Schmidt, August.

Schmidt, August, born 03-11-1892 in Fürth, Bavaria, joined the Army Service, age 18, on 31-07-1911 as a Fähnrich with the 21^st Bavarian Infantry Regiment and on 25-10-1913 promoted to Leutnant. August was in the fields with this Regiment and awarded with both the Iron Crosses came to the new 100.000 men Reichswehr as an Oberstleutnant. Promoted to Oberst on 01-04-1938 and appointed to the Staff of the 49^th Infantry Regiment in Breslau. On 01-05-1939 he became commander of the 20^th Infantry Regiment with the 10^th Infantry Division succeeding Oberst Hans Traut . Traut survived the war and died 09-12-1974, aged 79, in Darmstadt. Schmidt led this Regiment in the invasion of Poland  and received the claps of the Iron Cross  and on 27-10-1939 as the 26^th the Knight Cross of the Iron Cross. Elements of his division took part in atrocities against the civilian population during the invasion of Poland. Together with elements of the 17^th  Infantry Division , under General Herbert Loch  , who died old age 90, on 28-10-1976, they took part in the murder of at least 14 civilians during the Division’s advance towards Sieradz  and Lask. Transferred to France he with his regiment was involved in the battles for the Aisne Crossing in June 1940. He then took the command of the 21^st Infantry Regiment with the 17^th Infantry Division , ready for the Operation Barbarossa. The 91.000 German POWs taken at Stalingrad, 27.000 died within weeks and only 5-6,000 returned to Germany by 1955. The remainder of the POWs died in Soviet captivity. On 02-02-1943, the organized resistance of Axis troops in Stalingrad ceased. Out of the 91.000 prisoners taken by the Soviets, 3.000 were Romanian. These were the survivors of the 20^th Infantry Division  under command of Generalmajor Georg Jauer   , 1^st Cavalry Division and “Colonel Voicu” Detachment .  Georg Jauer on 12-03-1945 took command of the ‘Panzer Corps Großdeutschland’ with which he surrendered.  Jauer survived the war and died 05-08-1971, aged 75,  in Greven. According to archival figures, the Red Army suffered a total of 1.129.619 total casualties; 478.741 men killed or missing and 650.878 wounded. These numbers are for the whole Don region; in the city itself 750.000 were killed, captured, or wounded. Anywhere from 25.000 to 40.000 Soviet civilians died in Stalingrad and its suburbs during a single week of aerial bombing by Luftflotte 4  under command of Generalfeldmarschall Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen   as the German 4^th Panzer  under command of Generalleutnant Erich Schneider   and 6^th  Army, under command of Friedrich von Paulus    approached the city; the total number of civilians killed in the regions outside the city is unknown. In all, the battle resulted in an estimated total of 1.7-2 million Axis and Soviet casualties. Promoted to Generalmajor on 01-10-1941 with the command of the 50^th Infantry Division  on 31-01-1942, Schmidt succeeded Generaloberst der Infanterie, Karl Hollidt

    . After a short command he already on 01-03-1942 and became the command of the 10^th Infantry Division for a long time. He was promoted now to Generalleutnant on 23-06-1943, the youngest Generalleutnant in WWII with 36, was Theodor Tolsdorff,

  the youngest General, with 42, Walter “The Boy General” Wenck   . Schmidt’s Division renamed in the 10^th Panzer Grenadier Division. He was wounded  in October 1943, but returned on 23-10-1943 to his division. He was awarded as the 371^st with the Oak Leaves of the Iron Cross on 23-01-1944. He landed in Soviet captivity on 08-04-1945 and first released after intervention of the new Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer,   the new German Chancellor, in October 1950.

Living in Munich Schmidt died at the age of 79, on 17-01-1972 and is buried on the Waldfriedhof in Munich, Plot 426-Reihe 1-Grab 530. On this cemetery are also buried the next persons, Generalmajor der Infanterie, Kommandeur Wehrmacht Operaties Staff, Ernst Dethleffsen,  Oberst der Wehrmacht, Highest German Commander on D-Day, Normandy, Ernst Goth, Goering’s second wife, Emmy Goering-Sonneman,

Generalmajor der Flieger, Commander of the Air Defend Division, Max Ibel, Generalmajor der Flieger, Kommandeur Luftregio Truppe 3, Ernst Weber, and the famous film maker Leni Riefenstahl. “Triumpf of the Will”, the film chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg.

  

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