Schmundt, Rudolf.

Schmundt, Rudolf, born 13-08-1896 in Metz, the son of the later Generaleutnantl Richard Schmundt On 03-10-1895 Rudolf married Hedwig Maria Schmundt, born Seyffardt (born 05-07-1873 in Krefeld, †  02-04-1962 in Hanover). His brother was the well-known social scientist and anthroposophist Wilhelm Schmundt,   his grandfather the Prussian senior building officer Gustav Alexander Schmundt (1823-1908). From the marriage the General of the infantry Rudolf Schmundt emerged. Richard Schmundt was buried in the Bornstedter Cemetery, When the father was transferred in June 1913 as the new commander of the Fusilier Regiment “Prinz Heinrich of Prussia ”  ( Brandenburg ) No 35 to Brandenburg an der Havel ( Kingdom of Prussia ), followed him the entire family, which since 1898 also the younger brother William counted. Schmundt visited the From Saldern secondary school in Brandenburg until the outbreak of the First World War. To be able to involve yourself as a volunteer, he passed the Notabitur and stepped on 04-08-1914 as a cadet in the regiment of his father’s age 18 as a Fahnenjunker. After a short training Schmundt came with his regiment on 30-09-1914, the Western Front.  A few months later he received on 22-03-1915, promoted to leutnant. During the ongoing fighting he was wounded  on 20-03-1915 and received for his services on that day the Iron Cross Second Class. After he had made as a military officer deserves, he received on 15-03-1916 post of battalion adjutant. As he proved himself also in the process he was awarded in November of the same year also the Iron Cross First Class. On 11-07-1917 he was transferred as adjutant to the commander in the regimental headquarters, where he remained until the end of the war. In these years Schmundt participated in many battles and skirmishes, the largest of which fall Battle of Champagne, the Battle of the Somme   and who were at the Marne. After the war he joined the Free Corps “von Hülsen”  which participated in the revolutionary  street fighting in Berlin, as against the Spartacist uprising  and the Kapp Putsch and from 01-10-1919 allowed in the new 100.000 men, Reichswehr as a Leutnant. The Kapp Putch also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch  was an attempted coup against the German national government in Berlin on 13-03-1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther Karl Friedrich Ernst Emil Freiherr von Lüttwitz[, its goal was to undo the German Revolution of 1918–1919, overthrow the Weimar Republic, and establish an autocratic government in its place. It was supported by parts of the Reichswehr, as well as nationalist and monarchist factions. Wolfgang Kapp’s trial against his co-conspirators in the putsch began in December 1921. After Dietrich von Jagow was sentenced to five years in prison, Kapp returned to Germany intending to claim his innocence and that the true criminals were those behind the German Revolution of 1918–1919. Before he could testify, a medical examination in the prison in Leipzig where he was being held found a tumor behind his right eye. He died of cancer shortly after the operation to remove it on 12-06-1922 (aged 63) in the Klinikum St. Georg, in  Leipzig. Dietrich Wilhelm Bernhard von Jagow (29-02-1892 – 26-04-1945) later was a German naval officer, politician, SA Obergruppenführer and diplomat.On 26-04-1945, age 53, Jagow committed suicide in the house of the German ambassador to the Italian Social Republic, Rudolf Rahn, shooting himself in the head. His suicide note stated that he did not want to live in a world controlled by Jews, which is what he believed would be the situation after Germany’s defeat. Rahn died, age 74, in Düsseldorf on 07-01-1975. Walther Karl Friedrich Ernst Emil Freiherr von Lüttwitz,  was married twice. In 1884 at Nimkau, he married Louise (1864–1918), daughter of the Austrian Hauptmann Viktor Graf von Wengersky and Eleonore Gräfin Haller von Hallerstein. In 1921 at Salzburg, he married Adelheid (1869–1956), daughter of Johann Freiherr Sardagna von Meanberg und Hohenstein and Irma von Dorner. With Louise, Lüttwitz had three daughters and a son. His son was General of the Panzer, Smilo Freiherr von Lüttwitz. His daughter Maria married Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord. Lüttwitz died on 20-09-1942, age 83, in Breslau.

Rudolf was among the few officers from the old army that were included in the new Reichswehr. Schmundt married on 14-10-1926 in Potsdam’s Garrison Church Anneliese von Kummer. From this marriage the children Barbara Wilhelma, 08-11-1927, Henning 15-08-1931, Gisela 01-06-1933 and Jurgen, born 18-08-1940 went out. Anneliese Schmundt later referred to the years 1926 to 1929 as ” the best years of my husband and our private life military life. ” From October 1932 he was transferred now a Rittmeister to the Reichswehrministry in Berlin. He served in the Army Organization Department under Wilhelm Keitel. With the Blomberg-Fritsch affaire he was assigned as the successor of Oberstleutnant Friedrich Hossbach as Chef Adjutant of the Army with the high command of the Wehrmacht. In the beginning of October 1942 he succeeded General Bodewin Keitel

  as Chief of the Army Personnel Department and promoted to Generalleutnant on 01-04-1943. Generalleutnant Rudolf Schmundt (center) and Knight’s Cross holder Oberst Oldwig Otto von Natzmer leutnant. Natzer survuived the war and died age 75, on 01-04-1980 in Dissen am Teutoburger Wald. Schmundt attained the rank of General of the Infantry on 01-09-1944, and was the Chief of the Personnel Department of the German Army.

    He was one of the casualties of the failed July 20 plot , planned to kill the German dictator Adolf Hitler (did you know). One of the conspirators

Death and burial ground of Schmundt, Rudolf.

Oberst der Kavallerie, Graf Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg

  , placed a bomb in a briefcase beside Hitler. Oberst Heinz Jürgen Brandt  moved it behind a heavy table leg and unwittingly saved Hitler’s life, but as a consequence lost his own. The attack missed its target, but several staff officers, including Schmundt, were seriously wounded and two other were killed. Heinrich Berger,

a civil stenographer was wounded the most bad of all. His friend and colleague, the second civilian stenographer, Heinz Buchholz pulled him from the table. He had lost both his legs, they couldn’t stop the bleeding and he died soon after. Generaloberst Günther Korten

  here on the right and  age 45, was the fourth who died of his wounds. Rudolf Schmundt lost his left eye and suffered burns and serious injuries caused by splinters on both legs. On July 25, Hitler visited his confidants in the hospital Carlshof at Rastenburg and promoted him to General of Infantry. In the coming days, Hitler asked repeatedly by Schmundt: ” It must be the best meet the hardest but always. Hopefully it creates the Schmundt that is me but the most indispensable of my aides and one of my favorite people. ”

 However, the end of September 1944 worsened the health Schmundt rapidly. He remained unconscious for hours and suffered long delirium.  Severely injured in the assassination attempt, Schmundt initially made a promising recovery, but ultimately died of complications resulting from his injuries on 01-10-1944 six months later. After Schmundt’s death, all current Generals and Field Marshals were summoned by Hitler to attend a funeral service at the Tannenberg Memorial, in east Prussia . As reported by Hauptmann Alexander Stahlberg , aide to Field Marshal

  Erich von Manstein in his book “Bounden Duty”, the group were entrained back to Berlin and General Schmundt, age 48, was buried, on Hitler’s orders, in the hero’s cemetery, the Invaliden Cemetery. Hitler did not attend either ceremonies and the graveside speech was hold by Generaloberst Heinz Guderian. There is a cenotaph in the family plot on the Bergfriedhof of Berchtesgaden, where his wife Anneliese, born von Kummer, who died age 96 in 1994 and his son Jürgen who died age 61 in 2001 are buried.  Alexander Stahlberg died old age 82, on 09-01-1995 in Schloss Bloemersheim. Hitler did not attend either ceremonies of. Schmundt was posthumously awarded the German Order on 07-10-1944. He was replaced as the Chief of the Personnel Department by General Wilhelm Burgdorf

 the Deputy Chief. Burgdorf on 01-05-1945, age 50, committed suicide by gunshot to the head. Soviet personnel found the bodies of Burgdorf in the bunker complex. Schmundt’s neighbours are Gestapo head, Reinhard Heydrich and Armament Minister, Fritz Todt, the Invaliden cemetery is a famous cemetery for military people. Only steps away the graves of the Generaloberst der Infanterie, Werner von Fritsch, General der Flieger, Chief of the Reichs Air Force Ministry, Carl August Gablenz, the Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau, Vice Admiral, Lothar von Arnauld de la Periere, Hauptmann of the Wehrmacht, Wolfgang Fürstner the Jewish commander of the Olympic village in 1936, also the one arm Generaloberst der Panzertruppe, Kommandeur der 16^th Panzerdivision , Hans Hube, and Oberst der Wehrmacht, Kommandeur des Militärwaisenhaus Potsdam. Resistance Group von Stauffenberg, General Wilhelm Staehle. The 20 July threaten at the Bendlerblock in Berlin was saved by Major Otto Ernst Remer 

commander of the Infantry Regiment Grossdeutschland who refused to arrest Joseph Goebbels after talking to Hitler in the Wolfschanze by phone.

On 14-10-1926 Schmundt married Anneliese von Kummer (1898–1994) in the Potsdam Garrison Church. The children Barbara Wilhelma (born 08-11-1927), Henning (born 15-08-1931; died 04-03-2015), Gisela (born 01-06-1933) and Jürgen (born 18-08 -1940; died 2001). Anneliese von Kummer was the daughter of Wilhelm Rudolf von Kummer (born 18-12-1863) and his wife Helene, born Reincke from Memel (1877–1956). Wilhelm von Kummer fell as a Oberstleutnant on 23-10-1914 near Schoore in front of Ypres during the First Battle of Flanders.

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