Ferdinand Schörner
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Ferdinand Schörner (December 5, 1892 - February 7, 1973) was a general and later Field Marshal in the German Wehrmacht during World War II.
Early life
He was born in Munich, Bavaria. A noted veteran of World War I, winning the Pour le Mérite in 1917, Schörner served as a staff member and instructor between the two wars. As an army instructor he was instrumental in turning the Waffen SS from a paramilitary force into military stormtroopers able to fight alongside the Wehrmacht.World War II
Schörner was highly successful during the German campaigns in Poland and the Balkans, commanding the 98th Mountain Regiment,At the start of Operation Barbarossa he commanded the 6. Gebirgsdivision, and from 1942 the XIX Mountain Corps, part of the German Army in Finland. With this command he participated in the failed attack on Murmansk, and the stalemate war that resulted from it. From this time originated his famous statement 'Arktis ist nichts'' (there is no Arctic), meaning that the climatic conditions should not affect the German soldier in the Arctic.
Later he commanded the XXXX. Panzerkorps on the Eastern Front from November 16, 1943 to January 31, 1944. In March 1944 he was made commander of Army Group A and in May, commander of Army Group South Ukraine. After initially stating that the Crimean port of Sevastopol could be held for a long time even if Crimea fell, he changed his mind and managed to persuade Hitler to authorize a retreat from the Black Sea port. This retreat occurred too late, and the German/Romanian 17th Army which was holding Crimea suffered severe losses, with many men killed or captured while waiting on the piers to be evacuated. During the late spring of 1944, Schörner managed in a series of defensive battles to stabilise the crumbling front in the south on the Dniester River in Romania.
Schörner was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) on April 5 1944. In July he became commander of Army Group North, which was later renamed Army Group Courland where he stayed until January 1945 when he was made commander of Army Group Centre, defending in Czechoslovakia and along the upper reaches of the Oder. Finally, on April 30, 1945 Schörner was named as the new Commander-in-Chief of the German Army (Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres) in Hitler's last testament. In this post he nominally served until the surrender of the Third Reich on May 8, 1945. In reality he continued to command his army group, since no staff was available to him, and he did not have any discernible influence in the final days of the Reich.
On May 7, the day General Alfred Jodl, Chief-of-Staff of OKW (German Armed Forces High Command), was negotiating a surrender of all German forces at SHAEF, the last the OKW had heard from Schörner was on May 2. He had reported he intended to fight his way west and surrender his army group to the Americans. On May 8 an OKW colonel was escorted through the American lines to see Schörner. The colonel reported Schörner had ordered his operational command to observe the surrender but could not guarantee he would be obeyed everywhere.Like many institutions in Nazi Germany the control of the Army was split between the German Armed Forces High Command (OKW) and the German Army High Command (OKH). By 1945 the OKW commanded all German forces in every theatre apart from those on the Eastern Front which were under OKH control and which, before his suicide, had reported directly to Hitler. So it was not clear if Schörner was under the command of OKW on May 8 or if President Karl Dönitz, or Chancellor von Krosigk, needed to order Schörner to surrender. Later that day Schörner deserted his command and flew to Austria where on May 18 he was arrested by the Americans.Ziemke References Page 134 Elements of Army Group Centre continued to resist until they met the overwhelming force of the Red Army, sent to occupy Czechoslovakia during the final Prague Offensive. Army Group Centre was the last German unit of divisional size or larger to surrender, probably on May 11, 1945.
Post-war trials and imprisonments
Schörner was turned over to the Soviet Union because he had served almost the whole war solely in the east. They repeatedly made offers to appoint him as a general in the new East German military if he switched his allegiance to Communism[[Citing sources citation needed]]. Refusing to cooperate, Schörner was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 25 years of hard labour in a Soviet prisoner of war camp, where he served his sentence from May 15, 1945 until January 17, 1955. He was reportedly severely mistreated and apparently tortured[[Citing sources citation needed]]. After his release the Soviets demanded he settle down in East Germany but he refused and went to West Germany instead[[Citing sources citation needed]].
As a result of a report to the police an investigation was launched into his wartime courts-martial and he was put on trial in west Germany for ordering the shooting of a combat commander and his deputy for negligence, along with ordering the shooting of a private 1st class who had fallen asleep behind the steering-wheel of his vehicle while drunk. Charged with manslaughter he was sentenced to 4 1/2 years of imprisonment. He was released in 1963.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
He died in Munich on February 7, 1973.
Criticism
German veterans particularly criticized Schörner for a 1945 order that all soldiers found behind the front lines, who did not possess written orders, were to be executed without trial. This is mentioned in both the writings of Siegfried Knappe and Hans von Luck[[Citing sources citation needed]]. Schörner was also generally seen as a devoted Nazi, a view that is seen as confirmed by Hitler's appointment of Schörner as his replacement as Commander-in-Chief of the German Army on his suicide .References
- Lexikon der Wehrmacht: http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Personenregister/SchoernerF.htm
- www.generals.dk: http://www.generals.dk/general/Sch%C3%B6rner/Ferdinand/Germany.html
- Ziemke, Earl F. Stalingrad to Berlin
- Duffy, Christopher Red Storm on the Reich
- von Luck, Hans Panzer Commander
- Knappe, Siegfried Soldat
- Pickert Vom Kuban nach Sewastopol - Flakartillerie im Verbund der 17. Armee
Footnotes
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| Erich Raeder | Karl Dönitz | |
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Werner Mölders | Adolf Galland | Gordon Gollob | Hans-Joachim Marseille | Hermann Graf | Erwin Rommel | Wolfgang Lüth | Walter Nowotny | Adelbert Schulz | Hans-Ulrich Rudel | Hyazinth Graf von Strachwitz | Herbert Otto Gille | Hans-Valentin Hube | Albert Kesselring | Helmut Lent | Sepp Dietrich | Walter Model | Erich Hartmann | Hermann Balck | Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke | Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer | Albrecht Brandi | Ferdinand Schörner | Hasso von Manteuffel | Theodor Tolsdorff | Karl Mauss | Dietrich von Saucken | |
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