Ferdinand Schörner

Ferdinand Schörner
12 June 1892(1892-06-12) — 2 July 1973 (aged 81)
Bundesarchiv Bild 183-L29176, Ferdinand Schörner.jpg
Ferdinand Schörner
Nickname Schoerner (or Schörner the Bloody)[1]
Place of birth Munich, Germany
Place of death Munich, Germany
Allegiance Flag of German Empire German Empire (to 1918)
Flag of Germany Weimar Republic (to 1933)
Flag of Nazi Germany Nazi Germany
Years of service 10 January 1911[2] - 1945
Rank Field Marshal
Commands held Army Group South (Mar. 1944)
Army Group North (July 1944)
Army Group Centre (Jan. 1945)
Oberkommando des Heeres (30 April 1945)
Battles/wars World War I: Battle of Caporetto
World War II: Operation Bagration, Vistula-Oder Offensive, Prague Offensive
Awards Pour le Mérite
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

Ferdinand Schörner (12 June, 1892 - July 2, 1973; also Schoerner) was a General and later Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) in the German Army (Wehrmacht) during World War II.

Contents

Early life

He was born in Munich, Bavaria. A noted veteran of World War I, winning the Pour le Mérite as a Lieutenant, when he took part on the Austro-Hungarian/German Caporetto Offensive which shattered the Italian lines in the fall of 1917. Schörner served as a staff officer and instructor between the two wars. As an army instructor he was instrumental in turning the Waffen SS from a paramilitary force into military stormtroopers able to fight alongside the Wehrmacht.

World War II

Schörner was highly successful during the German campaigns in Poland commanding the 98th Mountain Regiment. During the Balkans campaign he commanded the German 6th Mountain Division and earned the Knight's Cross for his role in breaching the famous Metaxas Line. He remained with this division for the remainder of the year and took part in Operation Barbarossa. In 1942 he took command of the XIX Mountain Corps, part of the German Army in Finland. With this command he participated in the failed attack on Murmansk, and the stalemate war that resulted from it. From this time originated his famous statement "Arktis ist nichts" ([the] arctic is nothing), meaning that the climatic conditions should not affect the German soldier in the Arctic.

Later he commanded the XXXX Panzer Corps on the Eastern Front from November 1943 to January 1944. In March 1944 he was made commander of Army Group A and in May, commander of Army Group South Ukraine. After initially stating that the Crimean port of Sevastopol could be held for a long time even if Crimea fell, he changed his mind and managed to persuade Hitler to authorize a retreat from the Black Sea port. This retreat occurred too late, and the German/Romanian 17th Army which was holding Crimea suffered severe losses, with many men killed or captured while waiting on the piers to be evacuated. During the late spring of 1944, Schörner managed in a series of defensive battles to stabilise the crumbling front in the south on the Dniester River in Romania.

Schörner was promoted to the rank of Generaloberst in April 1944. In July he became commander of Army Group North, which was later renamed Army Group Courland where he stayed until January 1945 when he was made commander of Army Group Centre, defending in Czechoslovakia and along the upper reaches of the Oder. He became a favorite of high-level Nazi leaders such as Joseph Goebbels, whose diary entries from March and April 1945 have many words of praise for Schörner. Finally, on 4 April 1945, Schörner was promoted to Field Marshal and was named as the new Commander-in-Chief of the German Army (Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres) in Hitler's last testament. In this post he nominally served until the surrender of the Third Reich on May 8 1945. In reality he continued to command his army group, since no staff was available to him, and he did not have any discernible influence in the final days of the Reich.

On May 7, the day General Alfred Jodl, Chief-of-Staff of German Armed Forces High Command) (German acroynym OKW), was negotiating the surrender of all German forces at SHAEF, the last the OKW had heard from Schörner was on May 2. He had reported he intended to fight his way west and surrender his army group to the Americans. On May 8 an OKW colonel was escorted through the American lines to see Schörner. The colonel reported Schörner had ordered his operational command to observe the surrender but could not guarantee he would be obeyed everywhere.[3] Later that day Schörner deserted his command and flew to Austria where on May 18 he was arrested by the Americans.[4] Elements of Army Group Centre continued to resist until they met the overwhelming force of the Red Army, sent to occupy Czechoslovakia during the final Prague Offensive. Army Group Centre was the last German unit of divisional size or larger to surrender, on or around May 11, 1945.

Post-war trials and imprisonments

Schörner was arrested in August 1951 by the Soviet authorities on charges that "he occupied positions of command in the former German Army, actively participating in the preparation and carrying on of a criminal war against the USSR in violation of international law and treaties." In February 1952 the Military Board of the USSR Supreme Court sentenced him to 25 years' imprisonment. A decree of Praesidium of the Supreme Soviet in April 1952 reduced this sentence to 12 and a half years. A decree of December 1954 allowed him to be handed over to authorities of the German Democratic Republic, who allowed him to leave for West Germany in 1958. There he was arrested and charged with the illegal executions of German Army soldiers accused of desertion. He was sentenced to four and a half years' jail, which he served. He was released in 1963 and lived in obscurity in Munich until his death in 1973. In the late 60s he gave a lengthy interview to Italian historian Mario Silvestri which was centered on his role and actions during the Austro-German victory at the battle of Caporetto in World War I rather than on his World War II service.[5] At the time of his death he was the last living German field marshal, and none have been created since.

Criticism

German veterans particularly criticized Schörner for a 1945 order that all soldiers found behind the front lines, who did not possess written orders, were to be executed without trial. This is mentioned in both the writings of Siegfried Knappe and Hans von Luck. Schörner was also generally seen as very devoted to Hitler, a view that is seen as confirmed by Hitler's appointment of Schörner as his replacement as Commander-in-Chief of the German Army on his suicide. Moreover Schörner did not hesitate to second Hitler's daydreams in the last weeks of the war, agreeing that the Red Army's main objective would be Prague instead of Berlin (in itself a colossal strategic blunder), and so leading him to weaken the already critically-thin defense lines in front of the German capital to counter this perceived threat.

References

Further reading

Footnotes

  1. ↑ German Historical Institute, London. "Soldiers into Citizens: Wehrmacht Officers in the Federal Republic of Germany (1945-1960)", p. 63.
  2. ↑ Jason Pipes German Officer Biographies: Ferdinand Schorner on the Feldgrau.com website - research on the German armed forces 1918-1945
  3. ↑ Like many institutions in Nazi Germany the control of the Army was split between the German Armed Forces High Command (OKW) and the German Army High Command (OKH). By 1945 the OKW commanded all German forces in every theatre apart from those on the Eastern Front which were under OKH control and which, before his suicide, had reported directly to Hitler. So it was not clear if Schörner was under the command of OKW on May 8 or if President Karl Dönitz, or Chancellor von Krosigk, needed to order Schörner to surrender.
  4. ↑ Ziemke References Page 134
  5. ↑ V.K. Vinogradov and others, Hitler's Death, Chaucer Press 2005, 241. The quoted material is translated from Soviet documents by the authors.
Military offices
Preceded by
Generaloberst Johannes Frießner		 Commander of Heeresgruppe Nord
July 23, 1944 - January 27, 1945		 Succeeded by
Generaloberst Dr. Lothar Rendulic