of the 4th mountain rifle battalion of the 6th artillery regiment, stationed in the city of Verdun-on-Aller in Lower Saxony . From 1934 - Oberst lieutenant (lieutenant colonel), from April 1, 1936 - Oberst (colonel) and commander of his regiment, renamed the 22nd artillery.

Participation in World War II

He began World War II on the border with the Netherlands , where he commanded the artillery unit 102 from September 20, 1939. From December 1, 1939, he was a major general, and from March 1940 he was commander of the 12th Mecklenburg Infantry Division . In May 1940, during a French company, the division participated in the breakthrough of the Maginot Line east of Trelona, ​​and in June crossed the Somme. On August 15, 1940, Seidlitz-Kurzbach was awarded the Knight's Iron Cross. Until December 1940, the division remained in France , until May 1941 it was in the Netherlands, and then was transferred to Poland.

Since June 22, 1941, he participated in hostilities on the Eastern Front, distinguished himself during Nevel’s encirclement, and played a leading role in preventing the breakthrough of Soviet troops in the area of ​​the Hill. December 31, 1941 was awarded Oak leaves to the Knight's Iron Cross (No. 54) and promoted to lieutenant general. January 1, 1942 transferred to the reserve of the Fuhrer. He was a member of the military tribunal, who tried the former corps commander General Hans von Sponeck , accused of retreat without an order. He was an opponent of the death sentence imposed on the general; there is an assumption that his position influenced Adolf Hitler's decision to replace this sentence with six years in prison (however, after the failure of the assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944, Shponek was shot).

In March 1942 he returned to the Eastern Front, formed from the 5th Jaeger, 8th Jaeger and 329th Infantry divisions a battle group under his command, which was tasked with releasing the 2nd Corps (commander General Walter Count von Brockdorf- Alefeld ), who was surrounded by Demyansk . The operation received the code name "Bridge Bridge" ( Brückenschlag ). The 18th Motorized Division also participated in the battles, and the encircled troops struck from inside the "cauldron". In April, this task was completed, but Hitler, despite the objections of Seidlitz-Kurzbach, refused to withdraw parts of the 2nd Corps from the Demyansk ledge.

The Stalingrad General

On May 8, 1942, Seidlitz-Kurzbach was appointed commander of the 51st Corps, which was part of the 6th Army of General Friedrich Paulus . He successfully acted in the second battle for Kharkov , culminating in the encirclement of the Soviet grouping of forces.

During the Battle of Stalingrad, his corps after the most difficult battles took Mamaev Kurgan (September 13) and a week later went to the Volga . However, these were the last successes of the German troops in this battle. Already at the beginning of November 1942, Seidlitz-Kurzbach, realizing the possibility of encirclement, turned to Paulus with the proposal to withdraw two tank divisions from the battles, withdraw them to the rear and strengthen them in order to use them to disrupt the counter-offensive of the Soviet army. However, Paulus refused.

Shortly after the encirclement of the 6th Army on November 21, he advocated an immediate breakthrough from the encirclement, but in this case was not supported by Paulus, who complied with Hitler's order forbidding the breakthrough. On November 24, on his own initiative, he took most of the corps south to prepare for a breakthrough. On November 27, he announced that he ordered subordinates to destroy all unnecessary equipment (starting with their own property) and be ready for a breakthrough, but Paulus again forbade him to take this step, and the offensive undertaken only by part of the encircled troops was doomed to failure. Not wanting to abandon his plan, he asked General Maximilian von Weichs, commander of Army Group B, to order a breakthrough, saying: “It is criminal to be inactive in such a situation from a military point of view. This is criminal in relation to the German people . ” There was no response to this appeal, bypassing the immediate superior (Paulus).

January 25, 1943, considering that the German troops had exhausted their ability to resist, Paulus was invited to issue an order for surrender . After his refusal, he issued his own order, which allowed commanders of regiments and battalions to surrender without special permission. In response, Paulus subjugated Seidlitz-Kurzbach to the commander of the 8th Corps, General Walter Geitz , who issued an order of the opposite content. On January 31, Seidlitz-Kurzbach was captured with the headquarters of his corps. No resistance.

While in a prisoner of war camp, he decided to cooperate with the Soviet authorities in order to facilitate the overthrow of Hitler, whom he considered guilty of the death of the 6th Army. I believed that the military oath was taken by him and other servicemen to allegiance to Germany, and not Hitler, and the Fuhrer himself violated it by betraying his soldiers near Stalingrad. In 1943, only a few German generals who fell into Soviet captivity shared such views - Edler Alexander von Daniels, Otto Corfes , Martin Lattmann. On September 12, 1943, at the constituent conference in Lunevo, he was elected chairman of the " Union of German Officers ", which operated under Soviet control. Then he also became deputy chairman of the Free Germany National Committee , in which the Communists played a leading role.

Repeatedly appealed to the German military leaders to speak out against Hitler or lay down their arms (depending on the situation on a particular sector of the front, the content of the appeals changed). An example of such an activity of Seidlitz-Kurzbach is his letter to the commander of the 9th Army, General Walter Model , which, in particular, said:

Mr. Colonel General, act in accordance with your understanding of things. Like all of us, commanders of formations and units of the German Wehrmacht, you bear the brunt of responsibility for the fate of Germany. Get Adolf Hitler to resign! Leave the Russian land and take the Eastern Army back to the German borders! With this decision, you would create the political prerequisites for an honorable peace that would give the German people the rights of a free nation. Such an act, subject to the end of the war, will be of decisive importance for the further fate of Germany. This is more than what we can hope for in our current situation. But everything will be lost and all hope will disappear if Adolf Hitler, with your help, can continue the war and, as before, drag the German people along into the inevitable abyss.

The activities of Seidlitz-Kurzbach and his associates did not have much success - not a single German military leader followed their calls. On April 26, 1944, the Dresden Military Court sentenced Seidlitz-Kurzbach to death in absentia on charges of treason. His wife was forced to file a divorce from her husband, but after the failure of the assassination attempt on Hitler, she and two older daughters were arrested, and the youngest daughters were sent to a "children's camp." After the intervention of the Reich Minister of Arms Albert Speer, the family members of the general were released.

The Soviet authorities initially viewed the “Union of German Officers” as a propaganda tool and did not support Seidlitz-Kurzbach’s proposal to form military units from German prisoners of war for their possible participation in the war on the side of the USSR. With the approach of the end of the war, a significant number of captured officers and military leaders joined the "Union of German Officers"; in the summer of 1944, Paulus did this.

After the war, the "Union of German Officers" was dissolved ( November 2, 1945 ), and its head, whose reliability the authorities of the USSR were not sure of, was not allowed to return to their homeland. For some time he was detained in a summer house near Moscow, where he advised the creators of the film " The Battle of Stalingrad, " and also, on the instructions of the military-historical department of the General Staff of the USSR, wrote memoirs about the course of the battles on the Soviet-German front. Despite a request for repatriation to the Soviet zone of German occupation , he was arrested and sentenced on July 8, 1950 to 25 years in prison on charges of war crimes. Some time was in Novocherkassk prison . ^[1] According to his own recollections, he was imprisoned in solitary confinement and was subjected to psychological torture. Bright electric light burned in his cell 24 hours a day for four years. On November 26, 1954 , the general suffered a nervous breakdown , after which he was transferred to the Butyrka prison in Moscow , and the conditions of his detention were relaxed.

He was released from custody on October 4, 1955 , after the visit of the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to Moscow, which resulted in the release of Soviet citizens convicted of war crimes from Soviet places of detention. He returned to Germany, where he reunited with his family. Most old friends ignored him, considering him a traitor. In 1956, a German court officially overturned the death sentence imposed on him, motivating its decision with "lack of evidence that the convict acted on base grounds", and also considering that the general "was guided mainly by ... a hostile attitude towards National Socialism." In the historical literature published in the USSR, the activities of the Union of German Officers as an anti-fascist organization were evaluated positively, but nothing was said about the dramatic post-war fate of its chairman.

Last years he lived in solitude. Two decades after his death ( April 23, 1996 ) he was officially rehabilitated by the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation ^[2] .

• Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st grade
• Royal Order of the Hohenzollern House Knight's Cross with Swords
• Hanseatic Cross of Hamburg
• Breastplate "For the wounded" (1918) in silver
• Honorary Cross of the First World War 1914/1918 with swords (1934)
• Medal “For the length of service in the Wehrmacht” from 4th to 1st grade
• Buckle to the Iron Cross of the 2nd class (May 17, 1940)
• Buckle to the Iron Cross 1st class (May 22, 1940)
• Knight's cross of an iron cross with oak leaves
  • Knight's Cross (August 15, 1940)
  • Oak Leaves (No. 54) (December 31, 1941)

Stalingrad - Konflikt und Konsequenz. Erinnerungen. - Stalling, Oldenburg, 1977.

• , Muller J. Commanders of the Third Reich. - Smolensk: Rusich, 1995. -480 s - (Tyranny). - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 5-88590-287-9 .

• Seidlitz-Kurzbach biography on the Chronos website
• The chapter on Seidlitz-Kurzbach from the book of S. Mitchem and D. Muller "Commanders of the Third Reich"
• About participation in the deblockade of the Demyansk boiler
• Von Seidlitz Letter to Model
• German Vlasov (inaccessible link)