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Friedrich-Wilhelm Richter (1892–1971) was a German soldier. He was a general in 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 ...
during
World War II 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. He is most notable for commanding the 716th Infantry Division during the D-Day Landings in June 1944. Richter was a son of the Lord Mayor of Hirschberg and
Frankfurt an der Oder Frankfurt (Oder), also known as Frankfurt an der Oder (), is a city in the German state of Brandenburg. It has around 57,000 inhabitants, is one of the easternmost cities in Germany, the fourth-largest city in Brandenburg, and the largest German ...
Georg Richter (1853–1925). In 1913, one year before the beginning of the First World War, he joined the German army at the age of 21. He participated in battles of the First World War. After 1918 he remained in the army and continued his military career in the reduced and disarmed
Reichswehr ''Reichswehr'' () was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first years of the Third Reich. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army () was dissolved in order to be reshape ...
. In 1937 Richter received an order for the 30th Artillery Regiment of the Wehrmacht. He took part in the Polish campaign in 1939 and in the west campaign in 1940. In 1941 he fought on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union. In March 1943 he took command of the 716th Infantry Division in Normandy, whose job was to protect the French coast against an Allied amphibious assault. Richter's section lay west of Bayeux, where the 352nd Infantry Division was stationed from May 1944, and east of Caen. When the invasion took place on June 6, 1944, Richter's troops fought against Canadians and British who had landed on the invasion beach Juno Beach in France. By June 15, 1944, Richter's division had lost sixty percent of its soldiers. The 716th I.D. was then withdrawn from the front, reorganized and replenished with men and material. In September 1944, after the Battle of Normandy, Richter lost command of the 716th Infantry Division and instead took over the 14th Field Division (L) in occupied Norway, where he survived the war without seeing further combat. He died in 1971 at the age of 79. Richter's headquarters and bunkers have served as a museum since 1991.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Richter, Wilhelm 1892 births 1971 deaths Lieutenant generals of the German Army (Wehrmacht) People from Saale-Orla-Kreis German Army officers of World War II German Army personnel of World War II Military personnel from Lower Saxony