| Ferdinand Schörner | |
|---|---|
Ferdinand Schörner |
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| Nickname | Schoerner (or Schörner the Bloody)[1] |
| Born | 12 June 1892 Munich, Germany |
| Died | 2 July 1973 (aged 81) Munich, Germany |
| Allegiance | German Empire (to 1918) Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany |
| Years of service | 10 January 1911[2] - 1945 |
| Rank | Generalfeldmarschall |
| Commands held | Army Group South (March 1944) Army Group North (July 1944) Army Group Centre (January 1945) Oberkommando des Heeres (30 April 1945) |
| Battles/wars | World War I: Battle of Caporetto World War II: Operation Bagration, Battle of Narva (1944), Combat in South Estonia, 1944, Vistula-Oder Offensive, Prague Offensive |
| Awards | Pour le Mérite Knights Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds |
Ferdinand Schörner (12 June 1892 – 2 July 1973) was a General and later Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) in the German Army (Wehrmacht) during World War II.
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Schörner was born in Munich, Bavaria. A noted veteran of World War I, he was awarded the Pour le Mérite military order as a lieutenant when he took part in 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 a corps of military stormtroopers able to fight alongside the Wehrmacht.
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 as a General der Gebirgstruppe 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. His famous statement "Arktis ist nichts" ("the Arctic is nothing") originated here, meaning that Arctic climatic conditions were not bad enough to negatively affect the effectiveness of German soldiers.
He later commanded the German 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 stabilize 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 and his methods. 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. He nominally served in this post 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 that Schörner had ordered his operational command to observe the surrender, but he could not guarantee that he would be obeyed everywhere.[Notes 1] Later that day Schörner deserted his command and flew to Austria where on May 18 he was arrested by the Americans.[3] 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.
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 the 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 (see Searle's Wehrmacht Generals). He was found guilty and 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 1960s he gave a lengthy interview to Italian historian Mario Silvestri which 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.[4] At the time of his death he was both the last created and the last living German field marshal, having outlived Erich von Manstein by 23 days. No field marshals have been created since. He is buried in Mittenwald.
German veterans particularly criticized Schörner for a 1945 order that all soldiers found behind the front lines, who did not possess written orders to be in that particular area, were to be executed without trial. This is mentioned in the writings of Siegfried Knappe, Hans von Luck, and Joseph Goebbels. "Deserters get no mercy from him," Goebbels wrote of Schörner on 11 March 1945. "They are hanged from the nearest tree with a placard round their necks saying: 'I am a deserter. I have declined to defend German women and children and therefore I have been hanged.'" The approving Goebbels continued with, "Naturally such methods are effective. Every man in Schörner's area knows that he may die at the front but will inevitably die in the rear." Gottlob H. Bidermann, a German infantry officer who served in Schörner's command in 1944-45, reported in his memoirs that the General was despised by officers and men alike. Schörner was said to never to have uttered a word of praise, and would demote or punitively transfer soldiers on the spot for the most minor infractions, even as the War was ending. Bidermann was especially bitter that while Schörner's men were marched off to die in Soviet POW camps at the cessation of hostilities, Schörner made certain that he personally avoided their fate. When captured by the Americans in their sector, Schörner is said to have been dressed as a Bavarian non-combatant... behavior he had only recently had his soldiers executed for. Though despised by his men, Schörner was loved in Berlin. He was 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; (see Hitler's Last Will). 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. Ian Kershaw described him in 2011 (BBC History Magazine) as "extraordinarily brutal".
Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ferdinand_Sch%C3%B6rner Ferdinand Schörner] at Wikimedia Commons
| Military offices | ||
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| Preceded by Generaloberst Johannes Frießner |
Commander of Heeresgruppe Nord July 23, 1944 – January 27, 1945 |
Succeeded by Generaloberst Dr. Lothar Rendulic |
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