Buddenbrock, Hans-Jobst Freiherr von

Buddenbrock, Hans-Jobst Freiherr von, born on 21-06-1896 in Ohlau, Schlesien, joined the Army Service on 22-03-1914, age 17, shortly before the outbreak of World War I. He was a Leutnant and Battery Officer in the 3^rd Guards Artillery Regiment. He ended the war as a Battery leader in the same Regiment. Buddenbrock was allowed to stay in the new Reichswehr  and was commander of the 162^nd Artillery Regiment with the outbreak of World War II. Taken ill, he landed in the Führer Reserve, from 20-11-1940 to 01-05-1941. He received the Medallion for the Winterschlacht im Osten , in 1942. After commander of the 188^th Artillery Regiment and the Artillery Commander 124, he again is in the Führer Reserve, from 22-05-1943 to 03-10-1943.

The Führer Reserve (“Officers Reserve”) was set up in 1939 as a pool of temporarily unoccupied high military officers waiting for new assignments in the German Armed Forces during World War II. The various military branches and army groups each had their own pool which they could use as they saw fit. The officers were required to remain at their assigned stations and be available to their superiors, but could not exercise any command function, which was equivalent to a temporary retirement while retaining their previous income. Especially in the second half of the war, more and more politically problematic, troublesome, or militarily incompetent officers were assigned to the Führer Reserve. Examples: Major Karl August Meinel, 01-08-1942, was shifted into the Führerreserve, because on 13-01-1942 he wrote a critical report to General der Infanterie, Hermann Reinecke  on the segregation and execution of Russian prisoners of war in prison camp Stalag VII-A by the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst SD (security Service) of the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler    Stalag VII-A was north of Moosberg, a Bavarian town close to Munich. Hermann Reinecke died old age 85, on 10-10-1973. General der  Infanterie, Georg Thomas  , head of the Military Economics and Armament Office of the Armed Forces Supreme Command, played an essential role in drawing up the starvation policy for the occupied Eastern territories. He was transferred to the Officers Reserve on 20-11-1942 and arrested after the 20 July 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler because of his contacts with the resistance. Thomas died, age 56, 29-12-1946.

Generaloberst, Head of the Army General Staff from 1938 until September 1942 Franz Halder,  head of the Army General Staff, planned army operations from 1939 to 1941. He was dismissed in 1942 and transferred to the Officers Reserve. After the assassination attempt on Hitler of 20 July 1944, his involvement in a conspiracy in 1938 came to light, which led to his arrest and imprisonment in Flossenbürg concentration camp.

He was freed by U.S. troops in May 1945. In camp Flossenburg, Intelligence Admiral, Wilhelm Canaris and Hans Paul Oster were killed only days before the end of the war. Walther von Brauchitsch    became Supreme Commander of the Army in 1938 and was decisively involved in planning Operation Barbarossa. The 91.000 German POWs taken at Stalingrad, 27.000 died within weeks and only 5-6,000 returned to Germany by 1955. The remainder of the POWs died in Soviet captivity.

On 02-02-1943, the organized resistance of Axis troops in Stalingrad ceased. Out of the 91.000 prisoners taken by the Soviets, 3.000 were Romanian. These were the survivors of the 20^th Infantry Division , 1^st Cavalry Division  and “Colonel Voicu” Detachment. According to archival figures, the Red Army suffered a total of 1.129.619 total casualties; 478.741 men killed or missing and 650.878 wounded. These numbers are for the whole Don region; in the city itself 750.000 were killed, captured, or wounded. Anywhere from 25.000 to 40.000 Soviet civilians died in Stalingrad and its suburbs during a single week of aerial bombing by Luftflotte 4  under command of Generalleutnant Günther Korten, as the German 4^th Panzer and 6^th Armies approached the city; the total number of civilians killed in the regions outside the city is unknown. In all, the battle resulted in an estimated total of 1.7-2 million Axis and Soviet casualties.  Buddenbrock was dismissed on 19-12-1941 because of the military defeat at Moscow and transferred Officers Reserve. Three days after D-Day , he is for the third time in the Führer Reserve (see Adolf Hitler) (did you know), now until 21-08-1944. Delegated with the leadership of the 212^th Infantry Division , he is in Allied captivity, in Mai 1945 and released on 05-06-1947.

Death and burial ground of Buddenbrock, Hans-Jobst Freiherr von.

Living in Gütersloh, Freiherr Hans-Jobst von Buddenbrock died at the age 62, on 30-08-1957 and is buried with his wife Elisabeth, born von Lenshi, who died age 73 on 18-10-1973, next to Generalleutnant der Flieger, Chef des Stabes X Fliegerkorps, Martin Harlinghausen and close to Generalleutnant der Infanterie, Kommandeur 168^th Infanterie Division , Wolf Boysen and Generalmajor der Flieger, Commander of Command station of Luftwaffe Catch Staff West with Air Region Command VI, Günther Wieland, on the Johannes cemetery of Gütersloh.