Branch: Kaiserliche Heer / Reichswehr Heer / Wehrmacht
Heer
Born: 8 October 1884 in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg,
Germany.
Died: 17 January 1942 in Poltava, Ukraine.
Ranks:
Generalfeldmarschall 19 July
1940
Generaloberst 1 October 1939
General der Artillerie 1 October
1936
Generalleutnant 1 October
1935
Generalmajor 1 February 1934
Oberst 1 February 1932
Oberstleutnant 1 April 1929
Major 1 July 1923
Hauptmann 28 November 1914
Oberleutnant 18 August 1912
Leutnant 18 August 1904
Fähnrich
Decorations:
Prussian Crown Order 4th Class
Iron Cross 1914
1st Class
2nd Class
Knight's Cross of the House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords
Knight's Cross of the Friedrich Order
Hamburg Hanseatic Cross
Military Merit Cross 3rd Class with War Decoration
Clasp to the Iron Cross
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 30 September 1939
Commands:
10. Armee
Takes command on 6 August 1939
Ends command on 10 October 1939
6. Armee
Takes command on 10 October 1939
Ends command on 29 December 1941
Other: Personnel
Articles:
Walter Karl Ernst August von Reichenau was born on 8 October
1884 and became a German Generalfeldmarschall during the Second
World War. Walter von Reichenau was born in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg,
Germany to a Prussian general and joined the Kaiserliche Heer
in 1903. During the First World War Walter von Reichenau served
on the Western Front. Walter von Reichenau was awarded the
Iron Cross First Class, and by 1918 had been promoted to the
rank of Hauptmann.
Walter von Reichenau stayed in the Reichswehr as a General
Staff officer. By 1931 Walter von Reichenau was chief of staff
to the Inspector of Signals at the Reichswehr Ministry, and
he later served with General
Werner
von Blomberg in East Prussia. Walter von Reichenau uncle,
an enthusiastic national socialist, acquainted him to
Adolf
Hitler in 1932 and Walter von Reichenau became a convert,
joining the national socialist party soon after. In doing
so was an offence of army regulations, which prohibited army
members from joining political parties.
Walter von Reichenau's family was quite affluent, descended
from a long line of German aristocracy. During the 19th and
early 20th centuries the Walter von Reichenau family owned
and controlled one of the biggest furniture factories in Germany.
In 1938, records suggest, the Reichenau's gave the factory
to the national socialist cause, transforming it into a armaments
factory. During an Allied air raid in 1945, the armaments
factory was destroyed. Walter von Reichenau family's wealth
and prominence wiped out in the air raid.
Walter von Reichenau was wedded to Alix, daughter of Silesian
Count Andreas von Maltzan. During the Second World War, Alix's
sister Maria hid her Jewish lover Hans Hirschel from the Gestapo
(Secret State Police) in her flat in Berlin, Germany. Walter
von Reichenau acknowledged this, and visited them now and
again. Maria also tried to conceal Jews and political dissidents,
by helping them escape from Germany.
Once
Adolf
Hitler came to power in January 1933,
Werner
von Blomberg became Minister of War and Walter von Reichenau
was appointed head of the Ministerial Office, performing as
liaison officer between the Army and the national socialist
party. Walter von Reichenau played a major role in swaying
national socialist leaders such as
Hermann
Göring and
Heinrich
Himmler that the power of
Ernst
Röhm and the Sturmarbeiteilung must be destroyed
if the Army was going to support the national socialists.
This led directly to the Night of the Long Knives of 30 June
1934.
Walter von Reichenau was promoted in 1935 to Generalleutnant
and was appointed commandant in Munich. Through 1938, after
the
Werner
von Blomberg-Fritsch Affair in which General Werner von
Fritsch was dismissed, Walter von Reichenau was
Adolf
Hitler first choice to succeed him, but older leaders
such as Generalfeldmarschall
Gerd
von Rundstedt and Generaloberst
Ludwig
Beck refused to serve under him, and
Adolf
Hitler backed down. Walter von Reichenau was a passionate
national socialist which repulsed many of the generals who
would not oppose
Adolf
Hitler but who didn't care for the national socialist
ideology.
During September 1939, Walter von Reichenau was commandant
of the 10. Armee during the invasion of Poland. And in 1940
Walter von Reichenau was commandant of the 6. Armee during
the invasion of Kingdom of Belgium and France, and in July,
Adolf Hitler
promoted him to Generalfeldmarschall.
In June 1941 the invasion of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics began, Walter von Reichenau was again Commandant
of the 6. Armee, which captured Kiev and Kharkov. During the
offensive, Walter von Reichenau scrutinised every single Russian
tank he came upon. Walter von Reichenau would get in every
tank and, using a ruler, he would analyse the thickness of
the armour. According to an account by general staff Paul
Jordan, upon analysing a T-34 tank, Walter von Reichenau told
his officers, If the Soviet Union ever manufacture the T-34
on an production line, we'll have lost the war.
Walter von Reichenau was an anti-Semite who compared Jewry
with Bolshevism and the perceived Asian threat to Europe.
The notorious October 1941 Reichenau Order.
All Jews were henceforth to be treated as de facto partisans,
and commanders were directed that they be either summarily
shot or handed over to the Einsatzgruppen execution squads
of the SS-Totenkopfverbände as the situation dictated.
Upon hearing of the Severity Order, Walter von Reichenau's
superior Generalfeldmarschall
Gerd
von Rundstedt expressed complete agreement with it, and
sent out a circular to all of the Army generals under his
command urging them to send out their own versions of the
Severity Order, which would impress upon the troops the need
to exterminate Jews. Some historians such as Walter Görlitz
have sought to defend Walter von Reichenau, summarising the
above order as demanding that the troops keep their distance
from the Russian civilian population.
Walter von Reichenau collaborated with SS Einsatzgruppen in
eradicating the Jews in the occupied Russian territories.
On 19 December 1941
Adolf
Hitler dismissed Generalfeldmarschall
Walther
von Brauchitsch as Commander-in-Chief and tried to appoint
Walter von Reichenau to the post. But again the senior Army
leaders disapproved Walter von Reichenau as being too political
and
Adolf Hitler
appointed himself instead.
During January 1942 Walter von Reichenau suffered a cerebral
haemorrhage, and it was selected to fly him from Poltava to
a hospital in Leipzig, Germany. Walter von Reichenau is often
said to have been killed in a plane crash in Soviet Union,
although Görlitz writes that the plane merely made an
forced landing in a field, and that Walter von Reichenau in
reality died of a heart attack. His death coincided in time
with a propaganda action conducted by the Polish underground
Operation Reichenau, whose goal was to disgrace Walter von
Reichenau, in the eyes of the German leadership, as a individual
who allegedly had been plotting to overthrow the national
socialist regime, to sow distrust between the national socialist
political leadership and its armed forces command, and penalise
one of the German generals responsible for war crimes in Poland.
These coincidence became a productive ground for conspiracy
theories, which allege that Walter von Reichenau might really
have been killed by the national socialist secret services.
For a complete list of
sources
