Hausser, Georg Carl Paul “Papa”, born on 07-10-1880 in Brandenburg, into a Prussian military family. Hausser’s father, Kurt Hausser was a major in the Imperial German Army. his mother was Anna Marie, born Otto ( 26-12-1851 in Berlin). His paternal grandparents were the pastor Johann August Eduard Hausser and his wife Juliane Amalie Caroline, born Anders, and Carl Ferdinand Otto and Pauline, born von Bareire, on his mother’s side. In 1899, he graduated from a cadet academy and was commissioned Paul entered the army in 1892 as a leutnant in the 155th (7th West Prussian) Infantry Regiment, with the V Army Corps under General der Infantry Ferdinand von Stülpnagel. Hausser graduated from the Prussian Military Academy in Berlin in 1911. During the first war he served in the German General Staff and in staff roles on the Eastern Front, primarily serving with the 109th Infantry Division between 1916 and 1918. He was promoted to Major in 1918 and was retained in the postwar, 100.000 men Reichswehr , reaching the rank of Oberst by 1927. After retirement from the regular Army he became the “father” , thus the nickname “Papa” of the Waffen-SS and one of its most eminent leaders. Battling in both the Eastern and Western fronts of World War II, he was seriously wounded twice losing an eye in the first incident. Paul entered the army in 1892 and from then until 1896 was at the cadet school in Köslin. From 1912, onwards, including the First World War, Hausser served in a number of General Staff assignments, including the greatly reduced postwar German army , the Reichswehr. Hausser joined the right wing World War I veterans organization Stahlhelm, becoming the head of its Brandenburg-Berlin chapter in 1933. Soon, Stahlhelm was incorporated into the SA and with the SA’s eclipse, into the SS. Hausser became a party member with NSDAP-nr.: 4 138 779, from 01-05-1937 and SS member from 15-11-1934 wth SS-nr.: 239 795.
In November 1934 he with was transferred to the SS-Verfügungstruppe and assigned to SS-Führerschule Braunschweig. In 1935 he became Inspector of SS-Junkerschule and was promoted to Brigadeführer in 1936. Hausser served in the Polish Campaign of 1939 as an observer with the mixed Wehrmacht/SS Panzer Division Kempf. In October 1939 SS-VT was formed as a motorized infantry division with Hausser in command. He led the division, later renamed 2nd SS Division Das Reich, through the French campaign of 1940 and in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa. For his services in Russia, Hausser was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross in 1941 and the Oak Leaves in 1943, he was to get the Swords for his services in Normandy
. After recovering he commanded the newly formed SS-Panzer Corps, renamed II SS Panzer Corps in June 1943 and against Adolf Hitler’s (did you know) explicit orders withdrew his troops from Kharkov to avoid encirclement, only to recapture the city in March 1943. He led 1st 2nd and 3rd SS divisions during the Battle of Kursk. After Kursk, his Corps was reformed, substituting the 1st “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler”” , 2nd “Das Reich” and 3rd SS Panzer “Totenkopf” Divisions with the 9th “Hohenstaufen” and 10th “Frundsberg” SS Divisions and sent to Italy, then to France where he commanded them in the early stages of the Normandy Campaign. After the death of SS Gruppenführer, Oberbefehlhaber of the 7th Army, Friedrich Dollmann
commander of the Seventh Army, Hausser was promoted to the command of Seventh Army. During the Falaise encirclement, Hausser remained with his troops until he was wounded, shot through the jaw. Paul Hausser was promoted to Oberstgruppenführer und Generaloberst der Waffen-SS in August 1944 and subsequently commanded Army Group G from 28 January to 03-04-1945. He ended the war on Generalfeldmarschall der Flieger, Albert Kesselring’s Staff One of Paul Hausser’s greatest skills was to built up strong alliances and bonds with other military leaders. He have had a strong position in the German MOD and here another example for his controversial practices in resisting against the highest party and SS-Leaders: He condemned Heinrich Himmler publicly in front of his troops and in the presence of the division commanders of other the “Empire”-SS-divisions, „Wiking “ and „Totenkopf “, because Himmler wanted to justify the conquest Charkow with „the terror of the SS against the “lower Slavic race “, whereupon Hausser fell loudly into Himmler’s speech and bawled at him
: „Empire Leader Himmler, this success was not won with any SS terror but with the blood of my boys… I forbid expressively this impudent assumption you have of them! “ According to SS Gruppenfüherer, Führer SS Hauptamt, Gottlob Berger, who was attending this out rage Hausser’s on Himmler, who left immediately, informed Hitler and asked him to discharge Hausser from office. Hitler’s reaction is not known, Hausser did not lost his post, but continued to rise on in the SS-hierarchy. Total casualties amongst the Waffen-SS will probably never be known, but one estimate indicates that they suffered 180.000 dead, 400.000 wounded, and 40.000 missing. World War II casualties indicates that the Waffen-SS suffered 314.000 killed and missing, or 34.9 per cent. By comparison, the United States Army suffered 318.274 killed and missing in all theatres of the war. At the Nuremberg Trials Hausser vigorously defended the military role of the Waffen-SS and denied that it was involved in war-crime atrocities. Hausser married Elisabeth Gérard, born 1891, on 09-08-1908 and had one daughter named Frieda, born 1909, who migrated to Australia in 1954, after marrying Gustav Adolf Wiemann a Waffen SS officer, born 1906. Wiemann died 05-11-1991 (age 84–85) in Pooraka, Salisbury City, South Australia, In 1951 Paul Hausser together with SS Obergruppenführer, der SS-Panzer Grenadier Division “Wiking”, Felix Steiner, SS Oberstgruppenführer, Kommandeur der SS-Div “LSSAH”, Josef “Sepp” Dietrich
and SS Obergruppenführer, Kommandeur 12 SS LSSAH, “Hitlerjugend“, Kurt Meyer
founded the auxiliary community on mutuality of former members of the Waffen-SS. The goal of this organisation was to equalize and defend members of the Waffen-SS with soldiers of the regular Armed Forces and by doing so trying to legalize and rehabilitate the reputation of the Waffen-SS.
On 09-11-1912, Oberleutant Hausser married his fiancée Elisabeth Henriette Gérard (born 18-07-1891 in Berlin; died 16-10-1979 in Munich). Daughter Ingeborg Elisabeth (born 28-12-1913) sprang from the marriage, who later married Ernst Kurt Hans-Joachim Osterroht (1909–1994), son of Generalleutnant Karl Ernst Curt Osterroht, infantryman in the Reichswehr, then a fighter pilot, finally ( after training at the Air War Academy) General Staff Officer of the Air Force, German Cross in Gold as Major i. G. and Ia of the 1st Flieger Division, most recently (since 01-07-1944) Oberstleutnant i. G. in World War II and, most recently, Oberst in the Air Force of the Bundeswehr in the post-war period (adopted on 12-10-1968 in Munich). The son-in-law rests with his wife in the Hausser family grave
Death and burial ground of Hausser, Georg Carl Paul “Papa”.
Oberstgruppenführer Paul Hausser, died in Ludwigsburg on 21-12-1972, at the age of 92 and is buried with his wife Elisabeth, born Gerard, who died old age 87 in 1978, on the Waldfriedhof of Munich . On this cemetery are also buried the Generalleutnant der Artillerie, Commander of the Troops Exercise Grounds in Maria ter Heide, Heinrich Curtze, Generalmajor der Infanterie, Kommandeur Wehrmacht Operaties Staff, Ernst Detleffsen, Franz Ritter von Epp, Generalmajor der Kavallerie, Staff of the Inspector of Land Fortifications West, Gero von Gersdorf, Oberst der Wehrmacht, Highest German Commander on D-Day, Normandy, Ernst Goth, SS Obersturmführer, Chef 1./SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 38 “Goetz von Berlichingen” , Bruno Hinz, Generalmajor der Flieger, Commander of the Air Defend Division, Max Ibel, Hitler Navy adjutant Karl von Puttkamer, Generalmajor der Flieger, Kommandeur Luftregio Truppe 3, Ernst Weber, Generalmajor der Gebirgstruppe, Kommandeur der Jäger Regiment 100, Otto Schury Goering’s second wife, Emmy Goering-Sonneman, and the famous film maker
Leni Riefenstahl. “Triumph of the Will” , the film chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg.
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