Hubicki, Alfred Eduard Franz Ritter von.

Hubicki, Alfred Eduard Franz Ritter von, born on 05-02-1887 in Friedrichsdorf, Bereg County, Hungary, today Ukraine as an officer’s son. His father wanted a civilian career for him and therefore sent him to civilian schools.  Hubicki still wanted a career as an officer and joined the Austro-Hungarian Corps of Cadets after having passed his school-leaving certificate in 1905. He was accepted as an Officer Cadet (Fähnrich) with k.u.k. Division Artillery Regiment 4 (kaiserlich und königliche Divisions Artillery Regiment No. 4) in Vienna. 

Promoted to Leutnant of the Austro-Hungarian Army in 1907, he was transferred to the Cavalry Artillerie Abteilung 7 (Mounted Artillery Unit 7) in Arad. After promotion to Leutnant 1st Class in 1911, he qualified was for General Staff Officer’s training at the War School in Vienna (Kaserne 3 Hufeisengasse). After graduation at the top of his class, he was selected for General Staff duty. 

As an Officer transferred to the General Staff Corps, he was promoted to Hauptman in 1915. A General Staff Officer in several crucial battles of World War I and Commanding Officer of a Battalion of mountain troops on the Italian Front, he was repeatedly decorated for leadership and bravery. A Major at the armistice, he served in the army of the First Austrian Republic. In the inter-war period, he studied law in Vienna while on active duty and was awarded a jurist doctorate in the subject.

The Anschluss  ’joining’ or ‘connection’), also known as the Anschluß Österreichs, (Annexation of Austria),  was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 12-03-1938.

The idea of an Anschluss (a united Austria and Germany that would form a “Greater Germany”) began after the unification of Germany excluded Austria and the German Austrians from the Prussian-dominated German Empire in 1871. Following the end of World War I with the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1918, the newly formed Republic of German-Austria attempted to form a union with Germany, but the Treaty of Saint Germain (10-09-1919) and the despised Treaty of Versailles (28-06-1919) forbade both the union and the continued use of the name “German-Austria” and stripped Austria of some of its territories, such as the Sudetenland.

The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28-06-1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand,

  which led to the war. The other Central Powers on the German side signed separate treaties. The United States never ratified the Versailles treaty and made a separate peace treaty with Germany. Although the armistice of 11-11-1918 ended the actual fighting, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. Germany was not allowed to participate in the negotiations; it was forced to sign the final treaty.

By the time of the Anschluss/ Annexation   of Austria in 1938 he had reached the rank of Generalmajor as the commander of the Austrian Army motorized division and transferred to the Wehrmacht with the same rank and was appointed commander of the 4^th Light Division  upon its formation in Vienna. The unit was renamed the 9^th Panzer Division  and Hubicki commanded it through the invasion of Poland in which it took part in the battles of Jordanów and Jaroslaw. It then took part in the invasions of France and the NetherlandsThe total number of Dutch people who died is between 225,000 and 280,000. The Netherlands had 9 million inhabitants in those years. 2,200 soldiers of the Dutch army, died in the May days of 1940. The bombing of Rotterdam on May 14, 1940 cost the lives of almost 900 residents of that city.258 soldiers died in German captivity. 102,000 of the total of 107,000 Jewish citizens deported from the Netherlands, murdered in Auschwitz, Sobibor and other camps. 240 Roma and Sinti, murdered in Auschwitz. About 4,400 of the 11,000 non-Jewish prisoners in concentration camps and punishment camps, including many resistance fighters. 2,000 civilians executed; some were resistance fighters sentenced to death; some were random prisoners who were shot dead in the final phase of the war as a reprisal for a resistance action.375 of the approximately 7,500 non-Jewish prisoners in German prisons. Most of these were imprisoned for ‘economic crimes’ (black marketing, theft), the rest were ‘political prisoners’.30,000 Dutch forced laborers in Germany died as a result of weakening, bombings, etc. It is estimated that between 6,000 and 14,000 civilians died during Allied bombing of Dutch cities (e.g. on German positions or so-called mistaken bombings).20,500 civilians died in bombings and fighting in the front areas from September 1944 to May 1945. Most civilian casualties occurred during the period of the Allied liberation actions in the Netherlands, which began with the Battle of Arnhem, September 1944. 1,500 soldiers from the Princess Irene Brigade  and the Domestic Armed Forces died in 1944 – 1945.22,000 citizens of the cities in the western Netherlands, died of hunger, cold and disease in the Hunger Winter of 1944 – 1945 (the total number of people who died due to scarcity and other bad conditions of the occupation period was much higher; many sick and elderly for example, would have continued to live if there had not been a lack of medicine). 1,490 merchant marine crew members who did not return from sea. 10,000 Dutch people who died on the Eastern Front as members of the Waffen-SS.

Hubicki was promoted to Generalleutnant in August 1940. He then led the division in the Balkans and was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross  for his role in that campaign.

He was promoted to General der Panzertruppe on 01-10-1942 and was succeeded by Generalleutnant Johannes Bäßler   Bässler was critically wounded on 26-08-1944, and died of his wounds in a reserve hospital in Vienna, age 52 on 09-11-1944.  After commanding a special unit at the OKW  Hubicki was appointed as the head of the German Military Mission to Slovakia.

Death and burial ground of Hubicki, Alfred Eduard Franz Ritter von.

   Hubicki was retired from active service in March 1945 and died in 14-07-1971, age 84, in Vienna. General Alfred Eduard Franz Ritter von Hubicki is buried with his wife Thyra, born Hoffinger, who died old age 92 on 16-10-1988,  on the Hauptfriedhof of Vienna. Erik Iancovici from Sweden was so kind to sent the grave pictures. He is now resting there in a communal grave with his wife Thyra, born. Hoffinger and his daughter Leonore (30-11-2014).