Fahnert, Friedrich Hermann.

Fahnert, Friedrich Hermann, born 18-01-1879 in Limbach, Chamnitz, entered the Army Service as a Fahnenjunker in the 2^nd Rail Way Regiment Berlin, on 20-03-1900, age 21. Joseph Goebbels

  (did you know) was the Gauleiter of Berlin. Fahnert participated in World War I. He took part in the campaign against the Hereros and the Nama. The Herero and Nama genocide was a campaign of racial extermination and collective punishment that the German Empire undertook in German South West Africa (now Namibia) against the Ovaherero, the Nama, and the San. It is considered the first genocide of the 20th century. It took place between 1904 and 1908. Commander in Chief of its colonial forces was General Adrian Dietrich Lothar von Trotha   Approximately 10,000 Nama died during the fighting, the remaining 9,000 were confined to concentration camps. On 19-11-1905 Lothar von Trotha returned to Germany and was appointed as an infantry General in 1910. He died of typhoid fever (bilious fever) on 31-03-1920, age 71 in Bonn.

Fahnert served throughout World War I and ended as the Battalion Leader of the Army Flight Park 5, in Hermann Goering’s  (did you know) Luftwaffe . Fahnert was allowed in the new 10 Divisions Reichswehr , two calvary and eight  infantry and with the outbreak of World War II, he was Higher Commander of Air Signals Training Regiment Berlin. From 01-10-1940 to 30-09-1942 he was Higher Signals Commander of Air fleet Command 1. Commander, promoted to General on 01-04-1945, of the Air Signals Training Division France, to 20-09-1944. As commander of the Air Signals Instruction Staff Halle/ Saale he landed in British captivity, on 02-05-1945 until 05-12-1947.

His only son Friedrich-Wilhelm Fahnert (born 05-06-1916), first fighter pilot (combat squadron service: KG 27, KG 2, KG 40 and KG 6), last fighter pilot, fell in the Reich Air Defense as a captain and captain of the 5th squadron / Jagdgeschwader 26, when his Fw 190 D-9 was shot down on 05-04-1945 by the enemy air defense between Burlage and Lembruch. It rests on the war cemetery in Diepholz; Final grave site: Department 3, Row 3, Grave 6.

Death and burial ground of Fahnert, Friedrich Hermann.

Not a spectacular General, Fahnert lived in Baden Baden, where he at the old age of 85 died, on 10-06-1964. Still high decorated Friedrich Fahnert is buried with his wife Alice, who died age 84, in 1957, on the Hauptfriedhof of Baden Baden and only steps from the much more famous WWII Generals, Generalfeldmarschall, Friedrich Paulus Kommandeur Stalingrad 6^th Armee , who had to surrender with 270.000 men killed and missed in action, 127.000 landed in Russian prison and 6.000 survived and came back to Germany in 1955. On 02-05-1945, Fahnert was taken into British captivity in Lübeck and then held with other senior officers at Special Camp XI near Bridgend, South Wales until 05-12-1947.

      General der Infanterie, Kommandeur der XXV Korps, Dietrich von Choltitz, Adolf Hitler (did you know) ordered him to destroy Paris, which he didn’t. Also buried there are the Generalmajor der Infanterie, Field Commander, Eugen Bilharz, Generalmajor der Flieger, Commander of Directing Office of Catch Command West, Erich Fitzau, war movies actor, Wolfgang Preiss Generalleutnant der Artillerie, Kommandeur der XXXXI Panzerkorps Rudolf Holste. The XXXXI Corps destroyed more than 300 Soviet tanks. Fahnert was the last of three officers to be appointed to the rank of General of air force communications troops.