Bundesrepublik bundeswehr generals and admirals who won the rk

[Guest talltom]

might be interesting to some here:

also includes some NVA officers

Wilhelm Adam (NVA)

Eckart Afheldt (Heer)

Friedrich Albrecht (Heer)

Wilhelm Antrup (Luftwaffe)

Bern von Baer (Heer)

Gerhard Barkhorn (Luftwaffe)

Heinrich von Behr (Heer)

Carl Heinz Birnbacher (Marine)

Adalbert von Blanc (Marine)

Friedrich Buchenau (Heer)

Rudolf Gustav Buhse (Heer)

Johann Condné (Heer)

Heinz Cramer (Luftwaffe)

Kurt Deichen gen. Charly (Heer)

Oskar-Hubert Dennhardt (Heer)

Ernst-Hindenburg Ebeling (Luftwaffe)

Werner Ebeling (Heer)

Walter Enneccerus (Luftwaffe)

Heinz-Otto Fabian (Heer)

Wilhelm Fahlbusch (Luftwaffe)

Friedrich Albert Foertsch (Heer)

Herbert Fritz (Heer)

Ludwig Heinrich Gaedcke (Heer)

Walter Gericke (Heer)

Carl-Heinz Greve (Luftwaffe)

Heinz-Günther Guderian (Heer)

Friedrich Karl Guggenberger (Marine)

Robert Karl Friedrich Gysae (Marine)

Martin Harlinghausen (Luftwaffe)

Hellmuth Hauser (Luftwaffe)

Heinrich-Georg Hax (Heer)

Hanns Heise (Luftwaffe)

Adolf Hempel (Luftwaffe)

Karl Herzog (Heer)

Adolf Bruno Heinrich Heusinger (Heer)

Friedrich August von der Heydte (Heer de Reserve)

Claus Hinkelbein (Luftwaffe)

Cord Dietrich Bertram von Hobe (Heer)

Erich Hohagen (Luftwaffe)

Theodor Hopf (Heer)

Paul-Werner Hozzel (Luftwaffe)

Dietrich-Adolf Hrabak (Luftwaffe)

Joachim-Friedrich Huth (Luftwaffe)

Max-Josef Ibel (Luftwaffe)

Otto Christian Ites (Marine)

Rolf Johannesson (Marine)

Josef Kammhuber (Luftwaffe)

Friedrich Walter Karl Kemnade (Marine)

Karl Kessel (Luftwaffe)

Paul-Georg Kleffel (Heer)

Bernd-Georg Klug (Marine)

Friedrich Körner (Luftwaffe)

Otto Korfes (NVA)

August Wilhelm Otto Kretschmer (Marine)

Werner Krieger (Heer)

Hans Kroh (Luftwaffe/Heer)

Horst Krüger (Luftwaffe)

Walter Krupinski (Luftwaffe)

Kurt Kuhlmey (Luftwaffe)

Günther Kuhnke (Marine)

Ernst-Friedrich Langenstraß (Heer)

Günter Langer (Heer)

Heinz-Georg Lemm (Heer)

Kurt von Liebenstein (Heer)

Hans-Joachim Löser (Heer)

Anton Lorch (Heer)

Smilo von Lüttwitz (Heer)

Hellmuth Mäder (Heer)

Helmut Mahlke (Luftwaffe)

Gerhard Matzky (Heer)

Wilhelm Meentzen (Marine)

Wilhelm Meyn (Luftwaffe)

Alfred Müller (Heer)

Vincenz Müller (NVA)

Joachim-Ernst Oskar Munzel (Heer)

Horst Niemak (Heer de Reserve)

Friedrich-Erich Obleser (Luftwaffe)

Horst Ohrloff (Heer)

Günther Pape (Heer)

Max-Josef Pemsel (Heer)

Ernst Georg Kurt Philipp (Heer)

Anton-Detlev von Plato (Heer)

Hermann Plocher (Luftwaffe)

Franz Pöschl (Heer)

Joseph-Maria von Radowitz (Heer)

Günther Rall (Luftwaffe)

Paul Reichelt (Heer)

Josef Friedrich Remberg (Luftwaffe)

Wilhelm Renner (Heer)

Alfred Ritz (Heer)

Güstav-Siegfried Rödel (Luftwaffe)

Hans-Rudolf Rösing (Marine)

Bernhard Rogge (Marine)

Horst Rudat (Luftwaffe)

Friedrich Oskar Ruge (Marine)

Detlev von Rumohr (Heer)

Richard Schimpf (Luftwaffe)

Gottfried Ludwig Horst von Schroeter (Marine)

Franz-Joseph Schulze (Heer)

Curt Siewert (Heer)

Karl-Ernst Smidt (Marine)

Hans Speidel (Heer)

Albert Stecken (Luftwaffe)

Johannes Steinhoff (Luftwaffe)

Werner Streib (Luftwaffe)

Hans Teusen (Heer)

Rolf Thomsen (Marine)

Erich Topp (Marine)

Hannes Trautloft (Luftwaffe)

Heinrich "Heinz" Trettner (Luftwaffe/Heer)

Henrich von Treuberg Fischler (Heer)

Günter Vollmer (Heer)

Rudolf Wätjen (Heer)

Helmut Walter (Heer)

Gottfried Ludwig Weber (Heer)

Ernst Wellmann (Heer)

Curt von Witzendorff (Heer)

Max-Eckart Wolff (Marine)

Hermann Wulf (Heer)

Edel-Heinrich Zachariae-Lingenthal (Heer)

[SteveL]

mmmmm................................interesting.

[ostprussenmann_new]

This is very interesting. Can you come up with a list of all RK winners who served in the Bundeswehr? The first one tha tcomes to mind to me is Rudolf Witzig (Heer/Luftwaffe). He served the remainder of his career in the Army and rose to the rank of Colonel of Engineers.

[VtwinVince]

Don't forget my old friend, Guenther Bahr.

[Bernhard H.Holst]

This is very interesting. Can you come up with a list of all RK winners who served in the Bundeswehr? The first one tha tcomes to mind to me is Rudolf Witzig (Heer/Luftwaffe). He served the remainder of his career in the Army and rose to the rank of Colonel of Engineers.

Hello Ostpreussenmann:

The reference book by Clemens Range and Andreas Duefel " Die Ritterkreuztraeger der Bundeswehr", 2nd Edition of 2002 lists more than 700 (714) recipients who served as career members, in addition there were several who served in a civilian capacity. The last recipient left the service in 1984.

I had the pleasure several times to meet the later Admiral Kemnade ( S-Boats during the war) at my parents house after the war ( he was the boss of my father in the insurance business).

Bernhard H. Holst

[Deutschritter]

Around 40,000 non-commissioned officers and officers from the Imperial Army, the Freikorps, the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht built up the Bundeswehr. 714 (some sources state between 674 and 805) of them were holders of the Knight's Cross and its higher levels and 117 of them alone reached the highest military ranks and were generals and admirals. They had lived the virtues, loyal service and bravery enshrined in the Bundeswehr oath in the most difficult times. They were the ones who made the unprecedented build-up of the Bundeswehr from zero to 300,000 men in just five years possible and brought in the urgently needed, diverse experience.

 

Of course, very few of them were able to repeat their outstanding individual military deeds in peacetime in any other way. But it turned out that the highest award for war and bravery continued to have an impact and that an obligation remained indissoluble. They became role models for numerous young soldiers. Until the 1960s, there was hardly a combat battalion, Luftwaffe wing or brigade that was not headed by a Knight's Cross recipient. In particular, the elite units were exclusively in the hands of Knight's Cross holders, for example the first paratroopers under Major (later Colonel) Alfred Genz, Lieutenant Colonel (later Colonel) Gerhart Schirmer and Colonel (later Major General) Johann Oskar Walter Bern von Baer.

 

In schools, as teachers, they passed on their knowledge to the younger ones. When the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic, Konrad Adenauer, was buried in 1967, Bundeswehr generals and admirals, all of whom had been awarded the Knight's Cross, escorted the coffin to Cologne Cathedral. Until the end of the 1970s, Knight's Cross recipients led defense districts, brigades, divisions and corps, held the positions of inspectors and inspectors general or were deployed in the highest NATO positions.

 

Just over 40 German Knight's Cross recipients built up the Austrian Armed Forces after 1955.

[xxx]

its true but don't forget they are are more or less outcasts in the bundeswehr of 2024

[Deutschritter]

True, but the last one (RK-Träger) served in the 1980s ... I was once an officer there ... The Bundeswehr as of the mid-1990s is woke, weak and multicultural ... a joke!