Hitler's Commanders (29 page)

After the war, Wenck assumed a middle management position for a commercial firm in Dalhausen. He proved to be as successful in the business world as he was in the military. In 1950, he became a member of the management team of a large industrial firm, was appointed a member of the board of directors in 1953, and became chairman of the board in 1955. He retired from business in the late 1960s, although he continued to maintain an office in Bonn. He died in Bad Rothenfelde, Lower Saxony, on May 1, 1982, as the result of an automobile accident. He was 81 years old.

traugott herr
was a good-looking, six-foot, 150-pound, blonde-haired, blue-eyed professional soldier who looked something like a model on a Nazi recruiting poster. He was born in Weferlingen, in Prussian Saxony, on September 16, 1890. He entered the service as a Fahnenjunker in the 35th (1st Brandenburger) Fuesilier Regiment at Brandenburg/Havel in April 1911, and attended the War School at Glogau. Commissioned second lieutenant in 1912, he went to the field with his regiment when World War I began and became a battalion adjutant in October 1914. He took part in the drive on the Marne and was severely wounded in late 1914 and again in the fall of 1916. After recovering from his second wound, Herr took a short course to be a machine gun company commander. He returned to the Western Front as a machine gun company commander in the newly formed 451st Infantry Regiment of the 234th Infantry Division. Promoted to first lieutenant in 1917, he remained with this division for the rest of the war, eventually becoming a deputy battalion commander.

Herr joined the Transition Army after the war and was selected for retention in the Reichsheer. He spent most of the 1919–1929 period in the 9th (Prussian) Infantry Regiment at Potsdam, although he did undergo training with the 3rd (Prussian) Motorized Battalion. He was promoted to captain in 1926. He was a tactics instructor at the War School at Dresden from 1933 to 1937, and was promoted to major in 1935 and to lieutenant colonel the following year.

Traugott Herr’s career took a major step forward in 1937, when he was named commander of the III Battalion, 13th Motorized Regiment (III/13th Motorized) at Zerbst in 1937. He would be associated with motorized or panzer units for the rest of his career. Promoted to colonel on August 1, 1939, he was named commander of the 13th Motorized Replacement Regiment at Madgeburg when Germany mobilized on August 26. He was sent to Poland near the end of the campaign, assuming command of the 66th Motorized Regiment of the 13th Motorized Division on September 18. Herr led the 66th in the invasion of France the following year. He continued to impress his superiors and was named commander of the 13th Rifle Brigade of the 13th Panzer Division, when it was formed from the 13th Motorized in October 1940.

Herr’s brigade took part in the invasion of the Soviet Union as part of Colonel General Ewald von Kleist’s 1st Panzer Group (of Army Group South) in 1941, and saw heavy fighting at Uman, Kiev, and Rostov. His division commander, Major General Walter Duevert, collapsed under the strain of these operations, and Herr was named acting commander of the 13th Panzer on December 1. Duevert never fully recovered from his breakdown, and Herr was named permanent commander and was promoted to major general on April 1, 1942.
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General Herr continued to fight on the southern sector of the Eastern Front and took part in the drive across the Terek River and into the Caucasus Mountains. On October 31, 1942, however, he was seriously wounded when a piece of shrapnel struck him in the skull. He did not return to active duty until June 29, 1943, when he was named commander of the LXXVI Panzer Corps in Italy. Even then, he was not fully recovered and suffered from severe headaches. Germany, however, badly needed experienced panzer commanders, and Herr was an excellent one. He fought delaying actions against Montgomery’s British 8th Army in Calabria (the “toe” of Italy) and launched a counterattack against the U.S. 5th Army at Salerno. Later, he fought the 8th Army in the Adriatic sector of Italy and took part in the Battle of Anzio. He also fought in the battles of the Gustav Line (Cassino) and in the retreat from Rome to the Arno and the Gothic Line. He directed all of his operations with an undeniable skill and was promoted to general of panzer troops on September 1, 1943.

Herr became acting commander of the 14th Army in Italy on November 24, 1944, but only held it three weeks. He stepped down for medical reasons on December 16 and underwent a brain operation (a result of his wound in Russia). He returned to Italy on February 15, 1945, as commander of the 10th Army. He defended the Adriatic sector against the British 8th Army in the final battles, but was severely hamstrung by Hitler’s hold-at-all-costs orders. He was, however, not one of those officers who wanted to surrender against the Fuehrer’s orders. As a result, 10th Army was overrun by the British. On May 2, 1945, he surrendered the remnants of his command to the 8th Army. He was a prisoner of war for the next three years.

Herr’s former home was now in the Eastern Zone, so he relocated to Achterwehr, Schleswig-Holstein. Never accused of war crimes, he lived his final years in peaceful retirement and died on April 13, 1976.

wolfgang fischer
was born on December 11, 1888 in Carolath, Upper Silesia. He entered the service as a Fahnenjunker in the 154th (5th Lower Silesian) Infantry Regiment on March 18, 1910. A career infantry officer, he was transferred to the 7th Landwehr Infantry Regiment as a platoon leader when World War I broke out, but was soon promoted to company commander. He was named adjutant of the 3rd Landwehr Division in late 1915 and became adjutant of the 22nd Landwehr Infantry Brigade in the fall of 1917, serving on the Western Front. He emerged from the war as a captain.

During “the war after the war,” as the civil unrest of 1918–1920 was called, Fischer joined a battalion of volunteers. He was accepted into the Reichswehr in 1919 and was posted to the 3rd (Prussian) Infantry Regiment at Deutsch Eylau, East Prussia (now Ilawa, Poland), in 1920. He remained with the regiment until 1929, working as a regimental adjutant and as a company commander. In 1929, he assumed command of a company in the 6th Infantry Regiment at Luebeck and remained there until 1934. Promoted to major in 1932 and to lieutenant colonel in 1935, Fischer directed a battalion of the 46th Infantry Regiment at Neumuenster from 1934 to 1937, when he was promoted to colonel and joined the staff of the 69th Infantry Regiment at Hamburg. He assumed command of the 69th on February 4, 1938, during the Blomberg-Fritsch purge, when Hitler removed many anti-Nazi or non-Nazi officers and sent them into forced retirement.

Fischer’s new unit consisted mainly of former
Landespolizei
(provincial policemen). They made good soldiers and fought well in Poland in 1939. Then, on October 27, 1939, for reasons not made clear by the records, Fischer was given command of the 10th Rifle Brigade of the 10th Panzer Division, which was then in the process of forming. Fischer led it in France (where he earned the Knight’s Cross) and in the early stages of the Russian campaign, where he fought in the battles of encirclement of Minsk and Smolensk as part of Guderian’s 2nd Panzer Group.

Fischer was promoted to major general effective August 1, 1941. The next day, he assumed command of the division. (His former commander, Ferdinand Schaal, had been picked to command a corps in France.)
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Fischer distinguished himself as a divisional commander during the drive on Moscow, although his division suffered heavy casualties.

In the spring of 1942, the 10th Panzer was one of the divisions selected for a return to France, this time to rest, rebuild, and reequip. When the armies of Vichy France failed to offer more than token resistance to the Allied invasion of North Africa, however, Hitler ordered it occupied in November 1942. As the main German armored force available, 10th Panzer spearheaded one of the main columns, but experienced no resistance.

Meanwhile, the Allies drove on Tunis and threatened the rear of Rommel’s Panzer Army Afrika in Egypt and Libya. To meet this threat, Hitler created Headquarters, 5th Panzer Army, and rushed reinforcements to the endangered sector. The most significant of the reinforcements was the 10th Panzer Division. Fischer (a lieutenant general since November 1) directed and led a series of brilliant counterattacks against the Anglo-American spearheads and pushed them back, thus saving the Tunisian Bridgehead. Then, on February 1, 1943, during the Battle of the Mareth Line, Fischer’s command vehicle drove into a poorly marked Italian minefield. Wolfgang Fischer lost both of his legs and an arm in the ensuing exploration. He was fully conscious but in great pain and knew that he would soon bleed to death. With iron self-control, he ordered that some paper be brought to him, so he could write a farewell letter to his wife. He had written a page and a half when death overtook him. In recognition of his courage and undeniable skill as a panzer leader, he was posthumously promoted to general of panzer troops and was awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knight’s Cross.

karl decker
was another in Germany’s seemingly endless list of outstanding panzer commanders. Like virtually all of the tank generals, he began his service in another branch.

Decker was born in Boratin, near Neustettin, Pomerania (now Szczecinek, Poland) on November 30, 1897, the son of an army officer. He joined the army on August 3, 1914, just as World War I began, as a Fahnenjunker in the 54th Infantry Regiment of the West Prussian–Pomeranian 36th Reserve Division. He first saw action in East Prussia in 1914, and was then part of General Mackensen’s pursuit to the Vistula. In 1915, he fought in Poland, Russia, and Courland (in present-day Latvia) and was commissioned second lieutenant on July 12. He would not be promoted again for 10 years and 13 days. He remained with his regiment as a platoon leader in a machine gun company and as a battalion adjutant, fighting in Galicia (1916). Along with his division, he was transferred to the Western Front in the spring of 1917 and fought in Lorraine, the Artois sector, Flanders, and the Battle of the Lys in 1918, where his division suffered very heavy casualties. It was holding a defensive position in a relatively quiet part of Belgium when the war ended.

Second Lieutenant Decker was accepted into the Reichsheer in 1920 and joined the 5th Infantry Regiment at Stettin. In 1921, he became adjutant of the II/5th Infantry at Prenzlau, but transferred to the 6th Cavalry Regiment at Pasewalk, Mecklenburg-Vorpomerania, in 1923. He spent a dozen years with the 6th, rising to the rank of Rittmeister (captain of cavalry) in 1931. He commanded a squadron in 1934 and 1935. After a year on the staff of the 15th Cavalry at Paderborn, Westphalia, Decker was promoted to major and named commander of the 38th Anti-Tank Battalion at Troop Maneuver Area Ohrdruf in Hessen in October 1936. Thus did Decker join the armored branch, because the 38th was part of Guderian’s famous 2nd Panzer Division. He quickly learned about motorized warfare, was promoted to lieutenant colonel on April 1, 1939, and led his battalion with some success in Poland. In April 1940, he was given command of the I/3rd Panzer Regiment, which he led with great success in the battles of Sedan, St. Quentin, and Abbeville. He was wounded near the end of the French campaign, but was back in command of his battalion shortly thereafter, and led it in the conquests of Yugoslavia and Greece. For his role in the capture of the Balkans, he was awarded the Knight’s Cross.

Karl Decker was accepted as a talented tank officer by May 15, 1941, when he succeeded Hermann Balck as commander of the 3rd Panzer Regiment. Part of the 2nd Panzer Division, Decker’s regiment was part of OKH’s reserve in the summer of 1941 and missed the early part of the invasion of Russia. It was, however, part of the 3rd Panzer Army during the last part of Barbarossa and the winter battles of 1941–1942. Decker, meanwhile, was promoted to full colonel on February 1, 1942.

Karl Decker continued to command the 3rd Panzer Regiment on the Eastern Front until January 1943, when he took charge of the 35th Panzer Regiment of the 4th Panzer Division for a month. Then he was sent home for a well-deserved leave, and, in April 1943, temporarily joined the staff of Guderian’s panzer inspectorate. On June 20, 1943, he was named commander of the 21st Panzer Brigade of the 20th Panzer Division, on the central sector of the Eastern Front. Finally, on September 7, 1943, he was named commander of the 5th Panzer Division, also on the central sector. He was promoted to lieutenant general on June 1, 1944.

The 5th Panzer was arguably the best division in the German Army. Under Decker’s command, the Soviet High Command paid it a huge left-handed compliment when it advised its generals that, if they ran into the 5th Panzer, the best way to deal with it was to try to go around it. When the Soviets launched Operation Bagration, which smashed Army Group Center in June and July 1944, the 5th Panzer managed to fight its way out, despite heavy odds against it. The division, however, suffered heavy losses in the battles around Bobruisk. Decker performed so well as division commander that he was awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross and was given command of the XXXIX Panzer Corps on October 16.

Decker’s new command was a rebuilt headquarters, replacing one largely destroyed in Bagration. Decker commanded it in Courland and East Prussia as part of the 3rd Panzer Army. Promoted to general of panzer troops on December 27, he was sent west at the end of the year and fought in the final stages of the Battle of the Bulge in January 1945. Serving as a fire brigade, the XXXIX Panzer fought in Pomerania in February, in Silesia in March, and on the Western Front in April. When Army Group B was surrounded in the Ruhr Pocket, however, General Decker realized that the war was hopelessly lost—as was his Pomeranian homeland, which had been overrun by the Red Army. In despair, and probably suffering from combat fatigue, Hans Decker took his own life at his headquarters in Gross-Brunsrode, Brunswick, on April 21. He was 46 years old. In an almost unprecedented gesture, he was posthumously awarded the Swords to his Knight’s Cross on April 26—only four days before Adolf Hitler also committed suicide.