Zickwolff, Friedrich Rudolf Hermann.

Zickwolff, Friedrich Rudolf Hermann, born 01-08-1893, the son of an engineer, in Bayreuth , entered the Army Service on 01-07-1908, as a Fahnenjunker in the 6^th  Württembergisches Infanterie-Regiment “König Wilhelm I” Nr. 124 . Zickwolff became  an Leutnant on 19-11-1909 in his Regiment and on 27-01-1915 promoted to Oberleutnant. He was in the fields of the first war as an Ordinance Officer with the 243^rd Infantry Division and became a Hauptmann on 18-04-1917. Transferred to the 53^rd Infantry Brigade in September 1918. He received both the Iron Crosses for bravery and the wounded badge in black , also other decorations. He remained in the new Reichswehr with the 26^th Württemberger Jäger Battalion. Promoted to Major on 01-04-1930 with the Staff of the Command Group 2 in Kassel and became an Oberstleutnant on 01-04-1934 and battalion commander of the 13^th  Infantry Regiment. He was assigned, in the growing Reichwehr, as commander of the Infantry Regiment in Ludwigsburg from 01-07-1935. Promoted to Oberst on 01-01-1936 and commander of the 119^th Infantry Regiment in Stuttgart until spring of 1939. With the mobilisation in 1939 he was assigned as commander of the new 227^th Infantry Regiment and took positions on the Western Front.  As a Generalmajor from 01-10-1939 and was the high commander of the German forces for the attack on the Grebbeberg defence line in Holland in Mai 1940, were 1500 Dutch soldiers died (see Jan Ackermans).  Zickwolff in civil clothes walked through the neutral Dutch defence line only several days before the attack. After the defeat of France he remained there with his regiment as an occupation force in the North of France and lost his command of the 227^th on 12-04-1941 and landed in the Führer Reserve. He took the command of the 113^th Infantry Division  succeeding Generalmajor Ernst Güntzel,  from 04-06-1941 and led this division in the Eastern Front battles in the South of Russia. Because an illness, appendicitis, he lost temporary his command from 08-09-1941 and was succeeded by Oberst Kurt Paape, commander of the 704^th Artillerie Regiment, who died age 58, on 06-05-1950 in Kassel. Promoted to Generalleutnant from 01-10-1941 and in Mai 1942 he lost the command of the 113^th Division and succeeded by Generalleutnant der Artillerie, Hans Heinrich Sixt von Arnim   as commander of the 95^th Infantry Division  and was awarded with the Knight Cross of the Iron Cross  on 02-06-1942 and he married a few days later. Von Arnim died age 61, on 01-04-1952 in Russian captivity. Zickwolff lost his command of the 95^th in the beginning of September 1942 to Generalleutnant der Infanterie, Friedrich Karst

and assigned as commander of the new 343^rd Infantry Division on the Troops Training Barracks in Grafenwöhr in Bretagne.

In October 2021, against the background of official commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of the Babi Yar Massacre, Zickwolff’s name appeared among the 161 names of the perpetrators of that crime, released by the Babi Year Holocaust Memorial Center. Troops under Zickwolff’s command participated in the massacre.

  Babi Yar is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and a site of massacres carried out by Nazi Germany’s forces during its campaign against the Soviet Union in World War II. The first and best documented of the massacres took place on 29–30 September 1941, killing some 33,771 Jews. Other victims of massacres at the site included Soviet prisoners of war, communists and Romani people. It is estimated that a total of between 100,000 and 150,000 people were murdered at Babi Yar during the German occupation.

In the aftermath of the war, several SS commanders who had planned and supervised the massacre were arrested and put on trial SS Standartenführer Paul Blobel, the overall commander of the SS unit responsible for the massacre, was sentenced to death by the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials in the Einsatzgruppen Trial. He was hanged on 07-06-1951, age 56, at Landsberg Prison.

Death and burial ground of Zickwolff, Friedrich Rudolf Hermann.

   On 25-08-1943 he was seriously wounded by a French partisans attack and gave his command to Generalmajor der Artillerie, Hermann Kruse  Kruse died, age 74, on 13-09-1962 in Ludwigsburg. Zickwolff didn’t recover from his wounds and died 17-09-1943, age 50 and was buried, with his wife Elisabeth, born Günther, who died age 57, on 23-07-1958, on the Neuer Cemetery of Ludwigsburg, not far from the grave of Oberstgruppenführer, Kommandeur der SS-Division “LSSAH”, Josef “Sepp” Dietrich, the SS General, a former butcher and favourite of Hitler and the grave of Oberst, Alfred Hermann, who died in Wolchow, Russia, age 45 on 04-08-1942.

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