Hemmerich, Gerlach-Hans, born 04-02-1879 in Isernhagen, entered the Army Service, age 18, on 26-02-1897 as a Fähnrich with the 79th Infantry Regiment to 01-10-1902. Detached to the War Academy from 01-10-1908 to 21-07-1911 and became a Oberleutnant on 27-01-1909. Was during the first war in the Grand General Staff and in the General Staff of V Reserve Corps. Hemmerich was not allowed in the new Reichswehr and retired from the Service on 25-08-1920. Reactivated to the Army Service on 01-10-1936 as a Oberstleutnant on 01-10-1936, promoted to Oberst on 01-08-1937 and to Generalmajor on 01-12-1939. He was Department Chief for War Mapping and Surveying Matters in the Army General Staff until 05-04-1945 and landed in the Führer Reserve and in captivity on 15-09-1945 as a Generalleutnant. 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 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. 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. Generaloberst der Infanterie, 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, Admiral, Wilhelm Canaris and Chief of Staff OKW, Hans Paul Oster, were killed only days before the end of the war. General Field Marshal Walther, Walther von Brauchitsch
became Supreme Commander of the Army in 1938 and was decisively involved in planning Operation Barbarossa. He was dismissed on 19-12-1941 because of the military defeat at Moscow and transferred to the Officers Reserve.
Death and burial ground of Hemmerich, Gerlach-Hans George Emil.
Hemmerich released from prison, on 04-07-1947, lived in Berlin, where he at the old age of 90 died on 31-12-1969. Hemmerich is buried on the Südwestfriedhof of Stahnsdorf, but his grave is really neglected and his gravestone felt over to the wrong side, so the inscription is not to see, and alas I didn’t succeed to lift up the stone, stocked in the wet ground. Close by the graves of the Generalleutnant der Infanterie, Chief of the Central Office, RLM, Bodo von Witzendorff and General der Kavallerie, Commander 1st Kavallerie-Division, Kurt Feldt, and General der Infanterie, Commanding General of the LXXXII Army Corps, Alfred Boehm-Tettelbach.
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