Erich Dethleffsen
Erich Dethleffsen | |
|---|---|
| Allegiance |  Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany |
| Service | Heer |
| Years of service | 1923-1945 |
| Rank | Generalmajor |
| Unit | XXXIX.Panzerkorps |
| Battles / wars | World War II |
| Awards | Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross |
Erich Dethleffsen (2 August 1904 – 4 July 1980) was a German general from Kiel. He was married to a daughter of Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, who planned the German invasion of Norway and Denmark during World War II.
Dethleffsen joined the Reichswehr in 1923, and was promoted to the German General Staff in 1937. He fought as a Captain in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front in World War II. Dethleffsen was wounded, and awarded with the Knight's Cross for his service. After his injury, he rose to the rank of Generalmajor, and served on the army General Staff in Adolf Hitler's headquarters. Dethleffsen was arrested on 23 May 1945, and was held until March 1948 in an American Prisoner of War Camp. He was originally held in Luxemburg with Hermann Goering, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and others.
On his release, Dethleffsen became executive secretary of the Wirtschaftspolitische Gesellschaft von 1947 (Society of 1947 for Economic Policy.) The society was used to spread pro-Western feeling in West Germany. He spent much of his time giving speeches on various military subjects, including support for the European Defence Community. During the mid-1950s, he was an important figure in the discussions on German rearmament. He was unhappy with Western suggestions regarding the German army, and did not believe they understood the German situation. Dethleffsen was critical of the United States, and is known to have said, "We are good enough for becoming American labor slaves."[citation needed]
Dethleffsen said of the German people after World War II, "The people are confronted with a political system that appears to them as an opaque, intangible, very mysteriously interlocking pluralism of bearers of political influence; puzzled and estranged they let it operate ... The esoteric games of the bearers of influence and power in a strange sphere, in which none of the participants can identify himself with the state or the people, does not induce the people to give up its cool and distant reserve."[citation needed]
Dethleffsen is known to have attended several meetings of the Bilderberg Group.
He was the author of Das Wagnis der Freiheit (1952); Soldatische Existenz morgen (1953); Der Artillerie gewidmet (1975); and Robert Martinek: General der Artillerie, Lebensbild eines Soldaten (1975).
Dethleffsen died in Munich in 1980.
References
- Fellgiebel, Walther-Peer. Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939-1945. Friedburg, Germany: Podzun-Pallas, 2000. ISBN 3-7909-0284-5.
- Patzwall, Klaus D. and Scherzer, Veit. Das Deutsche Kreuz 1941 - 1945 Geschichte und Inhaber Band II. Norderstedt, Germany: Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall, 2001. ISBN 3-931533-45-X.
This article incorporates copyrighted text from Doom Chronicle, used by permission of the author.