Wilhelm Burgdorf
Burgdorf in 1944
Chief of the Army Personnel Office
In office
12 October 1944 – 2 May 1945
Preceded byRudolf Schmundt
Succeeded byOffice abolished
Chief adjutant to Adolf Hitler
In office
12 October 1944 – 30 April 1945
Personal details
Born(1895-02-15)15 February 1895
Fürstenwalde, Province of Brandenburg, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Died2 May 1945(1945-05-02) (aged 50)
Berlin, Germany
Cause of deathSuicide by gunshot
Signature
Military service
Allegiance
Branch/service
Years of service1914—1945
Rank General of the Infantry
Unit12th Grenadier Regiment (World War I)
529th Infantry Regiment (World War II)
CommandsArmy Personnel Office
529th Infantry Regiment
Battles/warsWorld War I
World War II
AwardsKnight's Cross of the Iron Cross

Wilhelm Emanuel Burgdorf (15 February 1895 – 2 May 1945)[lower-alpha 1] was a German general during World War II who served as a commander of the 529th Infantry Regiment and staff officer in the German Army. In October 1944, Burgdorf assumed the role of the chief of the Army Personnel Office and chief adjutant to Adolf Hitler. In this capacity, he played a key role in the forced suicide of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. Burgdorf committed suicide inside the Führerbunker on 2 May 1945 at the conclusion of the Battle of Berlin.

Early life and education

Burgdorf was born in 15 February 1895 in Fürstenwalde, Province of Brandenburg, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire.

Military career

Burgdorf (left) says goodbye to soldiers of his unit as commander of 529th Infantry Regiment of 299th Infantry Division in the Eastern Front near Dreskovo, Soviet Union on 1942.

Burgdorf joined the Prussian Army at the outbreak of World War I as an officer cadet and was commissioned as an infantry officer in Grenadier Regiment 12 in 1915. After the war he served in the Reichswehr and was promoted to captain in 1930. In the Wehrmacht, he became an instructor in tactics at the military academy in Dresden with the rank of major in 1935 and was appointed an adjutant on the staff of the IX corps in 1937. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1938 and served as the commander of the 529th Infantry Regiment from May 1940 to April 1942. In May 1942, he became Chief of Department 2 of the Army Personnel Office. Burgdorf became the Deputy Chief in October 1942, when he was promoted to Generalmajor.[1]

Burgdorf was promoted to chief of the Army Personnel Office and chief adjutant to Adolf Hitler in October 1944. At that time, he was further promoted in rank to Generalleutnant, and one month later (on 1 November 1944) to the rank of General der Infanterie. Burgdorf retained that rank and position until his death.[1] Burgdorf decreed: Every officer and every judge of the Wehrmacht have to act with strongest measures against doubters in the German final victory. "An officer who expresses himself disparaging about the state leadership is intolerable in the National Socialist state."[2]

An undated photo

Role in Rommel's death

Burgdorf played a key role in the death of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who had been implicated as having a peripheral role in the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler. Instead of bringing the most popular general in Germany before the People's Court, Hitler opted to give Rommel several options.

On 14 October 1944, Burgdorf, with General Ernst Maisel, arrived at the Rommel household. Burgdorf informed Rommel of the charges and, following the instructions of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, offered him three choices: report to Hitler and plead not guilty;[3] admit guilt, take poison, receive a state funeral and obtain immunity for his family and staff; or face a trial for treason.[4] Rommel decided on the second option and briefed his wife and son before leaving with Burgdorf and Maisel. Rommel's family received a telephone call ten minutes later informing them that Rommel had committed suicide.[5]

Battle of Berlin

Shortly before the Battle of Berlin, Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager overheard Burgdorf say: "When the war is over, we will have to purge, after the Jews, the Catholic officers in the army."[6] Boeselager was a Roman Catholic Wehrmacht officer and vocally objected, citing his own decorations for heroism in combat. He left before Burgdorf answered.

Burgdorf joined Hitler in the Führerbunker when the Soviets assaulted Berlin. On 28 April, Hitler discovered that Heinrich Himmler tried to negotiate a surrender to the western Allies via Count Folke Bernadotte. Burgdorf took part in Hitler's court-martial of Hermann Fegelein, Himmler's SS liaison officer and Eva Braun's brother-in-law. SS-General Wilhelm Mohnke presided over the tribunal, which included SS-General Johann Rattenhuber and General Hans Krebs. Fegelein was so drunk that he was crying, vomiting and unable to stand up; he even urinated on the floor. It was the opinion of the judges that he was in no condition to stand trial. Therefore, Mohnke closed the proceedings and turned Fegelein over to Rattenhuber and his security squad.[7]

On 29 April 1945, Burgdorf, Krebs, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann witnessed and signed Hitler's last will and testament.[8] After Hitler's suicide on 30 April 1945, Goebbels assumed Hitler's role as chancellor.[9] On 1 May, Goebbels dictated a letter to Soviet Army Marshall Vasily Chuikov, requesting a temporary ceasefire, and ordered General Krebs to deliver it. Chuikov commanded the Soviet forces in central Berlin.[10] After this was rejected, Goebbels decided that further efforts were futile.[11] Goebbels then launched into a tirade berating the generals, reminding them Hitler forbade them to surrender. Ministerialdirektor Hans Fritzsche left the room to take matters into his own hands. He went to his nearby office on Wilhelmplatz and wrote a surrender letter addressed to Soviet Marshall Georgy Zhukov. General Burgdorf followed Fritzsche to his office.[12] There he asked Fritzsche if he intended to surrender Berlin. Fritzsche replied that he was going to do just that. Burgdorf shouted that Hitler had forbidden surrender and as a civilian he had no authority to do so. Burgdorf then pulled his PPK to shoot Fritzsche, but a radio technician "knocked the gun" and the bullet fired hit the ceiling. Several men then hustled Burgdorf out of the office and he returned to the bunker.[13]

After midnight, in the early hours of 2 May 1945, following the earlier suicides of Hitler and Goebbels, Burgdorf and his colleague Chief of Staff Hans Krebs committed suicide together by gunshot to the head.[14] The Soviets found the bodies of Krebs and Burgdorf in the bunker complex.[15]

Awards and decorations

Promotions
1938:

Oberstleutnant

October 1942:Generalmajor
October 1944:Generalleutnant
1 November 1944:General der Infanterie (General of the Infantry)

See also

References

Explanatory notes

  1. ↑ Burgdorf apparently committed suicide after midnight on 2 May, although some other sources state it occurred before midnight on 1 May. See Kershaw 2008, p. 960, Beevor 2002, p. 387.

Citations

  1. 1 2 Joachimsthaler 1999, p. 286.
  2. ↑ Der Spiegel 28/1978
  3. ↑ "Two generals from Hitler's headquarters, Burgdorf and Ernst Maisel, visited Rommel at his home on 14 October 1944. Burgdorf informed him of the charges and offered him three options: he could choose to defend himself personally to Hitler in Berlin;{{refn|"Burgdorf had with him copies of the interrogations of von Hofacker, von Stülpnagel and Speidel, along with a letter written by Keitel ostensibly dictated by Hitler himself. In the letter, the Führer gave Rommel an impossible choice: if he believed himself innocent of the allegations against him, then Rommel must report to Hitler in person in Berlin; refusal to do so would be considered an admission of guilt"Butler, Daniel Allen (2015). Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel. Havertown, PA / Oxford: Casemate. ISBN 978-1-61200-297-2.
  4. ↑ Manfred Rommel, Nuremberg testimony
  5. ↑ Evans 2009, p. 642.
  6. ↑ von Boeselager 2009, p. 177.
  7. ↑ O'Donnell 1978, pp. 182–183.
  8. ↑ Bullock 1962, p. 795.
  9. ↑ Kershaw 2008, pp. 949–950, 955.
  10. ↑ Fest 2004, pp. 135–137.
  11. ↑ Vinogradov 2005, p. 324.
  12. ↑ Fest 2004, p. 137.
  13. ↑ Fest 2004, pp. 137–139.
  14. ↑ Beevor 2002, p. 387.
  15. ↑ Ryan 1966, p. 398.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Thomas & Wegmann 1993, p. 292.
  17. ↑ Scherzer 2007, p. 254.

Bibliography

  • Beevor, Antony (2002). Berlin: The Downfall 1945. London: Viking-Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-670-03041-5.
  • von Boeselager, Philipp Freiherr (2009). Valkyrie: The Story of the Plot to Kill Hitler by its Last Member. Vintage. ISBN 0-307-45497-5.
  • Bullock, Alan (1962). Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-013564-2.
  • Evans, Richard J. (2009). The Third Reich at War. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-101548-4.
  • Fellgiebel, Walther-Peer (2000) [1986]. Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939–1945 — Die Inhaber der höchsten Auszeichnung des Zweiten Weltkrieges aller Wehrmachtteile [The Bearers of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939–1945 — The Owners of the Highest Award of the Second World War of all Wehrmacht Branches] (in German). Friedberg, Germany: Podzun-Pallas. ISBN 978-3-7909-0284-6.
  • Fest, Joachim (2004) [2002]. Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-13577-5.
  • Joachimsthaler, Anton (1999) [1995]. The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, the Evidence, the Truth. Trans. Helmut Bögler. London: Brockhampton Press. ISBN 978-1-86019-902-8.
  • Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-06757-6.
  • O'Donnell, James (1978). The Bunker. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-25719-7.
  • Ryan, Cornelius (1966). The Last Battle. London: Collins. ISBN 0-00-613267-7.
  • Scherzer, Veit (2007). Die Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives [The Knight's Cross Bearers 1939–1945 The Holders of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939 by Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and Allied Forces with Germany According to the Documents of the Federal Archives] (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Militaer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2.
  • Thomas, Franz; Wegmann, Günter (1993). Die Ritterkreuzträger der Deutschen Wehrmacht 1939–1945 Teil III: Infanterie Band 3: Br–Bu [The Knight's Cross Bearers of the German Wehrmacht 1939–1945 Part III: Infantry Volume 3: Br–Bu] (in German). Osnabrück, Germany: Biblio-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7648-1734-3.
  • Vinogradov, V. K. (2005). Hitler's Death: Russia's Last Great Secret from the Files of the KGB. Chaucer Press. ISBN 978-1-904449-13-3.
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