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Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Hossbach[Note 1] (22 November 1894 – 10 September 1980) was a German staff officer who in 1937 was the military adjutant to Adolf Hitler. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grade Oak Leaves was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership.
The son of a secondary-school teacher, he joined the Imperial German Army (Reichsheer) in 1913 as a Fähnrich (Ensign) and quickly rose to the rank of a lieutenant. Hossbach served on the Eastern Front during World War I as adjutant of his infantry regiment. On 2 March 1918 he became staff member of the XVIII Corps, from September 2 as Oberleutnant (first lieutenant).
His services were retained in the post-war Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic, where he was assigned to the General Staff in the rank of a Hauptmann (captain) on 1 March 1927. After the Nazi Machtergreifung he was promoted to a major on 4 August 1934, and appointed as Adolf Hitler's adjutant, though retaining his staff position, from 1935 within the Wehrmacht.
His most important contribution to history is his creation of the Hossbach Memorandum. This was a report of a meeting held on November 5, 1937 between Hitler and Feldmarschall von Blomberg, General von Fritsch, Admiral Dr. Raeder, Generaloberst Hermann Göring, Baron von Neurath and Hossbach. His account was found among the Nuremberg papers, where it was an important piece of evidence.[1]
In early 1938, Hossbach was present when Hitler was presented by Goering with a file purporting to show that General von Fritsch, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, was guilty of homosexual practices. In defiance of Hitler's orders, Hossbach took the file to von Fritsch to warn him of the accusations he was about to face. Fritsch gave his word as an officer that the charges were untrue, and Hossbach passed this message back to Hitler. This did not, as it might have, cost Hossbach his life, though he was dismissed from his post as Hitler's adjutant two days later.[2]
Hossbach rose to the rank of General of Infantry, commanding the 82nd Infantry Division, the LVI Panzer Corps, and latterly Fourth Army on the Russian front, until being dismissed on January 28, 1945 for attempting to break out of East Prussia in defiance of Hitler's orders.
Hossbach was responsible for planning and executing the operation at Ozarichi to set up typhus camps in the path of the advancing Russian army so as to cause a typhus epidemic amongst the soldiers.[3] The population was rounded up into camps with no shelter and patients suffering from typhus were deliberately brought into the camps. The Russian army managed to avoid an epidemic by deploying a recently developed typhus vaccine. The civilian deaths have been estimated at over 10,000.
Three different commanding officers recommended Hoßbach for the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords during the course of 1944, nevertheless the request was turned down each time.[6]
World War II, Nazi Germany, Bundesgrenzschutz, World War I, West Germany
Nazi Germany, World War I, World War II, Authority control, German Empire
Nazi Germany, World War I, World War II, German Empire, Germany
Nazi Germany, World War II, German Empire, 2nd Army (Wehrmacht), World War I
Nazi Germany, World War II, Berlin, Athens, Dodecanese Campaign