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Hermann Foertsch
Hermann Foertsch (4 April 1895 – 27 December 1961) was a German general during World War II who held commands at the divisional, corps and army levels. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross of Nazi Germany. Foertsch was tried at the Hostages Trial in 1947. The trial resulted in Foertsch's acquittal because he was a staff officer at the time that the criminal orders were transmitted. Hostages trial As a chief of staff for several generals commanding Wehrmacht forces in occupied Greece and Yugoslavia, Foertsch passed on orders to subordinate units to take hostages or conduct reprisals. These orders were deemed criminal by the Tribunal, but staff officers were not considered culpable unless they drafted such criminal orders or made a special effort to distribute them to the troops that carried them out. Citing a lack of evidence of a commission of an unlawful act, the Tribunal acquitted Foertsch of war crimes. Later life After his acquittal, Foertsch colla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1st Army (Wehrmacht)
The 1st Army () was a World War II field army. Operational history 1939 The 1st Army was activated on 26 August 1939, in Wehrkreis XII with General Erwin von Witzleben in command. Its primary mission was to take defensive positions and guard the western defences ( West Wall) of Germany against Allied forces along the Maginot Line during the attack on Poland, making it the principal German combatant during the short-lived French Saar Offensive. 1940 During the Western campaign it belonged to the Army Group C and initially remained passive towards the Maginot Line. the 1st Army continued its defensive assignment on the French border until June 1940, when the Battle of France had turned decisively to Germany's favor. Starting on 14 June 1940, the 1st Army began the penetration of the Maginot Line, breaking through French defenses, it began concentrating its forces in the frontier sector south of Saarbrücken. Another penetration was conducted north of Wörth am Main on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hostages Trial
''The United States of America v. Wilhelm List, et al.'', commonly known as the Hostages Trial, was the seventh of the twelve " Subsequent Nuremberg trials" for war crimes and crimes against humanity after the end of World War II between 1947 and 1948. The accused were 12 ''Wehrmacht'' generals of the Balkan Campaign charged with ordering the hostage-taking of civilians, wanton shootings of these hostages, the reprisal killings of civilians, and the execution without trial of captured " partisans" (both real and suspected) perpetrated by German troops in occupied Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia. The defendant Lothar Rendulic was further charged for using scorched earth in Finland during the Lapland War in 1944. The Hostages Trial was held by United States authorities at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg in the American occupation zone before US military courts, not before the International Military Tribunal. Two were found guilty of 3 counts, four of 2 counts, and two of 1 coun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drzonowo Wałeckie
Drzonowo Wałeckie (; ) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Człopa, within Wałcz County, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-western Poland. It lies approximately south-east of Człopa, south-west of Wałcz, and east of the regional capital Szczecin. Before 1772 the area was part of Kingdom of Poland, and from 1772–1945 part of Prussia and then Germany. For more on its history, see Wałcz County. Notable residents * Friedrich Foertsch (1900–1976), Inspector General of the Bundeswehr The Inspector General of the (), is the highest-ranking military position held by a commissioned officer on active duty in the , the present-day armed forces of Germany. All Inspectors General have been of the rank of a ( four-star) general o ... * Hermann Foertsch (1895–1961), general References Villages in Wałcz County {{Wałcz-geo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of France
The Battle of France (; 10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign (), the French Campaign (, ) and the Fall of France, during the Second World War was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) and French Third Republic, France. The plan for the invasion of the Low Countries and France was called (Case Yellow or the Manstein plan). (Case Red) was planned to finish off the French and British after the Dunkirk evacuation, evacuation at Dunkirk. The Low Countries and France were defeated and occupied by Axis troops down to the Demarcation line (France), Demarcation line. On 3 September 1939, French declaration of war on Germany (1939), France and United Kingdom declaration of war on Germany (1939), Britain declared war on Nazi Germany, over the German invasion of Poland on 1 September. In early September 1939, the French army began the limited Saar Offensive but by mid-October had withdrawn to the start line ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman and politician who served as the first Chancellor of Germany, chancellor of West Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (Germany), Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a newly founded Christian democracy, Christian democratic party, which became the dominant force in the country under his leadership. As a devout Catholic, Adenauer was a leading politician of the Catholic Centre Party (Germany), Centre Party in the Weimar Republic, serving as Mayor of Cologne (1917–1933) and as president of the Prussian State Council. In the early years of the Federal Republic, he switched focus from denazification to recovery, and led his country to close relations with France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. During his years in power, he worked to restore the Economic history of Germany#Economic miracle and beyond, West German economy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bundeswehr
The (, ''Federal Defence'') are the armed forces of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany. The is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part consists of the four armed forces: German Army, German Navy, German Air Force and Cyber and Information Domain Service (Germany), Cyber and Information Domain Service, which are supported by the Bundeswehr Support Area. , the had a strength of 180,215 active-duty military personnel and 80,761 civilians, placing it among the 30 largest military forces in the world, and making it the second largest in the European Union behind French Armed Forces, France. In addition, the has approximately 34,600 reserve personnel (2024). With German military expenditures at $88.5 billion (2024), the is the fourth-highest-funded military in the world, though military expenditures have until recently remained low at an average at 1.5% of national GDP, well below the non-binding NATO targ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Speidel
Hans Speidel (28 October 1897 – 28 November 1984) was a German military officer who successively served in the armies of the German Empire, Nazi Germany and West Germany. The first general officer of the '' Bundeswehr'', he was a key player in West German rearmament during the Cold War as well as West Germany's integration into NATO and international negotiations on European and Western defence cooperation in the 1950s. He served as Commander of the Allied Land Forces Central Europe (COMLANDCENT) from 1957 to 1963 and then as President of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs from 1964. Speidel joined the Imperial German Army in 1914, seeing action during World War I, and served in the '' Reichswehr'' during the interwar period. He served as chief of staff to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel during World War II and was promoted to lieutenant general in 1944. Speidel participated in the 20 July Plot to assassinate Hitler due to objecting to the racial polic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Axis Occupation Of Yugoslavia
World War II in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the country was invaded and swiftly conquered by Axis forces and partitioned among Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and their client regimes. Shortly after Germany attacked the USSR on 22 June 1941, the communist-led republican Yugoslav Partisans, on orders from Moscow, launched a guerrilla liberation war fighting against the Axis forces and their locally established puppet regimes, including the Axis-allied Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and the Government of National Salvation in the German-occupied territory of Serbia. This was dubbed the National Liberation War and Socialist Revolution in post-war Yugoslav communist historiography. Simultaneously, a multi-side civil war was waged between the Yugoslav communist Partisans, the Serbian royalist Chetniks, the Axis-allied Croatian Ustaše and Home Guard, Serbian Volunteer Corps and State Guard, Slovene Home Guard, as well as Nazi-allied Russian Pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Axis Occupation Of Greece
The occupation of Greece by the Axis Powers () began in April 1941 after Nazi Germany Battle of Greece, invaded the Kingdom of Greece in order to assist its ally, Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Italy, in their Greco-Italian War, ongoing war that was initiated in October 1940, having encountered major strategical difficulties. Following Battle of Crete, the conquest of Crete, the entirety of Greece was occupied starting in June 1941. The occupation of the mainland lasted until Germany and its ally Kingdom of Bulgaria, Bulgaria withdrew under Allies of World War II, Allied pressure in early October 1944, with Crete and some other Aegean Islands being surrendered to the Allies by German garrisons in May and June 1945, after the end of World War II VE Day, in Europe. The term Katochi in Greek means ''to possess'' or ''to have control over goods''. It is used to refer to the occupation of Greece by Germany and the Axis Powers. This terminology reflects not only the military occupation b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friedrich Foertsch
Friedrich Albert Foertsch (19 May 1900 – 14 December 1976) was a German general serving during World War II and from 1961 to 1963 the second Inspector General of the Bundeswehr. Foertsch was born in 1900 and joined the military service in the Prussian Army in 1918. Serving in the infantry in the final battles of World War I, Foertsch earned the Iron Cross second class before the end of hostilities. He joined the ''Freikorps'' after the war, and later was accepted into the ''Reichswehr'' in 1920. During World War II, he held several senior staff positions, including chief of the general staff of the 18th Army. Foertsch was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 5 September 1944 for his leadership in the defensive battles at the Leningrad Front. He was taken prisoner of war in the Courland Pocket by the Soviet Army. At a postwar trial, he was sentenced to 25 years of hard labor. He was released in 1955 and joined the newly formed ''Bundeswehr'' of the West German ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knight's Cross Of The Iron Cross
The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (), or simply the Knight's Cross (), and its variants, were the highest awards in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany during World War II. While it was order of precedence, lower in precedence than the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross#1939 Grand Cross, Grand Cross of the Iron Cross, the Grand Cross was never awarded at-large to Nazi German military and paramilitary forces. The Grand Cross's sole award was made to ''Reichsmarschall'' Hermann Göring in September 1939, making the Knight's Cross (specifically, the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross#Grades, Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds grade) the ''de facto'' highest award among the Orders, decorations, and medals of Nazi Germany, decorations of Nazi Germany. The Knight's Cross was awarded for a wide range of reasons and across all ranks, from a senior commander for skilled leadership of his troops in battle to a low-ranking soldier for a single act of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Undertone
Operation Undertone, also known as the Saar-Palatinate Offensive, was a large assault by the Seventh United States Army, U.S. Seventh, United States Army Central, Third, and First Army (France), French First Armies of the Sixth United States Army Group, Sixth and Twelfth United States Army Group, Twelfth Army Groups as part of the Allied invasion of Germany in March 1945 during World War II. A force of three corps was to attack abreast from Saarbrücken, Germany, along a sector to a point southeast of Hagenau, France. A narrow strip along the Rhine leading to the extreme northeastern corner of Alsace at Lauterbourg was to be cleared by a division of the French First Army under operational control of the Seventh Army. The Seventh Army's main effort was to be made in the center up the Kaiserslautern corridor. In approving the plan, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower asserted that the objective was not only to clear the Saarland, Saar-Palatinate (region), Palati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
