Kurt Knoblauch

Kurt Knoblauch (10 December 1885 – 10 November 1952) was a German army officer and Waffen-SS general.

Kurt Knoblauch
Born	(1885-12-10)10 December 1885 Marienwerder, German Empire
Died	10 November 1952(1952-11-10) (aged 66) Munich, West Germany
Allegiance	German Empire  Weimar Republic  Nazi Germany
Service / branch	Imperial German Army  Reichsheer Waffen-SS
Rank	Oberst SS-Obergruppenführer
Battles / wars	World War I World War II
Awards	Iron Cross Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918 Wound Badge

Hermann Franz, Kurt Knoblauch, Poročnik Lang, Friedrich Rainer, Erwin Rösener, Kurt Daluege at Helmut Hierzegger, Austria on 3 July 1941

Biography

Knoblauch was a son of the tax collector Friedrich Knoblauch (? - 25 September 1922) and his wife Emma, née Schröder.^[1] After graduating from high school in Ratzeburg, on 23 February 1905 Knoblauch joined the Prussian Army as a cadet in the 39th (Lower Rhenish) Fusilier Regiment. On 18 August 1906 he was promoted to lieutenant. On 18 October 1909 he was transferred to the 70th (8th Rhenish) Infantry Regiment and served as platoon commander. In May 1911 he was seconded to the 8th (1st Rhenish) Engineer Battalion for a month to gain engineering experience in the field. On 1 October 1912 Knoblauch became battalion adjutant and on 17 February 1914 he was promoted to first lieutenant. On 1 May 1914 he was transferred to the Saarbrücken district command. During World War I, starting on 2 August 1914, he became a company commander in the 32nd Brigade Replacement Battalion. On 18 June 1915 he was promoted to captain. During the war he was wounded several times.

In 1919, after the war, Knoblauch served in the Freikorps Deutsche Schutzdivision before being taken over by the Provisional Reichswehr. He first headed the 4th Machine Gun Company, then became chief of the 12th Company of the 3rd Rifle Regiment, and then served as intelligence officer in the 18th Infantry Regiment in Paderborn. On 1 February 1926 he was promoted to major and then to lieutenant colonel on 1 April 1930. As such he led the 2nd Battalion of the 1st (Prussian) Infantry Regiment. On 1 April 1931 Knoblauch became a member of the regimental staff. He retired from the army on 31 March 1933, having received his final promotion to Oberst in February. Knoblauch joined the Nazi Party on 20 April 1933, (membership number 2,750,158) and joined the Sturmabteilung. He served full-time as an SA leader until stepping down on 12 April 1935 to join the Schutzstaffel (SS No. 266,653).^[2]

From 1937 onwards he served in the Nazi Party Chancellery, aiding the war preparation.^[3][4][5][6]

In May 1940 he was appointed Inspector of the Replacement Units of the SS Totenkopf Division and became one of Heinrich Himmler's closest confidants.^[7] In December 1940 he became Commander of the Waffen-SS in the Netherlands. ^[8] On 7 April 1941 he was appointed as Chief of Staff of the Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS.^[9] In July 1942 he was transferred to the SS Führungshauptamt to head the training department (Amtsgruppe B). In that position he was also responsible for the coordination of SS support for Wehrmacht and police operations, including persecution of the Jews in instances like the Pripyat Marshes massacres.^[10] In 1943 he was replaced by Ernst Rode. In June 1944 he was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer. In December 1949, during the denazification after the war, Knoblauch was classified as an activist (Offender, Category II) by the Munich Courts and sentenced to two years in a labor camp. In June 1950, a Munich arbitration court rejected Knoblauch's appeal, and confirmed the verdict of the first court.^[11][12][13]

See also

• Register of SS leaders in general's rank
• The Holocaust in the Soviet Union

References

1. Peter Longerich , Institute for Contemporary History : Hitler's Deputy: Leadership of the Party and Control of the State Apparatus by Staff Hess and the Bormann Party Chancellery: A Publication of the Institute for Contemporary History , KG Saur, Munich 1992.
2. Dermot Bradley (eds.), Andreas Schulz , Günter Wegmann: The Generals of the Waffen SS and the Police. The military careers of generals, as well as doctors, veterinarians, intendants, judges and ministry officials with the rank of general. Volume 2: Hachtel-Kutschera. Biblio publisher. Bissendorf 2005. ISBN 3-7648-2592-8 . pp. 534-540.
3. Ernst Klee : The Person Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007. ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 . (Updated 2nd Edition).
4. Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The Generals of the Waffen SS and the Police: Lammerding-Plesch . Biblio-Verlag, 2003, ISBN 978-3-7648-2375-7 , p. 706.
5. Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945,By Charles Sydnor.page 113
6. ushmm.org, Photo of Kurt Knoblauch and Himmler
7. SS Personnel Office: List of years of service of the NSDAP Schutzstaffel, as of 1 December 1937, serial no. 238 Kurt Knoblauch on www.dws-xip.pl.
8. Ernst Klee: The Person Encyclopedia of the Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 320.
9. Charles W. Sydnor: Soldiers of destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945 . Princeton University Press, 1990, ISBN 978-0-691-00853-0 , p. 113.
10. Peter Longerich: Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews . Oxford University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-280436-5 , p. 187.
11. Terry Goldsworthy, Valhalla's Warriors: A History of the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front 1941-1945. Dog Ear Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-1-60844-639-1 , p. 91.
12. Minutes of the Nuremberg Trial, 7 January 1946 . Original text on zeno.org.
13. Photo of Kurt Knoblauch