Branch: Kaiserliche Heer / Reichsheer / Heer
Born: 14 September 1886 in Frankfurt (Oder), Brandenburg,
Germany.
Died: 8 August 1944 in Berlin, Plötzensee Prison,
Berlin, Germany.
Ranks:
Generaloberst
General der Infanterie
Generalleutnant
Generalmajor
Oberst
Oberstleutnant
Major
Hauptmann
Oberleutnant
Leutnant
Fähnrich
Decorations:
Iron Cross 1914
2nd Class
1st Class
Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with
Swords
Cross of Honor
Wehrmacht-Dienstauszeichnung 1st class
Iron Cross 1939
2nd Class
1st Class
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross
Knight's Cross 27 October 1939
Commands:
Other: Personnel
Articles:
Erich Hoepner was born on 14 September 1886 and became a German
general in Second World War. A victorious panzer leader, Erich
Hoepner was put to death after the failed 20 July Plot in
1944. Erich Hoepner was born in Frankfurt an der Oder, Brandenburg.
He joined the Kaiserliche Heer as an officer cadet in 1905,
was commissioned as a Lieutenant in 1906 and served as a cavalry
officer during First World War, attaining the rank of Rittmeister.
He continued to serve in Reichsheer and attained the rank
of General in 1936. Erich Hoepner was an former advocator
of armoured warfare and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general
and given command of the XVI Panzer Corps in 1938.
Erich Hoepner commanded forces in the invasions of Poland
in 1939 and later France in 1940, obtaining the Knight's Cross
of the Iron Cross. Erich Hoepner was promoted to the rank
of colonel-general in 1941 and given command of the Fourth
Panzer Group for the invasion of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics.
Erich Hoepner withdrew his forces in the face of the huge
Russian counteroffensive at Moscow in January 1942 and was
removed from his command by
Adolf
Hitler, and dismissed from the Wehrmacht and stripped
of his medals and pension rights. Erich Hoepner then set in
motion a successful legal action against the government for
the restitution of his pension.
Though Erich Hoepner was opposed to the terms of the Treaty
of Versailles, Erich Hoepner was also an early adversary of
Adolf Hitler's
rise to power, and Erich Hoepner took part in several conspiracies
to bring down
Adolf
Hitler. In the September 1938, an attempt, at the time
of the Munich Conference, Erich Hoepner's forces were appointed
the task of suppressing the Schutzstaffel (SS) following the
planned capture and intended shooting of
Adolf
Hitler in the act of resisting arrest, the plot foundered,
due to the capitulation by Chamberlain which entirely undercut
the basis for the coup, and Erich Hoepner's part went undetected.
Erich Hoepner took on an active part in the earliest conspiracies
against
Adolf Hitler.
Like other conservative resisters, Erich Hoepner believed
Adolf Hitler's
strategic decisions would directly lead to the downfall of
Germany, which was the motivation in the September 1938 plot,
in which Erich Hoepner was supposed to use his armored division
to enforce the surrendering of
Adolf
Hitler's personal bodyguards, the SS Leibstandarte, and
another in October November 1939, after war had already started
both involving the very top levels of the Abwehr and the High
Command, the Oberkommando des Heeres, (OKH). Following the
Fall of France, the fears that
Adolf
Hitler's expansionist policies would bestow ruin upon
Germany seemed to have been incorrect, and Erich Hoepner,
like most opposition generals, even the OKH, became more noncritical
of
Adolf Hitler.
It was just after Operation Barbarossa had stalled at the
gates of Moscow and his demeaning dismissal by
Adolf
Hitler, that Erich Hoepner became active again. During
his command on the Eastern Front, Erich Hoepner followed a
policy of scorched earth, necessitating ruthless and complete
devastation of the enemy from his soldiers. As a commander
of the Fourth Panzer Army, Erich Hoepner wrote on May 2, 1941:
The war against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is
the age-old struggle of the Germans versus the Slavs, the
fending off of the Jewish Bolshevism. No more mercy should
be shown towards the carriers of the present Russian Bolshevik
system The commander of the Einsatzgruppe A, Dr Stehlecker,
spoke highly of Erich Hoepner and described his relations
with him as very close, almost genial. Erich Hoepner also
wrote that Operation Barbarossa symbolised the defence of
European culture versus Moscovite-Asiatic torrent, and the
push back of Jewish Bolshevism, adding that destruction of
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics must be carried on with
unprecedented severity. On 5 December 1941, Erich Hoepner
refused to follow
Adolf
Hitler's unconditional 'Halt Order' and ordered a withdrawal
of his forces as they were just outside Moscow. In January
1942, Erich Hoepner was terminated from service with the loss
of all pension rights. Erich Hoepner later on brought a lawsuit
against the Wehrmacht over his pension rights and won.
Erich Hoepner was a participant in the 20 July Plot in 1944
and was present at the Bendlerblock (Headquarters of the Army)
with General Friedrich Olbricht, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg,
Colonel Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim and Lieutenant Werner
von Haeften. After the unsuccessful coup, Erich Hoepner had
a confidential conversation with General Friedrich Fromm and
was not shot by firing squad with the other people in the
courtyard.
Having already been sacked from the Wehrmacht in 1942, Erich
Hoepner was arrested that night and then tortured by the Gestapo,
given a summary trial by the Volksgerichtshof and condemned
to death. Like other suspects including Erwin von Witzleben,
Erich Hoepner was made to wear badly fitting garments as continual
way to cause humiliation during his trial. Although judge
Roland Freisler carried on to viciously verbally attack Erich
Hoepner, even Freisler objected to Erich Hoepner being made
to dress in such a way. Erich Hoepner was hanged on 8 August,
in Berlin's Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, Germany.
After the war, a school in Berlin was named after him, but
after his actions in occupied Soviet Union came to light,
its name was changed.
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