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Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 30, 1904 Breslau, Silesia, German Empire (now Wrocław, Poland) |
| Died | June 28, 1997 (aged 92) Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa |
| Allegiance |  Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany |
| Service/ |  Reichswehr Heer |
| Years of service | 1924–45 |
| Rank | Generalmajor |
| Unit | III Army Corps 197th Infantry Battalion Second Army Afrika Korps / Panzer Army Africa XLVIII Panzer Corps Army Group G 5th Panzer Army |
| Commands held | 9th Panzer Division |
| Battles/wars | Battles/Campaigns |
| Awards | Awards German Cross in Gold |
| Spouse(s) | Ingeborg (née von Aulock)1932-54 Sybille (née Zeltmann) 1954 |
| Other work | Author of Panzer Battles, NATO defense analyst, founder of Trek Airways |
Friedrich-Wilhelm von Mellenthin (30 August 1904 — 28 June 1997) was a Generalmajor in the German Army during World War II. A participant in most of the major campaigns of the war, and the Chief of Staff to Erwin Rommel and Hermann Balck, he became well-known afterwards for his memoirs Panzer Battles, first published in 1956 and regularly reprinted since then.
Early life and Interwar years[edit]
Mellenthin was born in Breslau, Silesia, into a military Junker family. His father and older brother Horst von Mellenthin were both artillery officers in the First World War, the former being killed in action in June of 1918, and the latter going on to become a General der Artillerie in the Second World War as well as a founding member of the Gehlen Organization and the Federal Intelligence Service.[1] In 1924, upon graduation from Breslau's gymnasium, Mellenthin enlisted as a private in the Reichswehr and was assigned to the 7th Cavalry Regiment. He studied for his commission over the next several years, and was promoted to lieutenant in 1928. He married Ingeborg von Aulock, the granddaughter of a South African emigrant, in 1932. Although he described himself as "perfectly happy" with regimental life, his superiors assigned him to prepare operational reports to divisional headquarters, at which he excelled. In recognition of his administrative talents, he was assigned to the Prussian Military Academy in 1935, where he took its two-year course for General Staff officers.
World War Two[edit]
Early war — Poland/France/Balkans/Greece[edit]
Between 1937 and December 1939, he served as the Third General Staff Officer (Ic-Intelligence) in the III. Armeekorps of the Wehrmacht. He participated in the September 1939 Invasion of Poland, where the III. Armeekorps attacked from Pomerania and pressed along the Vistula River toward Warsaw, cutting off the retreat of Polish units in the Corridor.
From June to August 1940, he was the First General Staff Officer (Ia-Operations) with the 197th Infantry Division during the Battle of France and the preparations for Operation Sea Lion. From September 1940 to February 1941, he was the Third General Staff Officer (Ic-Intelligence) in the First Army, then on occupation duty in northern France. After this quiet period, from March through May 1941, he was the Third General Staff Officer (Ic-Intelligence) with the Second Army during Germany's invasion of the Balkans.
Africa[edit]
Following this, von Mellenthin was posted to North Africa, where from June 1941 to September 1942 he served as the Third General Staff Officer (Ic-Intelligence) in Generaloberst Erwin Rommel's Deutsches Afrika Korps (which later became Panzer Armee Afrika - PAA). He stayed in this role during the battles of Tobruk, Gazala, and First and Second El Alamein. From July to September 1942 he also served as the Acting Operations Staff Officer to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel at PAA HQ.
On 10 July during First Alamein, PAA HQ came under direct attack by Australian troops who had routed the Italian Sabratha Division. Von Mellenthin formed the HQ personnel into a battle group and held off the Australians until German reserves arrived.
Due to the high stress of these assignments, he spent September and October 1942 in a military hospital at Garmisch, Germany, recovering from exhaustion and amoebic dysentery.
Eastern Front[edit]
Upon recovery from his illness, von Mellenthin was assigned as Chief of Staff for the 48th Panzer Corps, on the Eastern Front in Russia. He served with 48th Panzer Corps from November 1942 to May 1944. He participated in the battles following the encirclement of Stalingrad, and was in frequent radio contact with Paulus, the commander at Stalingrad. After the defeat at Stalingrad, von Mellenthin described the German war on the Eastern Front in the following terms: "We are in the position of a man who has seized a wolf by the ears and dare not let him go." (May 14, 1943).
Von Mellenthin continued with 48th Panzer Corps through the Battle of Kursk, the Battle of Kiev and the spring 1944 battles in western Ukraine, including the battle for Tarnopol. During the first days of the Lvov-Sandomierz Operation, in July 1944, 48th Panzer Corps failed to relieve the Brody encirclement.
In August 1944, during the later stages of the battles in western Ukraine and south-eastern Poland, several German commanders were moved; von Mellenthin followed General Hermann Balck when Balck was promoted from 48th Panzer Corps to commander of 4th Panzer Army. During this time Soviet Marshal Konev's forces pressed the German forces behind the San river in south-eastern Poland, creating a bridgehead that became one of the springboards for the Vistula-Oder offensive in January 1945.
Western Front[edit]
In September 1944, Balck was promoted to command Army Group G in eastern France, and again von Mellenthin followed. They served there until November 1944, during fighting in Lorraine and Alsace, including the Battle of Nancy, Battle of Metz, and Battle of Arracourt. In early December 1944, Balck was relieved of command by Hitler for "unauthorized retreat", and von Mellenthin was retired to the OKW Officers’ Pool. General Heinz Guderian, then Chief of Staff of the German Army, interceded for him and he was restored to duty in late December.
On December 28, he received command of 9th Panzer Division, whose commander von Elverfeldt had been wounded. 9th Panzer was then engaged in the Battle of the Bulge, fighting just north of Bastogne. Von Mellenthin commanded 9th Panzer through the remainder of the battle, and until February, when von Elverfeldt recovered. This was von Mellenthin's only command assignment in his career.
From March to May 1945 he was chief of staff of 5th Panzer Army under General Hasso von Manteuffel, defending western Germany against US and British forces in the Ruhr region and around Cologne.
During the eastward retreat he was captured by the British at Höxter on the Weser River, on May 3, 1945.
Later life[edit]
Mellenthin spent two and a half years in prison. After his release, he was left homeless for several years in West Germany, his family's estates occupied by Soviet forces. Once his wife received an inheritance from her grandfather family was able to emigrate to South Africa, where he was a founding shareholder and sales director of Trek Airways. His success in the aviation industry prompted Lufthansa to hire him as the director of their African operations in 1961.[2] In 1960 Mellenthin proposed the formation of a Southern African Treaty Organization(de), composed of Mozambique, Angola, South Africa and Rhodesia, modeled on NATO..[3]
Published Works[edit]
- Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War. First Ballantine Books Edition (1971). New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-24440-0
- German Generals of World War II: As I Saw Them (1977). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
- R. H. S. Stolfi, E. Sobik: NATO Under Attack: Why the Western Alliance Can Fight Outnumbered and Win in Central Europe Without Nuclear Weapons. Duke Press Policy Studies, 1984.
- Schach dem Schicksal. Ein deutscher Generalstabsoffizier berichtet von seiner Herkunft, seinem Einsatz im 2. Weltkrieg und seinem beruflichen Neubeginn nach dem Kriege. In: Soldatenschicksale des 20. Jahrhunderts als Geschichtsquelle. Bd. 11, Osnabrück 1988, ISBN 3-7648-1729-1.
References[edit]
- ^ Zabecki 2013, pp. 64–76.
- ^ Washington Post, staff 1997.
- ^ Carlson 1990, p. 70.
Bibliography[edit]
- Carlson, Verner R. (1990). "Portrait of a German general staff officer". Military Review. 70 (4). Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combined Arms Center. ISSN 0026-4148.
- Citino, Robert M. (2012). The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1826-2.
- Smelser, Ronald; Davies, Edward J. (2008). The Myth of the Eastern Front: the Nazi-Soviet war in American popular culture. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521833653.
- Wette, Wolfram (2007). The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674025776.
- Mellenthin, Friedrich (1971). Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War. New York, New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-24440-0.
- Washington Post, staff (5 July 1997), "Obituary", Washington Post, retrieved 26 October 2017
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - Zabecki, David T. (2013). Chief of Staff, Vol. 2: The Principal Officers Behind History's Great Commanders, World War II to Korea and Vietnam. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 9781612515595.
Category:1904 births
Category:1997 deaths
Category:Wehrmacht generals
Category:German military writers
Category:People from Wrocław
Category:People from the Province of Silesia
Category:German male writers
Category:Recipients of the Gold German Cross
Category:World War II prisoners of war held by the United Kingdom