Field marshal (German : Generalfeldmarschall ) was usually the highest military rank in various German armed forces. It had existed, under slightly different names, in several German states since 1631. [1] After the unification of Germany it was the highest military rank of the Imperial German Army and later in the Wehrmacht [lower-alpha 1] [lower-alpha 2] until it was abolished in 1945. [2]
The vast majority of the people promoted to field marshal won major battles in wars of their time. Field marshals played a compelling and influential role in military matters, were tax-exempt, members of the nobility, equal to government officials, under constant protection or escort, and had the right to directly report to the royal family. [3] In the Prussian military tradition, which set the tone for the 19th century and the German Empire, field marshals could only be promoted in wartime and the royal family was excluded, both resulting in the creation of the rank of colonel general with the rank of general field marshal (German : Generaloberst mit dem Range eines Generalfeldmarschalls) in 1854. Both restrictions would eventually end with the first royals being promoted during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, and later honorary promotions to foreign monarchs would follow. Adolf Hitler effectively disregarded the wartime prerequisite by two promotions in 1936 and 1938, though all subsequent promotions were during wartime.
Name | Date of promotion | Birth and Death | Portrait | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|
Hans Georg von Arnim-Boitzenburg | 21 June 1631 | 1583–1641 | [4] | |
Francis Albert of Saxe-Lauenburg | 24 November 1632 | 1598–1642 | ||
Rudolf Graf von Marzin | 19 October 1638 | 1585–1645 | [5] | |
Ernst Albrecht von Eberstein | 1 January 1666 | 1605–76 | ||
Joachim Rüdiger of Goltz | 28 August 1681 | 1620–88 | [6] | |
Heino Heinrich Graf von Flemming | 8 September 1688 | 1632–1706 | ||
Hans Adam von Schöning | 9 April 1691 | 1641–96 | ||
Jeremias of Chauvet | 10 May 1693 | Unknown–1699 | — | [7] |
Heinrich VI Reuß zu Obergreiz | 30 September 1697 | 1649–97 | ||
Adam Heinrich von Steinau | 27 August 1699 | Unknown–1712 | — | |
Georg Benedikt von Ogilvy | 3 December 1706 | 1651–1710 | ||
Jacob Heinrich von Flemming | 22 February 1712 | 1667–1728 | ||
Christoph August of Wackerbarth | 17 April 1730 | 1662–1734 | [8] | |
Johann Adolf II, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels | 26 November 1735 | 1685–1746 | [9] | |
Frederick Augustus Rutowsky | 11 January 1749 | 1702–64 | ||
Johann Georg, Chevalier de Saxe | 27 July 1763 | 1704–74 | [10] | |
Frederick of Anhalt-Dessau | 6 January 1775 | 1705–81 | ||
Albert of Saxony | 11 July 1871 | 1828–1902 | [11] | |
Georg of Saxony | 14 June 1888 | 1832–1904 |
After the loss of the First World War, Germany was transformed into what became known as the Weimar Republic, which was subject to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. It required the reduction of the German Army to 100,000 men, [79] a reduction of the German Navy, [79] and the abolition of the German Air Force. [79] As a result of the new military arrangements, there were no field marshals created during the Weimar Republic.
The Western Front was one of the main theatres of war during the First World War. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The German advance was halted with the Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France, the position of which changed little except during early 1917 and again in 1918.
Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel was a German field marshal who held office as chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the high command of Nazi Germany's armed forces, during World War II. He signed a number of criminal orders and directives that led to numerous war crimes.
Albert Kesselring was a German military officer and convicted war criminal who served in the Luftwaffe during World War II. In a career which spanned both world wars, Kesselring reached the rank of the Generalfeldmarschall and became one of Nazi Germany's most highly decorated commanders.
Josef "Sepp" Dietrich was a German politician and SS commander during the Nazi era. He joined the Nazi Party in 1928 and was elected to the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic in 1930. Prior to 1929, Dietrich was Adolf Hitler's chauffeur and bodyguard.
General Erich Georg Sebastian Anton von Falkenhayn was a German general who was the second Chief of the German General Staff of the First World War from September 1914 until 29 August 1916. Falkenhayn replaced General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger after his invasion of France was stopped at the First Battle of the Marne and was in turn removed on 29 August 1916 after the failure of his offensive strategy in the west at the Battle of Verdun, the opening of the Battle of the Somme, the Brusilov Offensive and the Romanian entry into the war. Having planned to win the war before 1917, the German army was reduced to hanging on.
The Battle of Leuthen was fought on 5 December 1757 between Frederick the Great's Prussian Army and an Austrian army commanded by Prince Charles of Lorraine and Count Leopold Joseph von Daun. Frederick used maneuver warfare and knowledge of the terrain to rout the larger Austrian force completely. The victory ensured Prussian control of Silesia during the Third Silesian War, which was part of the Seven Years' War.
The Battle of Caporetto took place on the Italian front of World War I.
Georg Carl Wilhelm Friedrich von Küchler was a German Generalfeldmarschall of the Wehrmacht during the Second World War, who was subsequently convicted of war crimes. He commanded the 18th Army and Army Group North during the Soviet-German war of 1941–1945.
Ugo Cavallero was an Italian military commander before and during World War II. He was dismissed from his command due to his lacklustre performance, and was arrested upon the fall of Benito Mussolini's regime. Cavallero was later freed by the Germans, but refused to collaborate and was found dead the following day.
Walther Heinrich Alfred Hermann von Brauchitsch was a German Generalfeldmarschall and Commander-in-Chief (Oberbefehlshaber) of the German Army during the first two years of World War II. Born into an aristocratic military family, he entered army service in 1901. During World War I, he served with distinction on the corps-level and division-level staff on the Western Front.
Günther Adolf Ferdinand von Kluge was a German Generalfeldmarschall during World War II who held commands on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. He commanded the 4th Army of the Wehrmacht during the invasion of Poland in 1939 and the Battle of France in 1940, earning a promotion to Generalfeldmarschall. Kluge went on to command the 4th Army in Operation Barbarossa and the Battle for Moscow in 1941.
Svetozar Boroević von Bojna was an Austro-Hungarian field marshal of Croatian Serb descent who was described as one of the finest defensive strategists of the First World War. He commanded Austro-Hungarian forces in the Isonzo front, for which he was nicknamed the "Lion of Isonzo".
The Allies, the Entente or the Triple Entente was an international military coalition of countries led by France, the United Kingdom, Russia, the United States, Italy, and Japan against the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria in World War I (1914–1918).
This bibliography of Adolf Hitler is a list of some non-fiction texts in English written about and by him. Thousands of books and other texts have been written about him, so this is far from an all-inclusive list. It has been arranged into groups to make it more manageable.
World War I or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Fighting took place mainly in Europe and the Middle East, as well as in parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific, and in Europe was characterised by trench warfare and the use of artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons (gas). World War I was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, resulting in an estimated 9 million military dead and 23 million wounded, plus up to 8 million civilian deaths from causes including genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the Spanish flu pandemic, which killed millions.
The Kragujevac massacre was the mass murder of between 2,778 and 2,794 mostly Serb men and boys in Kragujevac by German soldiers on 21 October 1941. It occurred in the German-occupied territory of Serbia during World War II, and came as a reprisal for insurgent attacks in the Gornji Milanovac district that resulted in the deaths of ten German soldiers and the wounding of 26 others. The number of hostages to be shot was calculated as a ratio of 100 hostages executed for every German soldier killed and 50 hostages executed for every German soldier wounded, a formula devised by Adolf Hitler with the intent of suppressing anti-Nazi resistance in Eastern Europe.
This list contains a selection of books on World War I, using APA style citations.
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The 1940 field marshal ceremony refers to a promotion ceremony held at the Kroll Opera House in Berlin in which Adolf Hitler promoted twelve generals to the rank of Generalfeldmarschall on 19 July 1940. It was the first occasion in World War II that Hitler appointed field marshals due to military achievements.
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