Waeger, Kurt.

Waeger, Kurt, born 06-02-1893 in Schöneberg, the son of a privy councilor. He joined the 2nd Pomeranian Field Artillery Regiment No. 17 in Bromberg as an Fahnrich on 03-04-1911 and was promoted to leutnant on 18-08-1912. This was followed by participation in the First World War and, after the end of the war, being accepted into the 100.000 men Reichswehr . You put him first in the 2nd (Prussian) Artillery Regiment ( Schwerin ) as a battery officer and regimental adjutant and promoted him on 01-02-1926 to Hauptmann. As such, he took over the 13th (mounted) battery of the3rd (Prussian) Artillery Regiment in Potsdam . At the end of 1933 he moved to the staff of the border section command in Opole and the following year to the staff of Infantry Leader VI (cover name for the 22nd Infantry Division ) in Bremen, where he was the first general staff officer (Ia). In the summer of 1937 he was appointed Oberstleutnant to chief of staff in Heereswaffenamt appointed, which he remained until the spring 1941st

After the French defeat, the French defenders of the city of Lille impressed German General Kurt Waeger so much with their tenacity, that he allowed them to march out and into captivity with full honors of war, with rifles shouldered and in parade formation while the German victors stood at attention. Waeger was later reprimanded for his gesture of chivalry. General Kurt Waeger granted the honors of war to the french troops after the siege of Lille, where 40 000 men with 50 tanks delayed by 4 days 7 German divisions (about 120,000 men) with 800 tanks which were attempting to destroy the Allies at Dunkirk. 01-06-1940

After the interim promotion to Oberst, he was then Chief of Staff of the newly formed LIII. Army corps under command of General de Infantry, Erich-Heinrich Clößner: with which he took part in the attack on the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa

  . In January 1942 he replaced Wilhelm Hasse as Chief of the General Staff of the 18th Army ( Army Group North ). Hasse died on 21-05-1945, age 50, of wounds sustained earlier that month. A little later, Waeger was promoted to Generalmajor. In November 1942 he succeeded General der Infantry Georg Thomas as head of the Armaments Office in the Reich Ministry for Armaments and Ammunition under Albert Speer appointed and at the same time “entrusted with the labor deployment of the forces deployed in the trial and test centers”. General Thomas Thomas died in Allied custody in 29-12-1946, age 56. In the course of his two years at this post he was promoted to General of the Artillery and was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords when he left in November 1944 . At the same time as Waeger, the previous head of the Central Office, Willy Liebel, the Lord Mayor of the City of Nuremberg, left the Ministry of Armaments, and the powers of the two heads of office were transferred to Theo Hupfauer the last Reich Labor Minister. Willy Liebel died on 20-04-1945, age 47, when he was shot in the head. Theo Hupfauer died age 87, on 31-08-1993 in München.

In December 1944 , Waeger was transferred to the OKH’s Führerreserve, and at the end of January 1945 Waeger was given a new position as the commanding general of the re-established V Army Corps . With this he took part in the association of the 4th Panzer Army in the final battles in the Lausitz and the Ore Mountains. He was released from captivity in 1948.

Death and burial ground of Waeger, Kurt.

From left Dr. Walter Schieber , Albert Speer, Karl-Otto Saur, General der Artillerie Dr.-Ing. h.c.Kurt Waeger. General Kurt Waeger survived the war and died age 59 on18-06-1952 in Winsen/Luhe. Waeger’s final resting place is in a row of war graves in the cemetery in Winsen (Luhe).