Kleikamp, Helmut.

Kleikamp, Helmut, 28-04-1901 in Ottendorf, Okrila, District of Dresden, the son of doctor Carl Kleikamp and Anna (born Kletzin). His brothers, Fritz and Karl, were soldiers in World War I.

Helmut entered the Army Reichswehr after the end of the 14-18 war in December 1918, as a Fahnenjunker in the 2^nd Horse Jäger Regiment, age 17. Helmut Kleikamp remained in the Reichswehr and reached the rank of Major, at the beginning of World War II. Kleikamp was an Intelligence Officer in the General Staff of the 5^th Army, until 25-10-1939. The same position in the Army Group A to 22-06-1941 and of the Army Group South until 01-04-1942. Chief of Operations of the 371^st Infantry Division   under command of Generalleutnant Richard Stempel

  Tempel died on 26-01-1943 in Soviet captivity.in Stalingrad. At the end of the war, the division surrendered to the Soviets in the Iglau – Deutsch-Brod area in the present-day Czech Republic.

Kleikamp didn’t see the battlefields for a long time becoming the Chief of Department for the General Staff Personnel in OKH , Army Personnel office to 01-01-1945. He landed in the infamous Führer Reserve (see Adolf Hitler) (did you know) till 13-02-1945 and went to a 17^th Division  Leaders Course in Bad Neustadt. The 17^th Infantry Division, under command of Generalmajor der Infanterie, Max Sachsenheimer,  Sachsenheimer died age 63 on 02-07-1973, in Merzenhausen near Freiburg, as an infantry division of Nazi Germany, active before and during World War II. Formed in 1934, it took part in most of the campaigns of the Wehrmacht and was decimated in January 1945. Throughout the war, the soldiers of the 17^th Division committed a number of war crimes, notably in Poland during the 1939 campaign. On 04-09-1939 in the vicinity of Zloczew, a large scale mass murder took place, the soldiers of the 17^th Division burnt approximately 80% of buildings in the town and killed without a trial approximately 200 Polish citizens of Polish and Jewish ethnicity, out of whom only 71 people were identified after the war.

  Monument to the fallen and murdered by the Germans in September 1939. During the war, Złoczew was extremely damaged and deserted. The center of town has never been rebuilt, and its population has never recovered to prewar numbers.

Reconstituted in Germany, it surrendered to the Allies in May of that year. The 17th division was responsible for a number more of war crimes. Commander of the 36^th Volksgrenadier Regiment until his captivity on 08-05-1945.

Helmut’s cousin was Gustav Kleikamp   (born 08-03-1896 in Widuchowa, died 13-09-1952 in Mülheim an der Ruhr) , was a Vice Admiral in the Kriegsmarine, commander of a.o. battleship “Schleswig-Holstein” in the attack on Westerplatte. At the outbreak of World War II, Gustav Kleikamp was the commander of the battleship “Schleswig-Holstein”, which attacked the Polish military outpost on Westerplatte. Professor Carl Jacob Burckhardt , Swiss diplomat, served in the years 1937-1939 as High Commissioner of the League of Nations in Gdańsk, in his post-war memoirs he described his meeting with Commander Kleikamp on the eve of the outbreak of war: “I also visited battleship, but not there, but at a party at my house, the commander of the ship, confused in his face, suddenly made an unexpected confession: ‘I was given a terrible order that I have no conscience to follow.’ If anyone found out about this confession, the ship’s commander would probably have been sentenced to death by firing squad for high treason, but in the early morning of September 1, he obeyed his command and the battleship’s guns opened fire on Westerplatte.”

The Schlewig-Holstein was heavily damaged by three aerial bombs near Gotenhafen/Gdingen on 18-12-1944 and sank in 12 meters of water. As a result, 28 men were killed and 53 were injured. Three ships attempted to clear the ship, but were unable to do so as the hole caused by one of the bombs was too large.On December 20, a fire broke out that lasted twelve hours and almost completely destroyed the structure.On 25-01-1945, the flag and pennant were lowered for the last time. Most of the crew was then deployed in the defense of Marienburg. On March 21, the Schleswig-Holstein was blown up during the final surrender of Gotenhafen. After the capitulation of Germany in May 1945, the Soviet Union requisitioned the old ship as war booty. In 1946, repair work began to make the ship seaworthy. It was towed to Tallinn and converted into a training target ship. It was used as a target until 1955. Today it lies on the bottom of the former Soviet Navy training area near the Finnish island of Ordensholm.

Death and burial ground of Kleikamp, Helmut.

Released in March 1948, Helmut lived in Marburg near the river Lahn and died there at the old age of 83, on 06-01-1985 and is buried on the Stadtfriedhof of Marburg, Section QU 1-Grab 19/20. In the Elisabeth Church of Marburg, Paul von Hindenburg

  is buried and on the cemetery Ockenhäuser Allee, Generalleutnant der Infanterie, Commander of the 75^th Infantry Replacement, Herbert Lemke is buried with his wife Ingeborg, born Beug, who died very old age 97, on 07-12-2007, on the war grave section. .

Message(s), tips or interesting graves for the webmaster:    robhopmans@outlook.com