Hinz, Bruno

Hinz, Bruno, born 25-08-1915 in Petersdorf, Sachsen, trained as a furniture maker in his youth. In 1933 he became a member of the SS. Bruno Hinz joined the 10./SS standard “Germany” in Munich on 01-10-1936. With this he participated in the Anschluss/Connection of Austria and the occupation of the Sudetenland. He also took part in the Polish campaign. During the French campaign he received the Iron Cross II during the fight. On 21-09-1940 he was promoted to SS Unterscharführer.

joined the 10^th Company, SS-Standarte Deutschland   under SS-Standartenführer Felix Steiner,   in Munich in October 1936 and was part of the forces connected with the Anschluss of Austria and the occupation of the Sudetenland and the annexation of Memel. At the beginning of World War II he was severely wounded   in May 1940, from which he recovered only slowly, during the Battle of France and promoted to SS Unterscharführer in September 1940. From December 1940 to March 1941, he was assigned to the SS replacement battalion Germany. He was then selected for officer training and sent to the SS-Junkerschule at Brunswick . After six months, training he was posted to the 5^th SS Panzer Division Wiking  at the same time being promoted to SS Untersturmführer,  Second Lieutenant and given command of the 2^nd Company, SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment Westland. It was while in command of this company that he was awarded the German Cross in Gold  in April 1943. In September 1943 his company was in a defensive position on the Dnieper which allowed the 5^th SS Panzer Division, to cross the Dnepr River, but during the battle Hinz was severely wounded, a lung shot and was therefore operated on four times by Ferdinand Sauerbruch, a German doctor. which is considered to be one of the most important and influential surgeons of the 20th century. Sauerbruch was a pioneer in thorax and other breast surgery and designed a prosthesis for the arm.

   . Sent to recuperate in the hospital in Germany he was promoted to SS Obersturmführer , First Lieutenant, in November 1943 and awarded the Knight’s Cross in December 1943 for this action. From 1940 to 1942, Sauerbruch was General Reserve of the Reserve. He had to supervise lazarets in, among other things, the occupied Netherlands, Belgium and France, and from 1942 also on the Eastern Front, including the Crimea. In between, he also dealt with all kinds of prominent figures from the Nazi period, including Minister Bernhard Rust, Joseph Goebbels and Robert Ley, founder of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront, but also Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, known for his July 20, 1944 conspiracy against Hitler. Sauerbruch was an authoritarian Chef while working, but was also, perhaps based on medical ethical principles, an opponent of Hitler’s euthanasia policy. Through the intercession of another colleague from Sauerbruch, the notorious SS doctor Karl Gebhardt, at Hitler, Sauerbruch escaped prosecution for possible involvement in the July 1944 attack on Hitler by Stauffenberg. Ferdinand Sauerbruch died in Berlin on 02-07-1951, at the age of seventy-five. He is buried in Berlin-Wannsee. After six months in hospital Hinz returned to active service in February 1944 to took over command of the 2^nd Company, 38^th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment, with the 38. SS-Grenadier-Division Nibelungen, under command of SS-Gruppenführer Herbert Otto Gille  . He was next in action in Normandy, when cut off by the advancing allied forces near Saint-Lô, he succeeded in guiding his men through the Allied lines. For this he received the award of the Oak Leaves for the Knight’s Cross on 23-08- 1944. After being wounded again, he was temporarily sent to the SS-Junkerschule at Bad Tölz as the school commander.

   While at the school he was promoted to Hauptsturmführer, Captain, in November 1944. In January 1945 he was posted to the 17^th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen  as a Battalion commander and in March 1945 was captured by the Americans and made a prisoner of war. As well as being awarded the Wound Badge in Gold , he was awarded the very rare Close Combat Clasp in Gold, which was only awarded 631 times during the war.

   Living in Munich after the war Hinz died, age 52, on 28-02-1968 and is buried on the Waldfriedhof of Munich, close by the graves of Hitler’s naval adjutant Karl von Puttkamer

     Hugo Junkers, Generalmajor der Infanterie, Kommandeur Wehrmacht Operaties Staff, Ernst Detleffse, and Goering’s second wife Emmy Goering-Sonneman (did you know),  SA leader, Franz Ritter von Epp, Generalmajor der Gebirgstruppe, Kommandeur der Jäger Regiment 100, Otto Schury and photographer, movie maker, Leni Riefenstahl, and SS Obergruppenführer, Kommandeur General II SS Panzerkorps, “Papa” Hausser,  In February 1945, the II Panzer Corps was ordered to Hungary to take part in an offensive to recapture Budapest and the Hungarian oilfields. After a brief period of rest and reforming in Germany, the corps arrived near Stuhlweißenburg near Lake Balaton. After the remainder of Josef “Sepp” Dietrich’s 6^th SS Panzer Army had assembled, the corps took part in Operation Frühlingserwachen, launched on 06-03-1945. In terrible conditions and against fierce Soviet resistance, the corps managed to advance only a few kilometers. After the failure of the offensive, the corps was involved in defensive battles alongside the I SS  under SS Gruppenführer Herman Priess , who died old age 83, on 02-02-1985 in Ahrensburg and IV SS Panzer Corps under Obergruppenführer Herbert Otto Gille, executing a fighting withdrawal towards Vienna.  After the Soviets captured the city, the corps broke up and individual units attempted to break out to the American forces to the west.

The survivors of the combat divisions, 800 men, along with the majority of the corps personnel under now SS Obergruppenführer , Wilhelm Bittrich,  managed to surrender to the Americans on 08-05-1945.