Johannes "Hans" Poeppel (20 July 1921 – 29 September 2007) was a general in the
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
''
Bundeswehr
The ''Bundeswehr'' (, meaning literally: ''Federal Defence'') is the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. The ''Bundeswehr'' is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part con ...
''. He served as ''
Inspekteur des Heeres'' (Inspector of the Army) 1979–81.
[obituary of the Clausewitz-Gesellschaft]
/ref>
Early life
Poeppel was born in Schivelbein, Farther Pomerania
Farther Pomerania, Hinder Pomerania, Rear Pomerania or Eastern Pomerania (german: Hinterpommern, Ostpommern), is the part of Pomerania which comprised the eastern part of the Duchy and later Province of Pomerania. It stretched roughly from the Od ...
(today Świdwin, Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
) and passed his '' Abitur'' at a Napola institution in Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
in 1939.Wirtschaftswoche.de "Gelobt sei was hart macht" 20 May 2009
Career
Wehrmacht
That year he passed his ''Abitur'', Poeppel joined the ''
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...
'' as an
officer cadet
Officer Cadet is a rank held by military cadets during their training to become commissioned officers. In the United Kingdom, the rank is also used by members of University Royal Naval Units, University Officer Training Corps and University Ai ...
and served in the ''Artillerieregiment 32'' throughout the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
. In 1941 while serving in Serbia, he ordered the massacres of Serbian Jews. By the end of the war, he had attained the rank of ''Hauptmann'' (captain), and managed to avoid Soviet captivity.
[Biography at deutschesheer.de]
/ref>
Post-war
In 1947–49, he studied at the Pedagogic Institute in Celle, including a semester at the University of Manchester
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity
, established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univ ...
. He started to work as a teacher in 1949 in Wriedel (Uelzen
Uelzen (; officially the ''Hanseatic Town of Uelzen'', German: ''Hansestadt Uelzen'', , Low German ''Ülz’n'') is a town in northeast Lower Saxony, Germany, and capital of the county of Uelzen. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, a ...
) and became an academic assistant at the Pedagogic University of Osnabrück in 1952.[
]
Bundeswehr
After the founding and organization of the ''Bundeswehr'' in 1955, Poeppel volunteered and was reinstated at his former rank of captain. Poeppel passed his general staff training at the ''Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr
)
, established = 15 May 1957(15 October 1810 as ''Prussian Military Academy'')
, type = Staff college and senior military academy of the German Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr
, endowment =
, staff =
, faculty =
, president =
, provost =
, principal ...
'' in 1958–61 and served on the Staff of the ''I. Korps'' in Münster
Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state di ...
. He became Staff Officer to the ''Generalinspekteure'' Friedrich Foertsch
Friedrich Albert Foertsch (19 May 1900 – 14 December 1976) was a German general serving during World War II and from 1961 to 1963 the second Inspector General of the Bundeswehr.
Foertsch was born in 1900 and joined the military service in ...
and Heinrich Trettner and commanded the '' Feldartilleriebataillon 31'' in Lüneburg
Lüneburg (officially the ''Hanseatic City of Lüneburg'', German: ''Hansestadt Lüneburg'', , Low German ''Lümborg'', Latin ''Luneburgum'' or ''Lunaburgum'', Old High German ''Luneburc'', Old Saxon ''Hliuni'', Polabian ''Glain''), also called ...
. In 1967–69, he worked at the Federal Ministry of Defense in Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...
.[
Within the ''Bundeswehr'', Poeppel was known as an advocate of the "traditionalist" school, which saw the ''Bundeswehr'' as a continuation of the Wehrmacht, the ''Reichswehr'', the Royal Prussian Army and ultimately could trace its descent all the way back to the army founded by the Great Elector of Brandenburg in 1640. Against the "traditionalist" school with its emphasis on the continuity of Prussian-German military history, there were the "reformers" who argued that the ''Bundeswehr'' was a new force unconnected to the past and who placed an emphasis on the discontinuity between the ''Reich'' that had existed between 1871-1945 and the new Federal Republic founded in 1949. As such, the "reformers" argued that the ''Bundeswehr'' should not be venerating men such as Field Marshal ]Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (; abbreviated ; 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany fr ...
and Admiral Günther Lütjens
Johann Günther Lütjens (25 May 1889 – 27 May 1941) was a German admiral whose military service spanned more than thirty years and two world wars. Lütjens is best known for his actions during World War II and his command of the battleship d ...
as heroes. Poeppel argued in a memo because the Defense Minister Theodor Blank
Theodor Anton Blank (19 September 1905 – 14 May 1972) was a German politician of the CDU. He was one of the founders of the CDU in 1945.
Blank was born in Elz an der Lahn. He was the third of ten children of a carpenter. His family was R ...
had stated the intellectual role models for the ''Bundeswehr'' were to be Carl von Clausewitz
Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz (; 1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral", in modern terms meaning psychological, and political aspects of waging war. His mo ...
, August Neidhardt von Gneisenau
August Wilhelm Antonius Graf Neidhardt von Gneisenau (27 October 176023 August 1831) was a Prussian field marshal. He was a prominent figure in the reform of the Prussian military and the War of Liberation.
Early life
Gneisenau was born at Schil ...
, and Gerhard von Scharnhorst
Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst (12 November 1755 – 28 June 1813) was a Hanoverian-born general in Prussian service from 1801. As the first Chief of the Prussian General Staff, he was noted for his military theories, his reforms of the Pr ...
, that in his view that the ''Bundeswehr'' was a continuation of the old Prussian Army, and as such figures from the past like Hindenburg and Lütjens were to be venerated in the new ''Bundeswehr''.
On 1 January 1970, Poeppel became the commander of '' Panzergrenadierbrigade 1'' in Hildesheim
Hildesheim (; nds, Hilmessen, Hilmssen; la, Hildesia) is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany with 101,693 inhabitants. It is in the district of Hildesheim, about southeast of Hanover on the banks of the Innerste River, a small tributary of the L ...
until 31 March 1973 and until 31 March 1978 of the '' 6. Panzergrenadierdivision'' in Neumünster
Neumünster () is a city in the middle of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. With more than 79,000 registered inhabitants, it is the fourth-largest municipality in Schleswig-Holstein (behind Kiel, Lübeck and Flensburg).
History
The city was fi ...
. There he was promoted to '' Generalmajor''.[
On 1 April 1978 Poeppel returned to Bonn and became the Deputy Inspector of the Army and a year later Inspector ('' Inspekteur de sHeeres''). Poeppel retired on 1 October 1981.][
In 1983, the American historian Christopher Browning in an article published in ''Militärgeschichtiche Mitteiblugen'' entitled "Wehrmacht Reprisal Policy and the Mass Murder of Jews in Serbia" accused Poeppel of being involved in the massacres of Serbian Jews in 1941. Poeppel was never prosecuted because German law maintained a distinction between murder and being accomplice to murder-the latter defined as killing someone while obeying orders in the service of the state. Only those who killed on their own initiative in the National Socialist era were considered to have committed murder in the legal sense. In 1968, the ''Bundstag'' passed a law that retroactively declared the statute of limitations for being an accomplice to murder as expiring within 15 years of the crime. In 1969, it was estimated that because of the new statute of limitations for the crime of accomplice to murder that 90% of those Germans suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the National Socialist era now enjoyed legal immunity as these people could argue that they had only committed their crimes while obeying orders. As the massacres that Poeppel had ordered took place in 1941 and all of the evidence indicated that he was merely obeying the orders of his superiors, the statute of limitations for these crimes expired in 1956 and as such he enjoyed legal immunity.
]
Personal life
Poeppel was married in 1947 to Edelgard, "the girl next door" to him in Pomerania, and the couple had two children. Their son, Burkhardt, also became a ''Bundeswehr'' officer; their daughter, Susanne studied for an advanced degree at the Pädagogische Hochschule in Bonn. Poeppel was an able and ardent tennis player all his life.
Bibliography
* Abenheim, Donald ''Reforging the Iron Cross: The Search for Tradition in the West German Armed Forces'', Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.
* Hans Poeppel, Wilhelm-Karl Prinz von Preußen, Karl-Günther von Hase, ''Die Soldaten der Wehrmacht,'' 6. Auflage, München 2000.
* Wette, Wolfram ''The Wehrmacht History, Myth, Reality'', Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Poeppel, Johannes
1921 births
2007 deaths
People from Świdwin
People from the Province of Pomerania
Deputy Chief of Staff of the Federal Armed Forces
German Army officers of World War II
Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Lieutenant generals of the German Army