Erich Hoepner

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Erich Hoepner (September 14, 1886 - August 8, 1944) was a German general in World War II.

Hoepner was born in Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany, and served as a cavalry officer in the German Army during World War I. He remained in the army in the post-war years and reached the rank of general in 1936. Hoepner was an early advocate of armored warfare and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general and given command of the XVI Panzer Corps in 1938.

Hoepner, often called "Der Alte Reiter" (the old horse soldier), led forces in the invasions of Poland and France, receiving the Knight's Cross. He was promoted to the rank of colonel-general in 1941 and given command of the Fourth Panzer Group for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Hoepner pulled back his forces in the face of the massive Russian counteroffensive at Moscow in January 1942, and was relieved of his command.

While Hoepner was opposed to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, he was also an early opponent of Adolf Hitler's rise to power, and he participated in several conspiracies to overthrow Hitler. In a 1938 attempt, his forces were assigned the task of suppressing the SS following Hitler's assassination; the plot failed but Hoepner's role went undiscovered.

Despite being part of the earliest conspiracies against Hitler, his motives are doubtful. That he acted out of genuine opposition to Nazism is contradicted by many of his later actions during the war; his letters to his wife in this time even suggest that he at least shared some of the Nazis' racial beliefs. In the attack on the Soviet Union, he appears to have followed Hitler's commissar order to the letter, nor did he have any compunctions about carrying out operations against the partisans.

Like some "conservative resisters", Hoepner's opposition to Nazism did not reflect any moral or philosophical objection to Nazi racism but was motivated out of personal considerations. In 1941 prior to Operation Barbarossa, the fears that Hitler's expansionism would bring ruin upon Germany appeared to have been misplaced, and Hoepner temporarily deserted the anti-Hitler forces. It was only after the invasion had stalled, and he himself humiliatingly sacked by Hitler, that he rejoined the opposition. In this context his return to the anti-Hitler conspiracy seems more motivated by personal considerations than genuine opposition.

Hoepner was also a participant in the July 20 Plot in 1944, but this time he was caught after the attempt failed. He was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, given a summary trial by the Volksgerichtshof, and sentenced to death. He was executed by (hanging naked) on August 8, in Berlin's Plötzensee prison.

[edit] Literature

Geralf Gemser, Darf eine Schule diesen Namen tragen? Zur Vorbildwirkung des Wehrmachtsgenerals Erich Hoepner [May a school carry for this names? To the model effect of the armed forces general Erich Hoepner], german, Marburg 2005, ISBN 3-8288-8927-1