Nowak, Franz, born 02-11-1885 in Magdeburg, left school in 1928 and began an apprenticeship in printing in Wolfsberg. Franz printed the Unterkärntner Nachrichten, an anti-semitic local newspaper, close to the Greater German People’s Party. In October 1929, he became a member of the Hitler Youth.
Franz joined the Army Service as a Fahnenjunker, age 19, with the 30th Infantry Regiment, on 15-01-1905. He was in the fields of the first war with this Regiment and retired from the service on 31-03-1920 as a Hauptmann. He was reactivated in the growing Wehrmacht on 01-03-1935 and with the outbreak of World War II he was an Oberst and Department Chief LP3, in the Luftwaffe Personnel Office,
until 31-08-1941. Office Group Chief in RLM to January 1945, as a Generalmajor now. Military Replacement Inspector in Posen to 19-03-1945, meanwhile a Generalleutnant and placed to the disposal of Flying Replacement Division until 30-04-1945. The youngest Generalleutnant in WWII, with 36, was Theodor Tolsdorff.
The Battle of Poznań, Posen,
in 1945 was a massive assault by the Soviet Union’s Red Army that had as its objective the elimination of the Nazi German garrison in the stronghold city of Poznan in occupied Poland. The defeat of the German garrison required almost an entire month of painstaking reduction of fortified positions, intense urban combat, and a final assault on the city’s citadel by the Red Army, complete with medieval touches. Generalmajor Ernst Mattern
, in charge of the German forces, surrendered the remaining 12.000 German soldiers to General Vasilli Chuikov.
Ernst Mattern died age 72, in 1962, in Malente. Over 5.000 German troopers who fell in the battle are buried at Milostowo cemetery
.The Soviets are estimated to have lost over 12.000 men by the battle’s midpoint around 03-02-1945.
Death and burial ground of Nowak, Franz.

Nowak retired on 30-04-1945, but still landed in Soviet captivity on 09-05-1945 and released on 20-10-1949. Living in Wiesbaden Nowak died at the old age of 83, on 21-11-1968 and is buried with his wife Elisabeth, born Schultze, who died age 72, on 17-05-1963, on the Südfriedhof of Wiesbaden.

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