Foertsch, Friedrich Albert.

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Foertsch, Friedrich Albert, born 19-05-1900 in Drahmow, District Krone. His father was a government employee for the Prussian Settlement Commission in Posen and West Prussia. Friedrich was the juniors brother of General of the Infanterie Hermann Foertsch. Herman survived the war and died age 66 on  27-12-1961 in München. Friedrich joined the Military Service in the Imperial German Army in 1918. Serving in the infantry in the final battles of World War I, Friedrich Foertsch earned the Iron Cross second class  before the end of hostilities. He joined the Freikorps  after the war and later was accepted into the Reichswehr  in 1920. During World War II, he held several senior Staff positions, as a Major of the 1st General Staff Officer in the General Staff of the 60th Infanterie-Division. The German 60th Infantry Division   was formed in late 1939, from Gruppe General der Panzertruppe, Friedrich Eberhardt  a collection of SA  units that had been engaged in the capture of Danzig during the Invasion of Poland. This war provoked by the Germans at the Gleiwitz radio station, just across the Polish border.
The Gleiwitz incident was a false flag attack on the radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz (then Germany and now Gliwice, Poland) staged by Nazi Germany on the night of 31-08-1939. Along with some two dozen similar incidents, the attack was manufactured by Germany as a casus belli to justify the invasion of Poland. Prior to the invasion, Adolf Hitler gave a radio address condemning the acts and announcing German plans to attack Poland, which began the next morning. Despite the German government using the attack as a justification to go to war with Poland, the Gleiwitz assailants were not Polish but were German SS officers wearing Polish uniforms.During his declaration of war, Hitler did not mention the Gleiwitz incident but grouped all provocations staged by the SS as an alleged “Polish assault” on Germany. The Gleiwitz incident is the best-known action of Operation Himmler, a series of special operations undertaken by the Schutzstaffel (SS) to serve German propaganda at the outbreak of war. The operation was intended to create the appearance of a Polish aggression against Germany to justify the invasion of Poland. On September 3, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and the European theatre of World War II had begun. Manufactured evidence for the Gleiwitz attack by the SS was provided by the German SS officer Alfred Naujocks in 1945. After the war..Naujocks escaped custody and worked as a businessman in Hamburg and later sold his story to the media, he was described as being highly intelligent and very ruthless and a committed nazi.
Following the trials, Naujocks worked as a businessman in Hamburg, where he eventually sold his story to the media as The Man who Started the War. He was alleged to have been involved in running ODESSA, together with SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny,
who handled contracts with the Spanish government, supplying passports and arranging for funds. Naujocks and his associates handled former Nazi war criminals going to Latin America, being responsible for their reception and protection there. Naujocks died of a heart attack in Hamburg on 04-04-1966, aged 54 and he is cremated and ashes given to family or friend.
Oskar Schindler, who is credited with later saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust, played a role in supplying the Polish uniforms and weapons used in the operation as an agent for the Abwehr.
During the latter part of 1942the German 60th Infantry Division was involved in the bitter battles for Stalingrad , and then in early 1943 was encircled at Stalingrad,  and destroyed. 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 20th Infantry Division  under command of Generalmajor Georg Jauer  1st 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 General Otto Deßloch as the German 4th Panzer Army  under command of Generaloberst Erhard Raus   and the 6th Armies  under command of Friedrich Paulus  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. He was also Chief of the General Staff of the 18th Armee, under Generaloberst der Artillerie, Oberbefehlhaber Heeresgruppe Nord, Georg Küchler.
   Foertsch was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross   on 05-09-1944 for his leadership in the defensive battles at the Leningrad Front. He was taken prisoner of war in the Courland Pocket by the Soviet Army.  At a post-war trial he initially received a death sentence, which was later commuted to 25 years of hard labor. The intervention of Bundeskanzler Konrad Adenauer caused his release, in 1955 and Foertsch joined the newly formed Bundeswehr of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1961 he was appointed Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, a position he held until his retirement in 1963.

Death and burial ground of Foertsch, Friedrich Albert.

   Friedrich Foertsch died at the age of 76, on 14-12-1976 in Goslar. He is buried with his wife Hildegard, who died age 84 on 05-02-1994, on the cemetery Hildesheimerstrasse in Goslar and not far from the graves of other WWII Generals as, Generalmajor der Infanterie, Kommandeur von Dniepropetrovsk, Ernst Adolph), Generalleutnant der Infanterie, Kommandeur der 404th Infanterie DivisionAdolf Hüttmann  A soldier of the 404th shot the mayor of Stollberg for hoisting a white flag on the town hall as well as for contacting an American troop commando to surrender the city without a fight. Shooting of a woman who had threatened wounded soldiers of the Stollberg hospital who had taken down a white flag, to have them hanged by the Americans. Also buried here in Goslar, General der Panzertruppe, Kommandeur der 20th Panzer Division Mortimer von Kessel Generalmajor der Infanterie, Kommandeur der 10th Panzer Grenadier Division Karl Kossmann the famous Generaloberst, Oberbefehler B 2nd Panzer ArmeeHeinz Wilhelm Guderian and his sons Heinz Günther and Kurt and SS Obergruppenführer, NS Politieker, Walter Darré  are also buried on this cemetery.

Message(s), tips or interresting graves:  robhopmans@outlook.com

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