List, Alfred Julius Eduard.

- Nationality.

Germany.

- Ranking.

A Bavarian officer, most recently Oberst and commander of the Reserve Infantry Regiment 16, in which Adolf Hitler also served as a soldier during the First World War.

- Born.

19-12-1864 in München,

- Died.

31-10-1914, age 49, in Gheluvelt, Westflandern, Belgium, chest wound in battle and died of his shrapnel wound the same daye.

- Buried.

In the castle park of Gheluvelt, where he died. After the war he was reburied. Today his bones rest in a mass grave at the Langemark War Cemetery in Belgium.

germany Army Hitler’s confidants

List, Alfred Julius Eduard, born 19-12-1864 in München the son of a study inspector and professor in the cadet corps.

Alfred attended the Wilhelmsgymnasium Munich until he graduated from high school in 1882 and then joined the 1st Infantry Regiment “König” of the Bavarian Army under command of Prince Leopold of Bavaria as a three-year volunteer. On 24-03-1883 he was promoted to Fähnrich and on 24-03-1885 he was promoted to leutnant. As such, List was battalion adjutant from 1889. From 1892 to 1895 he graduated from the War Academy, which gave him the qualification for the higher adjutant and the teaching subject. List was then adjutant to the 1st Infantry Brigade and promoted to captain on 28-10-1899. He returned to his main regiment as company commander in 1901, remained there until 1905 and then became adjutant to the General Command of the III. Army Corps. under command of General der Infanterie Karl von Bülow In this position, he was promoted to Major on 26-10-1906 and transferred back to the 1st Infantry Regiment “König” in 1908. Here List worked as a battalion commander, became a Oberstleutnant on 07-03-1912 and as such was transferred to the staff of the 12th Infantry Regiment “Prinz Arnulf”. On 27-03-1913, he finally became commander of Landwehr District I Munich and on 07-01-1914 he was promoted to Oberst.

Death and burial ground of List, Alfred Julius Eduard.

List sitting in the middle.

After the outbreak of the First World War, he was appointed commander of the newly formed 16th Reserve Infantry Regiment on 05-09-1914. List was severely wounded in the chest at the beginning of his regiment’s frontline deployment in the three-day Battle of Gheluvelt on 31-10-1914, age 49, and died on the same day from his shrapnel wound in the castle park of Gheluvelt. He was initially buried there. After the war he was reburied. Today his bones rest in a mass grave at the Langemark War Cemetery,

During the war, Hitler served in France and Belgium in the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (1st Company of the List Regiment).

He was an infantryman in the 1st Company during the First Battle of Ypres (October 1914), which Germans remember as the Kindermord bei Ypern (Ypres Massacre of the Innocents) because approximately 40,000 men (between a third and a half, many of them university students) of nine newly-enlisted infantry divisions became casualties in the first twenty days. Hitler’s regiment entered the battle with 3,600 men but at its end mustered only 611 men. By December, Hitler’s own company of 250 was reduced to 42. Biographer John Keegan claims that this experience drove Hitler to become aloof and withdrawn for the remaining years of war. After the battle, Hitler was promoted from Schütze(private) to Gefreiter (lance corporal). He was assigned to be a regimental message-runner

As early as 1940, Adolf Hitler visited the German military cemetery in Langemarck, West Flanders, accompanied by the newsreel propaganda cameras. The dark chapter is not over yet: the Nazi collaborators, the Flemish SS division that fought on the Eastern Front was nicknamed Langemarck.