Franz von Roques

Franz von Roques
Birth name	Franz Hermann Ludwig Heinrich von Roques
Birth date	1 September 1877
Place of birth	Treysa, Kreis Ziegenhain, Regierungsbezirk Kassel, Province of Hesse-Nassau, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Death date	7 August 1967 (aged 89)
Place of death	Treysa, Hesse, West Germany
Allegiance	German Empire Weimar Republic National Socialist Germany
Service/branch	Prussian Army Imperial German Army Reichswehr Heer
Rank	General of the Infantry
Commands held	Nachrichten-Abteilung 6 Inspector of the Signal Corps Infantry Commander VI Division No. 177 General z. b. V. I Army Group North Rear Area
Battles/wars	World War I World War II Western Campaign Eastern Front
Awards	Iron Cross House Order of Hohenzollern War Merit Cross (1939) Spanish Cross of Military Merit German Cross in Silver
Relations	∞ 1904 Hildegard Schülke

Franz Hermann Ludwig Heinrich von Roques (1 September 1877 – 7 August 1967) was a German officer of the Prussian Army, the Imperial German Army, the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht, finally General of the Infantry and Commanding General of the Security Forces and Commander in Army Area North in World War II.

Military career (chronology)

Georg Lindemann (left), Franz von Roques (center) and Ulrich Grauert (right)

1928 obituary

• February 1896 Abitur at the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Kassel
• 28 February 1896 Joined the 1. Kurhessisches Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 81 in Frankfurt am Main
  • 25 January 1913 renamed Infanterie-Regiment "Landgraf Friedrich I. von Hessen-Cassel" (1. Kurhessisches) Nr. 81
• Attended War School (Kriegsschule)
• 20 July 1897 Commissioned in the 7th Company/1. Kurhessisches Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 81
• Rank List 1902 12th Company/1. Kurhessisches Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 81
• Rank List 1903 1st Company/1. Kurhessisches Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 81
• Rank List 1904 Adjutant of the II. Battalion/1. Kurhessisches Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 81
  • 1905 Successfully passed military interpreter exam in French
• 1 October 1906 to Spring 1909 Commanded to the Royal Prussian War Academy
• Rank List 1909 Regimental adjutant
• Spring 1911 Commanded to the Great General Staff in Berlin
• 18 February 1913 Officially transferred to the Great General Staff in Berlin
  • Kaiser maneuvers in Silesia in 1913
• Spring 1914 Commanded to the General Staff of the XVIII Army Corps in Frankfurt am Main
• 1914 to 1918 After the outbreak of the First World War, Captain von Roques was deployed as a general staff officer in a division and an army corps on the Western Front. The commander of the 113th Infantry Division and the commanding general of the Bavarian III Army Corps recommended von Roques for higher positions. From mid-1915, he commanded a battalion, with which he fought at Verdun and on the Somme. This was followed by assignments as quartermaster in the I Army Corps and as Chief of Operations (Ia) in the 239th Infantry Division. After completing the Sedan Course for General Staff Officers, he was assigned as a staff officer in the X Army Corps from 1917 onwards. At Christmas 1917, he was briefly assigned to the staff of the Carpathian Corps in Bukovina. He experienced the end of the war during trench warfare with his corps in Alsace. His war diary, located in the Federal Archives in Freiburg, records his experiences during the war. He recounts assaults, gas warfare, and his thoughts as a staff officer. He also collected numerous documents from his service. Personal letters to his wife from the war have also been preserved.
• End of 1918 until demobilization and dissolution again with the Infanterie-Regiment "Landgraf Friedrich I. von Hessen-Cassel" (1. Kurhessisches) Nr. 81
• April 1919 Liaison officer to the French occupation troops on the left bank of the Rhine
• October 1919 Commander of the Nachrichten-Abteilung 10 (Vorläufige Reichswehr)
  • the Signals Battalion 10 was subordinated to the Reichswehr-Brigade 10 in Hannover
• 1 October 1920 Commander of the Nachrichten-Abteilung 6 in Hanover
  • The battalion was placed under the Reichswehr's 6th Division with the establishment of the 1945 Reichswehr. The battalion also included the Hanover Listening Post and the Münster Listening Post.
  • 23 March 1921 the Signals Battalion 6 was renamed 6. (Preußische) Nachrichten-Abteilung; succeeded by Lieutenant Colonel, later Colonel Waldemar Adelbert Mauck (1877–1946)
• 1 October 1923 Chief of Staff of the Inspection of the Signal Corps (In 7) in the Reichswehr Ministry (RWM) in Berlin
• 1 April 1929 Appointed Inspector of the Signal Corps (In 7) in the Reichswehr Ministry (RWM) in Berlin
• 1 February 1931 Appointed Infantry Commander VI in Hanover succeeding Hans Schmidt
• 30 September 1933 Retired (succeeded by Erwin von Witzleben)
• July 1938 to October 1938 reactivated at General Command IX
• September 1939 Reactivated for the second time and appointed Commander of the XVII Replacement Troops in Vienna (Military District XVII)
  • Following the renaming of the staff, he was appointed commander of the 1./XVII Reserve Troops on 15 October 1939. Following the further renaming of the staff, he was appointed commander of the 177th Division on 4 November 1939. In mid-December 1939, following the further renaming of the staff, he was appointed commander of Division No. 177.
    • Division No. 177 was responsible for training the replacement troops of the XVII Army Corps. Von Roques was apparently dissatisfied as commander of a training unit and, as he wrote to his wife, would have preferred to become a front-line commander.
• 25 May 1940 (another source states 1 June 1940) Appointed General for Special Assignment (z. b. V.) I of a staff for the formation of new divisions in Nuremberg. At the beginning of the Western Campaign, his staff was first ordered to Belgium and later to the front in France. Only after the armistice was he briefly given command of the "Green Line," which divided the occupied from the unoccupied part of France.
• 15 August 1940 Appointed General for the training of the Landesschützen Battalions deployed in France, with his office at the Hotel Claridge on the Champs-Élysées.
• 16 March 1941 Appointed Commander of the Rear Army Area 101
  • As such, he led his units into action behind Army Group North at the beginning of the Eastern Campaign. At the beginning of July 1941, his staff was renamed again and he was appointed Commander of the Army Group North Rear Area (Befehlshaber rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Nord). He presented Spanish General Agustín Muñoz Grandes with the Iron Cross, 2nd Class in September 1941. On 15 March 1942, the staff was renamed Commanding General of the Security Troops and Commander in Army Area North (Kommandierender General der Sicherungstruppen und Befehlshaber im Heeresgebiet Nord), mainly in the area of the Reichskommissariat Ostland.
    • From 11 October 1941, von Roques assumed command of a combat group composed of the 126th Infantry Division and the Spanish Blue Division on the Volkhov Front in the area of ​​the 16th Army for a month. The unit was involved in heavy fighting around the city of Tikhvin. Von Roques wrote of this period in 1951: "Even if my activity on the Volkhov was only an interlude, it nevertheless represented the climax of my military life in that I was privileged to lead a large unit in the face of the enemy." On 27 October 1942, Franco awarded Franz von Roques the Grand Cross of the Spanish Military Order of Merit for his service with the Spanish Division. He was also awarded the Repetition Clasps to the Iron Cross, Second and First Class, for this mission.

In the winter of 1941/42, famine struck the civilian population in the cities of Army Area North, as well as throughout the occupied part of the Soviet Union. In the Old Russian part of the Army Area, von Roques opened public kitchens and introduced a ration card system in April. Due to the low prices set, a black market developed, with liquor and cigarettes as currency. In May 1942, von Roques demanded that Army Group North impose a ban on supply trips by soldiers to Estonia, part of his Army Area. Soldiers continued to participate in black market transactions later on. With Administrative Order No. 5, von Roques ordered that all open spaces in cities be used for growing food. In Army Area North, there was relatively good cooperation with the Economic Inspectorate North, which was responsible for economic utilization. Both agencies conflicted over responsibilities with the civil administration in the General Commissariat of Estonia.

The partisans concentrated on destabilizing the German occupation administration and attacking supply lines. The partisans killed collaborating residents, especially mayors and their families, because the local law enforcement forces in the villages were poorly armed. There was also looting and destruction of businesses. Roads, railway lines, and bridges were attacked at military targets. The partisans generally shied away from direct attacks on German soldiers. Von Roques recommended this approach to other units. In a corps order, he clarified once again that the field commands were responsible for combating the partisans and securing the railways, and that this responsibility had to be enforced against other units, as competency issues had arisen. On 27 July 1941, he ordered: "These gangs must be hunted down as a hunter hunts game."

Unlike the army group, on 6 August 1941, he refrained from taking harsher measures against the civilian population. Subsequently, various large-scale operations against partisans were carried out. These large-scale operations were largely unsuccessful, as the partisans simply evaded the German units. Following increasing incidents of sabotage and attacks, von Roques issued a daily order on 14 September 1941, Combating the Russian Partisans: "Since we are only at the beginning of fighting partisans, it is not yet possible to establish generally applicable rules of engagement due to a lack of sufficient experience."

On 7 October 1941, von Roques drew his conclusions from the progress of the fight against partisans to date in a new order. Large-scale operations were to be avoided in the future. At the same time, the security divisions were to be divided into smaller units in order to control the towns and villages across the board. He ordered a ban on civilian traffic on the streets. Identity cards were to be discontinued, as they had been misused by partisans. He called for intensified propaganda among the population. He demanded that the population be treated well and that decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis. Partisans who provided important information during interrogation were not to be shot. Partisans who surrendered and hadn't actively fought were even to be released. Defectors were to be assigned permanent residence and monitored by the mayor. He hoped that word of such actions would spread and thus lead to further defections. Collective measures were to be carried out only in exceptional cases, as they "drive the peasants into the arms of the partisans."

He instructed his troops to create a network of trusted contacts among the population and to forward reports of partisans to the Army Territorial Command. He warned the troops not to shoot terrorists immediately, as required by international war law, but to arrest and interrogate them to obtain information about the partisans' organization. Von Roques assumed that the partisans were organized into militarily organized combat groups of 10 to 50 men, who always murdered from ambush: soldiers as well as civilians. He ordered his troops to adopt an offensive approach (Bandenbekämpfung): "The basic principle of combat must be that we trouble the partisans, not they trouble us."

On 1 April 1943, he, like several other senior officers from division commander upwards on the Eastern Front, was transferred to the Führer Reserve, he was succeeded by General Kuno Hans von Both. As part of the "Winterfestigkeit" (Winter Strength) campaign, the Army Personnel Office (HPA) transferred those generals "who were deemed no longer able to cope with the demanding requirements of the Russian winter" to the Führer Reserve. For his services in the rear army area, he was awarded the German Cross in Silver. He also received a personal letter of thanks from Hitler. In the letter, Hitler cited von Roques's contribution to securing the front on the Volkhov River in the winter of 1941/42. He retired from the Wehrmacht on 31 July 1943. After experiencing heavy bombing raids on Frankfurt am Main, he and his wife returned to his hometown of Treysa.

Post-WWII

Von Roques was not interned after the end of the war, but in the autumn of 1946, he was interrogated six times in Nuremberg regarding his service as Commander of the Rear Army Area of ​​Army Group North. While his cousin Karl von Roques, who was also interrogated for his service as Commander of a Rear Army Area, was arrested, Franz von Roques remained unmolested. At the OKW Trial, one of the twelve Nuremberg follow-up trials, General Karl Jerome Christian Georg Kurt von Roques was indicted on 5 February 1948, as one of twelve generals. Franz von Roques submitted only an affidavit for the trial and was not required to testify as a witness. On 28 October 1948, Karl was sentenced to twenty years in prison. His cousin Franz, supported by the two major churches, subsequently campaigned in vain for a clemency appeal until Karl's death in December 1949.

In 1951, Franz von Roques wrote a 117-page military history treatise entitled "Commander in the Rear Army Area North." In the same year, he donated his estate to the Hessian State Archives in Marburg. This estate was transferred to the Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv), Military Archives Department, in Freiburg in 1966. It contains, among other things, his essay, his personal war diary from 1914 to 1919, and personal papers from his military service. Franz von Roques' personnel file, however, has been lost.

Family

Franz was the son of medical council (Sanitätsrat) and general practitioner Dr. med. Christian Philipp Heinrich von Roques (1837–1909) and his wife Hermine Charlotte Emilie, née Bömers (1853–1921). He had two younger siblings:

• Anna Marie Caroline (b. 6 November 1879 in Treysa); ∞ Treysa 23 May 1907 Pastor Johannes Heinrich Alexander Vial (1874–1942) from Marburg, from 1924 Metropolitan of the parish class Wilhelmshöhe
• Otto Hermann Theodor (1881–1936), officer, veteran of WWI, finally Major and Knight of Honour (Ehrenritter) of the Johanniter-Orden; ∞ Berlin 22 August 1919 Irma Valerie Amalie Julie Hempfing (b. 16 November 1886 in Bromberg)

Marriage

On 29 September 1904 in Jena, 2nd Lieutenant von Roques married his fiancée, engineer's daughter Hildegard Julie Hermine Auguste Marie Schülke (b. 28 September 1883 in Berlin). They would have two children:

• Hertha Elsi Hermine Anna (b. 31 July 1906 in Frankfurt am Main)
• Friedrich Karl Christian Julius (b. 8 February 1914 in Berlin), medical doctor, Dr. med. on 4 April 1941 in Berlin, medical officer of the Wehrmacht (Oberarzt, equivalent to a 1st Lieutenant, later Stabsarzt or military staff physician, equivalent to a Captain) and the Bundeswehr; ∞ Kassel 11 September 1940 Lieselotte Martin

Promotions

• 28 February 1896 Fahnenjunker (Officer Candidate)
  • Fahnenjunker-Unteroffizier (Officer Candidate with Corporal/NCO/Junior Sergeant rank)
• 12 September 1896 Portepee-Fähnrich (Officer Cadet)
• 20 July 1897 Sekondeleutnant (2nd Lieutenant)
• 15 June 1907 Oberleutnant (1st Lieutenant)
• 18 February 1913 Hauptmann (Captain)
• 18 August 1917 Major
• 5 February 1923 Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) with Rank Seniority (RDA) from 1 February 1923 (4)
• 1 January 1928 Oberst (Colonel)
• 1 February 1931 Generalmajor (Major General)
• 4 February 1933 Generalleutnant (Lieutenant General) with effect and RDA from 1 February 1933
  • later (probably on 1 April 1933) received new RDA from 1 January 1933
• 1 July 1941 General der Infanterie z. V. (General of the Infantry at disposal)

Awards and decorations

• Prussian Centenary Medal 1897 (Zentenarmedaille)
• Iron Cross (1914), 2nd and 1st Class
• Hessian Bravery Medal (Hessische Tapferkeitsmedaille; HT)
• War Merit Cross (Brunswick), 2nd Class (BrK2)
• Bavarian Military Merit Order, 4th Class with Swords (BMV4⚔/BM4⚔)
• House Order of Hohenzollern, Knight's Cross with Swords (HOH3⚔)
• Prussian Long Service Cross for 25 years (Königlich Preußisches Dienstauszeichnungskreuz; DA/PDK)
• Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918 with Swords
• War Merit Cross (1939), 2nd and 1st Class with Swords
• Winter Battle in the East 1941–42 Medal
• Repetition Clasp 1939 to the Iron Cross 1914, 2nd and 1st Class
• Spanish Cross of Military Merit, Grand Cross with White Decoration (con distintivo blanco) on 27 October 1942
• German Cross in Silver on 30 April 1943 as General der Infanterie z. V. and Commanding General of the Security Forces and Commander in Army Area North

Writings

• Stammliste der Offiziere des 1. Kurhessischen Infanterie-Regiments Nr. 81 seit 1866, Frankfurt am Main 1904
• Befehlshaber im rückwärtigen Heeresgebiet Nord, 1951