Karl-Heinz Frieser (born 1949 in

Pressath Pressath is a Municipalities of Germany, municipality in the Neustadt an der Waldnaab (district), district of Neustadt an der Waldnaab, in Bavaria, Germany. Pressath was founded in 1657. It is situated 20 km northwest of Weiden in der Oberp ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

) is a German

military historian Military history is the study of armed conflict in the history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, cultures and economies thereof, as well as the resulting changes to local and international relationships. Professional historians norma ...

and a retired

colonel Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of ...

of the

German Army The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the ''Marine'' (German Navy) and the ''Luftwaf ...

Life

Frieser joined the German Army in 1970 and started studying political science as well as history in 1978. In 1981 he acquired a doctorate degree with his thesis ''Die deutschen Kriegsgefangenen in der Sowjetunion und das Nationalkomitee "Freies Deutschland"'' (German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union and the

National Committee for a Free Germany The National Committee for a Free Germany (german: Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland, or NKFD) was a German anti-Nazi organization that operated in the Soviet Union during World War II.The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occ ...

). After that, he was one of the principal researchers in the

German Armed Forces Military History Research Office The Military History Research Office (german: Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, MGFA) is an office of the ''Bundeswehr'' located at Potsdam, Germany. Following a reorganisation in 2013, MGFA was consolidated with the to become the Center ...

(Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt or MGFA). He published an account of the German war against France, denouncing the

Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg ( , ; from 'lightning' + 'war') is a word used to describe a surprise attack using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with close air su ...

myth, which was translated into several languages (''The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West''). He was also one of the principal researches for the German semi-official history project ''

Germany and the Second World War ''Germany and the Second World War'' (german: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg) is a 12,000-page, 13-volume work published by the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt (DVA), that has taken academics from the military history centre of the German ...

''.Publication list of the MGFA
/ref> In 2009 he retired from the MGFA.

Works

*''Die deutschen Kriegsgefangenen in der Sowjetunion und das Nationalkomitee "Freies Deutschland"'', Würzburg, 1981 *''The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West'', Naval Institute Press; 1st edition, 2005, *''Ardennen – Sedan. Militärhistorischer Führer durch eine europäische Schicksalslandschaft'', Frankfurt a.M./Bonn, 2000, *

References

External links

*
Publication list of the MGFA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frieser, Karl-Heinz 1949 births Living people People from Neustadt an der Waldnaab (district) German military historians Historians of World War II German Army personnel German male non-fiction writers 20th-century German historians 21st-century German historians Military personnel from Bavaria