Kurt Knoblauch
Born(1885-12-10)December 10, 1885
Marienwerder, Poland
DiedNovember 10, 1952 (aged 66)
Munich, West Germany
Allegiance German Empire
 Weimar Republic
 Nazi Germany
Service/branch Imperial German Army
 Reichsheer
Waffen-SS
RankOberst
SS-Obergruppenführer
Battles/warsWorld War I
World War II
AwardsIron Cross
Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918
Wound Badge
Hermann Franz, Kurt Knoblauch, Poročnik Lang, Friedrich Rainer, Erwin Rösener, Kurt Daluege at Helmut Hierzegger, Austria on 3 July 1941

Kurt Knoblauch (December 10, 1885 – November 10, 1952) was a German army officer and Waffen-SS general.

Biography

Knoblauch was a son of the tax collector Friedrich Knoblauch (? - September 25, 1922) and his wife Emma, née Schröder.[1] After graduating from high school in Ratzeburg, on February 23, 1905 Knoblauch joined the Prussian Army as a cadet in the 39th (Lower Rhenish) Fusilier Regiment. On August 18, 1906 he was promoted to lieutenant. On October 18, 1909, he was transferred to the 70th (8th Rhenish) Infantry Regiment and served as platoon commander. In May 1911 he was seconded to the 8th (1st Rhenish) Engineer Battalion for a month to gain engineering experience in the field. On October 1, 1912, Knoblauch became battalion adjutant and on February 17, 1914 he was promoted to first lieutenant. On May 1, 1914, he was transferred to the Saarbrücken district command. During World War I, starting on August 2, 1914, he became a company commander in the 32nd Brigade Replacement Battalion. On June 18, 1915, he was promoted to captain. During the war he was wounded several times.

In 1919, after the war, Knoblauch served in the Freikorps Deutsche Schutzdivision before being taken over by the Provisional Reichswehr. He first headed the 4th Machine Gun Company, then became chief of the 12th Company of the 3rd Rifle Regiment, and then served as intelligence officer in the 18th Infantry Regiment in Paderborn. On February 1, 1926, he was promoted to major and then to lieutenant colonel on April 1, 1930. As such he led the 2nd Battalion of the 1st (Prussian) Infantry Regiment. On April 1, 1931, Knoblauch became a member of the regimental staff. He retired from the army on March 31, 1933, having received his final promotion to Oberst in February. Knoblauch joined the Nazi Party on April 20, 1933, (membership number 2,750,158) and joined the Sturmabteilung. He served full-time as an SA leader until stepping down on April 12, 1935, to join the Schutzstaffel (SS No. 266,653).[2]

From 1937 onwards he served in the Nazi Party Chancellery, aiding the war preparation.[3][4][5][6]

In May 1940 he was appointed Inspector of the Replacement Units of the SS Totenkopf Division and became one of Heinrich Himmler's closest confidants.[7] In December 1940 he became Commander of the Waffen-SS in the Netherlands. [8] On April 7, 1941, he was appointed as Chief of Staff of the Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS.[9] In July 1942 he was transferred to the SS Führungshauptamt to head the training department (Amtsgruppe B). In that position he was also responsible for the coordination of SS support for Wehrmacht and police operations, including persecution of the Jews in instances like the Pripyat Marshes massacres.[10] In 1943 he was replaced by Ernst Rode. In June 1944 he was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer. In December 1949, during the denazification after the war, Knoblauch was classified as an activist (Offender, Category II) by the Munich Courts and sentenced to two years in a labor camp. In June 1950, a Munich arbitration court rejected Knoblauch's appeal, and confirmed the verdict of the first court.[11][12][13]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Category:Kurt Knoblauch.

References

  1. ^ Peter Longerich , Institute for Contemporary History : Hitler's Deputy: Leadership of the Party and Control of the State Apparatus by Staff Hess and the Bormann Party Chancellery: A Publication of the Institute for Contemporary History , KG Saur, Munich 1992.
  2. ^ Dermot Bradley (eds.), Andreas Schulz , Günter Wegmann: The Generals of the Waffen SS and the Police. The military careers of generals, as well as doctors, veterinarians, intendants, judges and ministry officials with the rank of general. Volume 2: Hachtel-Kutschera. Biblio publisher. Bissendorf 2005. ISBN 3-7648-2592-8 . pp. 534-540.
  3. ^ Ernst Klee : The Person Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007. ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 . (Updated 2nd Edition).
  4. ^ Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The Generals of the Waffen SS and the Police: Lammerding-Plesch . Biblio-Verlag, 2003, ISBN 978-3-7648-2375-7 , p. 706.
  5. ^ Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945,By Charles Sydnor.page 113
  6. ^ ushmm.org, Photo of Kurt Knoblauch and Himmler
  7. ^ SS Personnel Office: List of years of service of the NSDAP Schutzstaffel, as of December 1, 1937, serial no. 238 Kurt Knoblauch on www.dws-xip.pl.
  8. ^ Ernst Klee: The Person Encyclopedia of the Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 320.
  9. ^ Charles W. Sydnor: Soldiers of destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945 . Princeton University Press, 1990, ISBN 978-0-691-00853-0 , p. 113.
  10. ^ Peter Longerich: Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews . Oxford University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-280436-5 , p. 187.
  11. ^ Terry Goldsworthy, Valhalla's Warriors: A History of the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front 1941-1945. Dog Ear Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-1-60844-639-1 , p. 91.
  12. ^ Minutes of the Nuremberg Trial, January 7, 1946 . Original text on zeno.org.
  13. ^ Photo of Kurt Knoblauch
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