Hans Speidel

Hans Speidel
Lieutenant-General Dr. Hans Speidel in 1944
Born	(1897-10-28)28 October 1897 Metzingen, Germany
Died	28 November 1984(1984-11-28) (aged 87) Bad Honnef, Germany
Allegiance	German Empire (to 1918) Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany (to 1944) West Germany NATO
Service/branch	Imperial German Army Reichswehr Wehrmacht Bundeswehr
Years of service	1914–45 1955–63
Rank	General
Battles/wars	World War I World War II
Awards	Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross German Cross
Other work	Commander-in-Chief of the Allied ground forces in Central Europe from April 1957 to September 1963
Signature

Hans Speidel (28 October 1897 – 28 November 1984) was a German general during World War II and the Cold War. The former chief of staff to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Speidel was a key member of the July 20 Plot to assassinate Hitler, after which he was jailed by the Gestapo. He served as Supreme Commander of the NATO ground forces in Central Europe from 1957 to 1963, as the first German NATO commander during the Cold War, and with headquarters at the Palace of Fontainebleau in Paris. He was also a military historian.

Early career

General Speidel (left) in 1943, with Oberstleutnant Josef Graßmann from the 326th Grenadier Regiment on the Eastern Front.

Speidel was born in Metzingen. He joined the German Army in 1914 at the outbreak of World War I and was quickly promoted to second lieutenant. During the war he was a company commander at the Battle of the Somme and an adjutant. He stayed in the German Army during the interwar period and also studied history and economics at different universities. In 1926 he received his Ph.D. degree magna cum laude.

World War II

Speidel was promoted to lieutenant-colonel on the eve of World War II. He served in the French campaign of 1940 and in August became Chief of Staff of the military commander in France. In 1942 Speidel was sent to the Eastern Front where he served as Chief of Staff of the 5th Army Corps, and as Chief of Staff of 8th Army in 1943, by which time he had been promoted to major-general. A further promotion to lieutenant general followed on 1 January 1944. In April 1944, Speidel was appointed Chief of Staff to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Commander-in-Chief of Army Group B, responsible for the defense of the French Atlantic coast. When Rommel was wounded in an air attack on his staff car, Speidel continued as Chief of Staff for the new commander of Army Group B, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge.

On August 26, 1944 Speidel answered the phone when Colonel General Jodl, the Fuhrer's chief of staff called Field Marshal Model, commander in chief of the western front, with Hitler's order to start bombing Paris immediately with V1 and V2 rockets. Model was not in. Speidel never did pass on the order to his superior.

The July 20 Plot

Speidel, a professional soldier and German nationalist, agreed with those aspects of Hitler's policy that returned Germany to its place as a world power, but was appalled by Nazi racial policies. He was involved in the July 20 Plot to kill Adolf Hitler, and was one of the inner circle of conspirators. He had been delegated by anti-Hitler forces to recruit Rommel for the conspiracy, which he had cautiously begun to do prior to Rommel's injury in a Canadian strafing attack on 17 July 1944. Following the attempt the Gestapo rounded up, tortured and executed some five thousand Germans, including many high-ranking officers. Speidel's involvement was suspected by the Gestapo, and he was arrested on 7 September 1944.

Speidel with Rommel, April 1944

Rommel, in his final letter to Hitler of 1 October 1944, appealed for Speidel's release, but received no answer. Under interrogation Speidel admitted nothing and betrayed no one. Speidel appeared before an Army Court of honour, but Gerd von Rundstedt, Heinz Guderian and Wilhelm Keitel refused to expel him from the German Army. Thus he was not compelled to appear before Roland Freisler's People's Court, which would have been a death sentence. He was jailed for seven months by the Gestapo.

As Allied forces approached the location where he was held, he slipped from his captors and went into hiding. He was freed by French troops on 29 April 1945. He was the only member of the inner circle who did not lose his life either by execution or suicide.

Cold War

left to right, Adolf Heusinger, Inspector General, the Federal Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Germany; Theodor Blank, Minister of Defence, Minister of Labour, CDU, Federal Republic of Germany; and Hans Speidel, General, Supreme Commander of NATO Forces Central Europe, Germany, in 1955

According to an article in Der Spiegel, which cited documents released by the Bundesnachrichtendienst in 2014, Speidel may have been part of the Schnez-Truppe, a secret army that veterans of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS established up from 1949 in Germany.

After the war Speidel served for some time as professor of modern history at Tübingen and in 1950 published his book Invasion 1944: Rommel and the Normandy Campaign before being involved in both the development and creation of the new German Army (Bundeswehr) which he joined, reaching the NATO rank of full general. He was subsequently appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied NATO ground forces in Central Europe in April 1957, a command that he held until retirement in September 1963. His headquarters were at the Palace of Fontainebleau in Paris.

In 1960, Speidel took legal action against an East German film studio which portrayed him as having been privy to the assassinations of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou in 1934, as well as having betrayed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to the Nazis after the 20 July Plot in 1944. He successfully claimed damages for libel; see Plato Films Ltd v Speidel [1961] AC 1090.

Grave of Hans Speidel at the Pragfriedhof in Stuttgart

In addition to his native German, Speidel spoke fluent English and French. Hans Speidel died in 1984 at Bad Honnef, North Rhine-Westphalia, aged 87.

Promotions

• Lieutenant (November 1915)
• First Lieutenant (1 April 1925)
• Captain (1 February 1932)
• Major
• Lieutenant-Colonel
• Colonel (1 February 1941)
• Major-General
• Lieutenant-General (1 January 1944)
• General (four-star rank) (14 June 1957)

See also

• Assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler

Awards

• German Cross in Gold on 8 October 1942 as Oberst im Generstab in the general staff V. Armeekorps
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 1 April 1944 as Generalleutnant and chief of the general staff of the 8. Armee
• Iron Cross, first class, 1914 (see photo)
• Iron Cross, first class, 1939

References

Bibliography

• Fellgiebel, Walther-Peer (2000). Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939–1945 – Die Inhaber der höchsten Auszeichnung des Zweiten Weltkrieges aller Wehrmachtteile (in German). Friedberg, Germany: Podzun-Pallas. ISBN 978-3-7909-0284-6. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
• Patzwall, Klaus D.; Scherzer, Veit (2001). Das Deutsche Kreuz 1941 – 1945 Geschichte und Inhaber Band II (in German). Norderstedt, Germany: Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall. ISBN 978-3-931533-45-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
• Scherzer, Veit (2007). Die Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Miltaer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
• Searle, Alaric. Wehrmacht Generals, West German Society, and the Debate on Rearmament, 1949-1959, Praeger Pub., 2003.
• Speidel, Hans (1950). Invasion 1944: Rommel and the Normandy Campaign. Chicago: Henry Regnery. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• Hans Speidel in the German National Library catalogue
• Picture of Hans Speidel during World War II