Hans Graf von Sponeck
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Hans Graf von Sponeck | |
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Born | Düsseldorf, Rhine Province, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire | 12 February 1888
Died | 23 July 1944 Germersheim, Landkreis Germersheim, Rhenish Palatinate, Land Bayern, Gau Westmark, Nazi Germany | (aged 56)
Cause of death | Execution by firing squad |
Allegiance | XLII Army Corps |
Battles/wars | World War I
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Awards | Hans von Sponeck (son) |
Hans Emil Otto Graf von Sponeck (12 February 1888 – 23 July 1944) was a German general during World War II who was imprisoned for disobeying orders and later executed.
Pre-World War II career
Hans Graf von Sponeck was born in 1888 in Düsseldorf. He received a military education and was commissioned as an officer in 1908. He married in 1910 and had two sons by this marriage. He served in World War I as a battalion adjutant, regiment adjutant, company commander and general staff officer.[1] He was wounded three times and in 1917 was promoted to the rank of Hauptmann (Captain). Afterwards he was awarded both orders of the Iron Cross with (oak) Leaves.
Between 1924 and 1934, he served on the General Staff HQ and later, as full colonel, commanded an infantry regiment at Neustrelitz. In 1925, Sponeck was admitted to the Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg) as a Knight of Honor (Ehrenritter).[2]
Sponeck commanded Infantry Regiment 48 at
During the trial of General von Fritsch, Sponeck was called as a character witness but was roughly put down by
Second World War
On 1 February 1940, Sponeck was promoted to
Invasion of the Soviet Union
Before dawn on 22 June 1941,
On 7 October 1941, Graf von Sponeck ordered his division to work closely with the
Because of
The case of General von Sponeck is complicated. He had the moral courage to refuse an order from Hitler to stand his ground when his troops were threatened with destruction, and he was court-martialed and later killed by the Nazis for it. At the same time, he did not refuse to carry out the criminal Commissar Order, which gave cover for what became a genocidal war against ‘Jewish Bolshevism’ in the Soviet Union. While von Sponeck was not a Nazi in the technical sense and was himself even critical of some aspects of the regime, his orders and the actions of his troops leave no doubt that he had internalized anti-Semitic racism. Sponeck shows that it was not necessary to be an ideologically-driven Nazi to carry out the Nazi regime’s policy of mass murder. Under Nazism and in conditions of war, the lines between victim and perpetrator, between hero and follower could dissolve within a single person.”[9]
On 26 December 1941, the Soviet forces landed on
Trial, imprisonment and execution
On 23 January 1942, Sponeck was tried in front of the Court President Hermann Göring where he maintained that he had acted against orders, on his own initiative, in order to avoid the destruction of his division. He was found guilty of disobedience to a superior officer and given the death sentence. Adolf Hitler (on Manstein's proposal) commuted the sentence to seven years in prison. Sponeck was to serve as an example to those who disobeyed Hitler's new order not to retreat. Sponeck was imprisoned in the Germersheim Fortress.[citation needed]
Following the 20 July failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, Josef Bürckel, Gauleiter of Gau Westmark where Germersheim was located, pressed Heinrich Himmler, who was the Reich's Security Official, to have Sponeck executed in retribution for the assassination plot, even though the latter had no contact with the German military resistance.[12] On Himmler's orders, Sponeck was shot to death on 23 July 1944.[13] Sponeck was buried in Germersheim and no citations or speeches were permitted at his grave. After the war, Sponeck's remains were transferred to the Soldiers' Cemetery at Dahn in the Palatinate Forest.
After the war, Graf von Sponeck was commemorated in Germany, with an Air Force base in Germersheim, streets and monuments named after him. However, in 2015, following the publication of an article by Erik Grimmer-Solem published in 2014 in the journal Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift, which investigated Sponeck's role in "numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity in the southern Ukraine and Crimea in 1941." Civil protests in Germersheim took place. The German Air Force, in accordance with the German Government's and the Bundestag's decisions, renamed the Sponeck Airbase ("General-Hans-Graf-Sponeck-Kaserne") "Südpfalz-Kaserne".[9][14]
Notes
- ^ Generalleutnant Hans Emil Otto Graf von Sponeck
- ISBN 978-0972698900.
- ISBN 978-0816606498.
- ^ Pipes, Jason. "Hans Graf von Sponeck". feldgrau.com. Retrieved 12 November 2015.
- ^ Grimmer-Solem 2013, pp. 28–9.
- ^ Grimmer-Solem 2013, pp. 34–39.
- ISBN 978-3549072615(in German).
- ^ Grimmer-Solem 2013, pp. 44–45.
- ^ a b Rubenstein 2014.
- ^ Glantz and House 1995, p. 94.
- ^ Grimmer-Solem 2013, pp. 28–9;Grimmer-Solem 2013, pp. 34–9;Grimmer-Solem 2013, pp. 44–5
- ISBN 978-3839117613(in German).
- ISBN 3-7646-1815-9.
- ^ Aus der Sponeck- wird die Südpfalz-Kaserne[permanent dead link], 22 June 2015. luftwaffe.de.
References
- Grimmer-Solem, Erik (2013). "'Selbständiges verantwortliches Handeln': Generalleutnant Hans Graf von Sponeck (1888–1944) und das Schicksal der Juden in der Ukraine, Juni–Dezember 1941" ['Autonoumus and responsible action': Lieutenant General Hans von Sponeck (1888-1944) and the fate of Ukrainian Jews, June–December 1941]. Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift (in German). 72 (1 - December 2013). See review (in English).
- Danisch, Alexander (6 July 2015). "Aus der Sponeck- wird die Südpfalz-Kaserne". German Federal Air Force. Retrieved 18 April 2017.
- Rubenstein, Lauren (31 March 2014). "Grimmer-Solem's Research Sheds New Light on Celebrated German General". Wesleyan University. http://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu. Retrieved 18 April 2017.
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Military offices | ||
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Preceded by Generaloberst Adolf Strauß
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Commander of 22. Infanterie-Division 10 November 1938 – 10 October 1941 |
Succeeded by General der Infanterie Ludwig Wolff
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Preceded by General der Pioniere Walter Kuntze
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Commander of XXXXII. Armeekorps 10 October 1941 – 29 October 1941 |
Succeeded by General der Infanterie Bruno Bieler
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Preceded by General der Infanterie Bruno Bieler
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Commander of XXXXII. Armeekorps November 1941 – 31 December 1941 |
Succeeded by General der Infanterie Franz Mattenklott
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