Post
by Friedrich August I. » Thu Feb 26, 2015 5:27 pm
Btw., if anyone is interested here is a short historical note on Gen.Lt.Ferdinand Heim's War Record from 1939-1944
3 September 1940-15 May 1942: Chief of the General Staff of the 6th Army. [Commanded by Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Reichenau, the 6th Army was concentrated on the Cherbourg Peninsula following the surrender of France when Heim joined its General Staff. The army remained on alert for Operation “Seelöwe” (Sea Lion), the proposed invasion of Great Britain. Although the operation was never carried out, the 6th Army had been tentatively assigned landing zones in Lyme Bay between Weymouth and Lyme Regis. Transferred to the east, the 6th Army next took part in the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 as a component of Army Group South. Upon von Reichenau’s elevation to Commander-in-Chief of Army Group South in January 1942, he handed over leadership of the 6th Army to his old comrade and former chief of staff, General der Panzertruppe (later Generalfeldmarschall) Friedrich Paulus.]
15 May 1942: Führer Reserve in the Army High Command.
22 June 1942: Detached to the Panzer Troop School and to the School for Motorized Troops in Krampnitz.
1 July 1942: Commander of the 14th Panzer Division in Russia.
1 November 1942: Delegated with the leadership of the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps in Russia. [On 14 November 1942, Heim’s corps began assembling in the rear of the Romanian 3rd Army to bolster its defenses in view of evidence of an imminent Soviet offensive. Composed of only 180 serviceable tanks, Heim’s weak corps comprised the 14th Panzer Division (36 tanks), the 22nd Panzer Division (41 tanks many of which were unreliable from mice chewing through electrical wiring!) and the Romanian 1st Armored Division (103 tanks including 84 woefully inadequate R-2 light tanks). On 19 November 1942, the Soviet Southwestern Front attacked the Romanian 3rd Army and, despite pockets of determined resistance, smashed through and streamed deep into the Romanian rear areas. Heims’ corps counterattacked but, instead of attacking en masse, he received orders to divert the Romanian 1st Armored Division while it was already on the move. Heims’ counterattack was thus dislocated from the start and failed to contain the Soviet breakthrough which resulted in the encirclement and subsequent destruction of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad.]
26 November 1942: Führer Reserve in the Army High Command – arrested on Hitler’s orders and placed in solitary confinement in Moabit for the failure of his corps to halt the Soviet counteroffensive that led to the encirclement of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad. General der Infanterie Rudolf Schmundt, the Chief Armed Forces Adjutant to Hitler and Chief of the Army Personnel Office, wrote in his diary: “The Führer [Hitler] himself will decide on all further measures of military discipline in this matter.”
April 1943: Released from imprisonment into a hospital.
July 1943: Hitler reversed his decision to expel Heim from the Army and he was allowed to retire instead.
16 August 1943: Retired from the Army.
1 August 1944: Again, reactivated in the Army.
5 August 1944-23 September 1944: Fortress Commandant Boulogne, France. [Following the Allied breakout from Normandy, the Canadian 1st Army cleared the Pas-de-Calais region of France and liberated the Channel ports of Le Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne, and Calais. The German garrison of Boulogne, commanded by Heim, surrendered to the Canadians on 23 September 1944. The capture of Boulogne and Calais ended operation of the huge German naval cannons mounted in concrete casemates on the cliffs at Cape Gris Nez. The guns had been used to bombard the Channel and south coast ports of England.]
„Macht Euch Euren Dregg alleene“
"Sort your filth out by yourself!" The King of Saxony Friedrich August III., at his abdication 1918, referred to the quarrels in the parliament and the squabbling within the provisional government.