Eduard Dietl | |
|---|---|
 Dietl in April 1943 | |
| Nickname(s) | "The hero of Narvik" |
| Born | (1890-07-21)21 July 1890 Bad Aibling,Kingdom of Bavaria,German Empire |
| Died | 23 June 1944(1944-06-23) (aged 53) nearRettenegg,Reichsgau Steiermark,Nazi Germany |
| Buried | |
| Allegiance |  German Empire Weimar Republic Nazi Germany |
| Years of service | 1910–1944 |
| Rank |  Generaloberst |
| Commands | 3rd Mountain Division 20th Mountain Army |
| Battles / wars | World War I |
| Awards | Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords |
| Signature |  |
Eduard Wohlrat Christian Dietl (21 July 1890 – 23 June 1944) was a German general duringWorld War II who commanded the20th Mountain Army. He received theKnight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.
Born in 1890, Dietl joined the army on 1 October 1909 as aFahnenjunker in the 5th Infantry Regiment "Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse" of theBavarian Army inBamberg. InWorld War I, he was deployed on theWestern Front and he was wounded October 1914 and October 1918. During theWeimar Republic, he joined theDeutsche Arbeiter-Partei, the precursor to theNational Socialist German Workers Party, and theparamilitary groupFreikorps ofFranz Ritter von Epp in 1919.[1] Dietl continued to serve in the German Army and, as aGeneralmajor, he helped organise the1936 Winter Olympics held at Garmisch-Partenkirchen.[2]
Dietl commanded theGerman 3rd Mountain Division that participated in the Germaninvasion of Norway on 9 and 10 April 1940. Most of this division was landed atNarvik by a German naval force of tendestroyers, commanded by CommodoreFriedrich Bonte, subsequently all ten destroyers that had ferried Dietl's troops to Narvik were sunk in theFirst and Second Battles of Narvik. Dietl's mountaineers withdrew into the hills and later retook the town when Britain abandoned her efforts to evict the Germans from Norway due to German success on theWestern Front (the Franco-German border,Luxembourg,Belgium and theNetherlands). Outnumbered by Norwegian, British, French and Polish forces, his skilful defence utilized ammunition, food and sailors (re-drafted as infantrymen) from the sunken ships. This gained him the nickname "The hero of Narvik".[3]
Dietl subsequently commanded German forces in Norway and northernFinland and inEastern Europe and rose to the rank ofGeneraloberst, commandingthe 20th Mountain Army on thenorthern Eastern Front, where the results of theGerman Arctic campaign were disappointing. Dietl initially turned down his promotion, but was convinced to accept the appointment by GeneraloberstAlfred Jodl.[4]
On 23 June 1944, theJu 52 aircraft carrying Dietl,General der InfanterieThomas-Emil von Wickede,General der GebirgstruppeKarl Eglseer, GeneralleutnantFranz Rossi and three other passengers crashed in the vicinity of the small village ofRettenegg,Styria. There were no survivors.[5]
Until 1997, the municipality ofRingelai in theBavarian Forest honoured Dietl with amemorial plaque. In 1997, the site changed into one honoring World War I veteranAlbert Leo Schlageter instead.[6] The Bavarian townFreyung honoured Dietl by naming a streetGeneral-Dietl-Straße.[7]
Dietl was sent to Finland designated to be the "hero in the snow" (to be a counterpart toRommel who would be the "hero in the sun", also given a secondary theatre leaving the main stage to Hitler).[8] A convincedNational Socialist and one of Hitler's favourite generals, he was the first German soldier to be awarded the oak leaves cluster to theKnight's Cross of the Iron Cross - on 19 June 1940. Dietl was also popular among his men and hisFinnish allies.[4]
Historian Klaus Schmider remarks that Dietl had too much political baggage to compensate for his admirable record as a mountain troops leader. As a young officer, he refused to assist the civil government in crushing Hitler's abortiveBeer Hall Putsch in 1923. He was also a founding member of theNSDAP. What has led theBundeswehr and the German federal government to reverse honours towards Dietl, though, is his recently discovered view on marriages between Scandinavian women and his soldiers, which was "extreme even by the standards of the Third Reich": after Dietl circulated an order that called Norwegian and Finnish women "racial flotsam", Himmler himself had to intervene to rescind it.[9]
Dietl was involved in numerous war crimes. The first was the passing of theCommissar Order. Dietl was responsible for troops who employed the use of slave laborers in Wehrmacht penal camps in Finland and Norway. The camps employed extermination through work. The so-called probation program included the walk from Rovaniemi to Petsamo on the Arctic Ocean, in which tired penal soldiers were killed with shots in the neck. From the summer of 1942 onwards, there were arbitrary shootings and sadistic abuse of German penal soldiers by Wehrmacht guards in Finland and northern Norway. In a speech on 16 June 1942, Dietl himself threatened to murder the penal soldiers if they did not take part in the marches.[10]
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Bibliography
| Military offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by none | Commander of3. Gebirgs-Division 1 May 1938 – 14 June 1940 | Succeeded by General der GebirgstruppenJulius Ringel |
| Preceded by none | Commander ofGebirgs-Armeekorps Norwegen 14 June 1940 – 15 January 1942 | Succeeded by GeneralfeldmarschallFerdinand Schörner |
| Preceded by GeneraloberstNikolaus von Falkenhorst | Commander ofLappland Armee 15 January 1942 – 20 June 1942 | Succeeded by redesignated as20. Gebirgs-Armee |
| Preceded by none | Commander of20. Gebirgs-Armee 20 June 1942 – 23 June 1944 | Succeeded by Generaloberst Dr.Lothar Rendulic |
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