Keiner, Walter Adolf Edmund Hermann.

Keiner, Walter Adolf Edmund Hermann, born 30-12-1890 in Benshausen,   son of the businessman Max Keiner and his wife Maria, born Wettig, married his fiancée Asta Wilhelmine Johanne Faber on 05-12-1919. The marriage gave birth to three children: two daughters and son Klaus-Jochen. Walter joined the 3^rd Foot Artillery Regiment  as a Fahnenjunker on 05-03-1910, age 19. Leutnant on 18-08-1911 and from 01-10-1913 assigned as Adjutant of the II Battalion of the 3^rd Foot Artillery Regiment. Appointed in 1915 as battery leader and to Oberleutnant. As 2^nd General Staff Officer he came to the Staff of the 200^th Infantry Division on 01-05-1918 and on 18-08-1918 promoted to Hauptmann. He was auxiliary officer with the Military District Command V until 01-10-1920 and followed a General Staff Training in the Reichswehrministary, RWM  until 01-10-1921. Transferred to the Group Command I, detached to the RWM until 01-04-1923. Appointed with the Staff of the 3^rd Division on 01-04-1923 and from 01-05-1927 he was the Battery Chief in the 2^nd Artillery Regiment until 01-02-1923. Transferred to the Staff of Artillery Leader IV to 01-04-1933, next with the Military Region Braunschweig and assigned as Chief of Staff in Braunschweig on 01-10-1933. Chief of Operations, Ia, in the Staff of the 19^th Division to 01-10-1935. Promoted to Oberst on 01-04-1935 and from 01-10-1935 commander of the 60^th Artillery Regiment.  From 01-10-1936 as commander of the 24^th Artillery Regiment and from 01-10-1937 Artillery Kommandeur 8. to 15-08-1939. Promoted to Generalmajor on 01-08-1938 and from 15-08-1939 commander of the 62^nd Infantry Division. Promoted to Generalleutnant 01-09-1940 he was awarded with the Knight Cross of the Iron Cross  on 17-07-1941 after the invasion of France. Involved in the battle of Kiev with his 62^nd Division and for the Russians the Kiev disaster was an unprecedented defeat.  On 1 September, the Southwestern Front numbered 752–760.000 troops, 850,000 including reserves and rear service organs), 3.923 guns and mortars, 114 tanks and 167 combat aircraft. The encirclement trapped 452.700 soldiers, 2.642 guns and mortars and 64 tanks, of which scarcely 15.000 escaped from the encirclement by 2 October. Overall, the Southwestern Front suffered 700.544 casualties, including 616.304 killed, captured, or missing during the month-long Battle for Kiev.Severely wounded he was in hospital and landed in the Führer Reserve until 15-08-1943. The 62^nd was formed in November 1944, by redesignating the 583^rd Volksgrenadier Division, under the command of Friedrich Kittel.   The division fought in France and the Ardennes before being trapped in the Ruhr pocket, where Fieldmarschall Walter Model 

committed suicide, where it was destroyed in April 1945. Promoted to General der Artillery on 01-01-1943, age 52 and Army Field Equipment Master from 15-08-1943 until 01-08-1944. He became the, AHA, Chief of the General Army with the Chief of Army Armaments and Commander in Chief of the Replacement Army until the end of the war. Keiner’s son Klaus Jochen was killed 1945.

Klaus Jochen Keiner started his military service with the 7th Battalion of the 24th Artillery Regiment. Because of his bravery, he was soon promoted and also sent to the officers’ school. He had previously sustained minor war injuries, but on  09-03-1944, he was seriously injured in the hips and left forearm of a Soviet air rifle. On 01-05-1944, he was appointed captain in turn – he was only 23 at the time! From 01-11-1944, he was the first assistant to the commander of the 13th Armored Division. During the siege of Budapest, a piece of a terrace detached from an artillery hit his head and he suffered a severe concussion. On 25-12-1944, he was still able to make telephone calls to his father, General Walter Keiner, who was serving at Commando Headquarters in Berlin, then the Commander of the Auxiliary Army.

In the first days of January 1945 he was wounded again by a bomb hit. All that can be known about the outbreak is what Josef Markthoffer reported to the German War Loss Agency on 22-3-1954. They say the Soviets shot him in Nagykovácsi. His grave was secretly kept in the village for a long time and on 27-08-1967, details of the grave were also forwarded to the said office, with the announcement that the source of the information could not be named ‘for the safety of the person concerned This was due to the fact that a significant portion of the population of Nagykovácsi was driven from their homes after 1945, and even those who stayed at home under the terms of the party state could only secretly look after the graves of the fallen. German and Hungarian soldiers The fact that they committed themselves to do this testifies to their serious civil courage.

 Death and burial ground of Keiner, Walter Adolf Edmund Hermann.

Walter Keiner landed in Allied captivity on 08-05-1945 and released in 1947. Retiring in Gelnhausen Walter Keiner died at the age of 87 on 23-01-1978 and is buried with his wife Asta, born Faber, who died age 75 on 12-07-1970, on the cemetery of Gelnhausen Mid, Field A.

His son Klaus-Jochen Keiner (born 26-09-1920 in Gelnhausen) was an officer in the Wehrmacht, most recently a captain of the army. He fell in February 1945 near Großkowatsch (Nagykovácsi) in the battle for Hungary as a member of the relief troops for the heroes of the Battle of Budapest. He is said to be on the war cemetery in Wudersch (Budaörs); Final grave site: Block 3 (among the unknowns). His parents put his name on their tombstone in memory of their fallen son.

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