Degen, Hans Karl Christian.

Degen, Hans Karl Christian, born on 18-02-1899 in Rosenheim, the eldest son of the customs officer in Rosenheim, Karl Degen ( 1864-1953) and his wife Elisabeth, born Heiss, Degen (1874-1949). After graduating from the Humanist High School in Lohr am Main, he began his military career. He joined the Army Service as a Fahnenjunker in the 2^nd Bavarian Jäger Battalion , on 18-09-1916, 17 years old. Promoted to leutnant on 10-02-1918, he last fought as a company commander in France, where he was slightly wounded in the defensive battle on the Somme in August 1918, but remained with the troops. He was on the battlefields throughout the war and ended as a Company Officer in the same 2^nd Bavarian Jäger Battalion as where he started. Degen was allowed to stay in the new Reichswehr and with the beginning of World War II he was Chief of General Staff in the Mountain Corps Norway, under Generaloberst der Infanterie, Kommandeur Heeresgruppe Norwegen, Nikolaus Falkenhorst.

   Degen landed in the Führer Reserve, from 25-10-1943 until 01-11-1943. He then was delegated with the leadership on the 2^nd Mountain Division, were his succeeded General der Gebirgstruppe, Kommandeur LIX Armeekorps, George Ritter von Hengl

  , to 01-01-1944 and was temporary severely wounded in hospital. He was in the Führer Reserve (see Adolf Hitler) (did you know)  again after his hospital release on 09-02-1945 and in US captivity on 02-05-1945. He received the Iron Cross on 11-03-1945, as Generalleutnant and Commander of the 2^nd Mountain Division . The German 2 ^nd Mountain Division was raised in 1938 from the former 6^th Austrian Mountain Division  and German mountain troops. It fought as part of Army Group South, under Generaloberst der Infanterie, Oberbefehlhaber Armee Abteilung Narwa, Johannes “Hans” Friessner  during the Invasion of Poland, September 1939, attacking from the territory of Slovak State, then took part in the invasion of Norway in 1940 and attempted to relieve the beleaguered 3^rd Mountain Division  , under Generaloberst der Gebirgstruppe, Kommandeur der 3^th Gebirgs Division, Eduard Dietl  at Narvik in 1941 it moved into Lapland to participate in Operation Silberfuchs, the attack on the Soviet Arctic as part of Operation Barbarossa Friedrich Paulus.  The 91.000 German POW´s 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  as  the  a 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. The United States Army suffered 318.274 killed and missing in all theaters of the war. In late 1944 it withdrew to Norway and then transferred to Denmark. In 1945, it fought on the Western Front, where it was engaged in heavy combat near Trier. The Allies destroyed much of the division near Württemburg towards the end of the war, with survivors surrendering to the Americans. After withdrawing from the Arctic Ocean front and marching back through Norway in winter, he still led the division in the defensive battles in the Colmar / Vosges area, where he was seriously wounded on 06-02-1945.In the military hospital in Bad Tölz he was taken prisoner by the Americans on May 02-05-1945, from which he was released on 15-10-1947. Released he lived in Bad Tölz, the SS Junker School city, which Patton visited later Georg Smith Patton

   after the surrender.

 

Hans Degen died at the age of 72, on 08-11-1971 and is buried with his wife Elisabeth, born Heiss, who died age 75 in 1949, on the Waldfriedhof of Bad Tölz and only a few steps from the WWII General der Flieger, Commander of the Pilot School Sea and Air, Hans Jochen von Arnim  and SS Obergruppenführer, Leiter SS Führungshauptamt, Hans Jüttner.

   Also buried there is Waffen SS Brigade Führer, Commander of the Junker School in Bad Tölz, Werner Dörffler-Schuband

    and Generalarzt der Polizei, Dr. Wilhelm Kloster.