Hans Röttiger

Hans Röttiger
Generalmajor Hans Röttiger
Inspector of the Army
In office 21 September 1957 – 15 April 1960
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Alfred Zerbel
Born	16 April 1896(1896-04-16) Hamburg, German Empire
Died	15 April 1960 (aged 63) Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany
Resting place	Cemetery Ohlsdorf in Hamburg
Military service
Allegiance	German Empire Weimar Republic National Socialist Germany
Service/branch	Imperial German Army Reichswehr Heer Bundeswehr
Years of service	1914–1945 1956–1960
Rank	General der Panzertruppe (Wehrmacht) Generalleutnant (Bundeswehr)
Commands	XXXXI. Armeekorps (General Staff Chief) 4. Panzerarmee (General Staff Chief) 4. Armee (General Staff Chief) Army Group A (General Staff Chief) Army Group C (General Staff Chief)
Battles/wars	World War I World War II
Awards	Iron Cross German Cross in Gold

Hans Wilhelm Ludwig Arnold Röttiger (16 April 1896 – 15 April 1960) was a German officer of the Imperial German Army, the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht, finally General der Panzertruppe in World War II as well as Lieutenant General (three-star general) and Inspector of the Army of the Bundeswehr until his death.

Life

Hans Röttiger, born in Hamburg in 1896, was the son of a director and joined the Lauenburg Foot Artillery Regiment No. 45 (Lauenburgisches Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 45) as an officer cadet on 15 September 1914. He was only able to complete his Abitur, which was interrupted for this purpose, three years later while on leave from the front and was therefore only able to achieve the prerequisites for becoming an officer somewhat belatedly. In 1914, after being promoted to Fahnenjunker-Unteroffizier, he transferred to the Lauenburg Foot Artillery Regiment No. 20 (Lauenburgisches Fußartillerie-Regiment Nr. 20) and took part in the Battle of Lemberg on the Eastern Front. Later, he was deployed in Verdun, on the Somme and in various Battles of Ypres in Belgium as battalion adjutant. For his service as a front-line officer, Röttiger was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross.

The First World War ended for him when he served as an orderly officer in the high command of the “German Crown Prince” Army Group. He then had the opportunity to be one of a few troop officers in the small Reichswehr. Here he initially served in the Reichswehr Artillery Regiment 9, later in the Artillery Regiment No. 4, then on the staff of Reichswehr Brigade IV and as battalion adjutant. The change between staff and troop assignments was continuous for Hans Röttiger and he also received his promotions with the consistency appropriate for Reichswehr conditions, becoming First Lieutenant in 1925 and Captain in 1930. A previous request to adjust the length of service of his lieutenant's commission at the beginning of the 1920s had enabled him to improve his financial situation, so that he was able to apply for marriage in 1923. It wasn't until he was 34, in 1930, that he was able to take part in the Führer's assistant course (Führergehilfenlehrgang), a disguised general staff course run by the Reichswehr. This enabled him to make his way to the General Staff and the subsequent significant opportunities for advancement. In addition to this new career perspective, the transition period from the Reichswehr to the Wehrmacht offered Röttiger a field of activity that would shape him for the rest of his military career, namely the conception and use of the Panzer weapon. When the first three tank divisions were set up in the Wehrmacht, Röttiger was in a leading position in the responsible planning staff in the army command.

On the one hand, he benefited from the large increase in the army in the 1930s and the associated mechanization and, on the other hand, from the principle of merit-based promotion, which replaced the previous principle of promotion based on seniority. Röttiger served as a consultant in the technical department of the General Staff under Walter Model. There he dealt with a wide range of technical questions in the areas of armaments, equipment, repairs and logistics. Although he was able to gain a lot of expertise about the fast troops, he subsequently became Chief of Operations of an infantry division, Ia in the 17. Division (Nürnberg), which did not appeal to him at all, but was associated with specific missions such as the Anschluss of Austria and the liberation of the Sudetenland in 1938.

With his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, he became, as his chief of staff, one of the closest subordinates of General Heinz Guderian, who, like no other, dealt with the organization and operational principles of the still very young branch of the Panzer Troops. Hans Röttiger was tasked with drawing up regulations and with the technical and tactical training of the army in the area of ​​motorization and mobilization for a possible start of war. After the Polish campaign as Ia of the VI. Armeekorps in 1939, Röttiger was initially deployed as Chief of the General Staff of the XXXXI. Armeekorps on the West Wall, before he crossed the Meuse in the Western Campaign in 1940 under General Georg-Hans Reinhardt and broke through to the English Channel. In the subsequent Balkan Campaign and from 22 June 1941 against the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), Röttiger, who had now been promoted to Colonel, was able to bring his conceptual knowledge of tank troops into the operational management of army corps and armies.

He advanced with the armored troops of Army Group Center and experienced the encirclement battle of Vyazma and Bryansk before the offensive came to a halt near Moscow in October 1941. Hans Röttiger was promoted to Major General in 1942. Until the beginning of 1944, Röttiger remained in several general staff assignments on the Eastern Front, but moved to Army Group South and was transferred to the leadership reserve when Erich von Manstein's and Ewald von Kleist's staffs were disbanded. In his last assignment, he was Chief of the General Staff of Army Group C in Italy under Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring. In this role, he was promoted to General der Panzertruppe in January 1945. It was here that Röttiger also experienced the end of the war, which was to become a key event for him in his understanding of his career as an officer. At the end of April 1945, Generaloberst Heinrich von Vietinghoff represented the Commander-in-Chief of Army Group C, Field Marshal Kesselring, and in this role established contact with the Western Allies in order to achieve the surrender of German troops in the southwestern theater of war. When Kesselring found out about this, he had von Vietinghoff and his Chief of Staff Röttiger arrested and placed under arrest. Röttiger and his superior von Vietinghoff were finally released when the surrender came into force on 2 May 1945, but the events surrounding these surrender negotiations were to trigger a heated debate between the officers involved in the post-war period.

He was a British prisoner of war until the end of 1947. In 1947, he was a witness for the defense in the trial of Generalfeldmarschall Kesselring in Venice, in 1948, he was a witness for the defense in the so-called “OKW trial” (30 December 1947 to 28 October 1948) against Generaloberst Reinhardt in Nuremberg. As a commercial employee, he built a solid existence, first in Frankfurt and later in Hamburg. He initially worked as an insurance representative and later as managing director of an import and export company. In 1954, he moved to Barmbek.

In 1949, he wrote an affidavit for the appeal hearing in the matter of SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS (ret.) Karl Wolff before the Hamburg-Bergedorf district court. From 5 to 9 October 1950, he was a participant in the conference in the monastery Himmerod for the elaboration of the then named memorandum, a policy paper for German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer on questions of German rearmament.

Bundeswehr

• 21 September 1956/1 October 1956 Head of Army Department/Federal Ministry of Defense
  • Six months later, German Federal President Theodor Heuss officially confirmed him in office.
• 1 June 1957 to 15 April 1960 First Inspector of the Army (Inspekteur des Heeres) of the Bundeswehr
  • Especially during this formation phase of the army, Röttiger impressed with his technical expertise and his ethical judgment. He spoke out against a nuclear buildup of the armed forces because he wanted to avoid individual commanders having to give orders for nuclear mass destruction. Furthermore, Germany should not become a nuclear battlefield for both parties to the conflict. Furthermore, Röttiger established the brigade as a core element of the army and thus achieved a standard throughout Europe in simple and mobile combat with tanks and armored infantry. As early as 1959, NATO recommended that its member states adopt the German model of brigade structure, which has become the pattern of most NATO formations to this day. However, Hans Röttiger was no longer able to witness the army being divided into 12 divisions.

Death

General Röttiger was diagnosed with cancer in the late 1950s and spent his last years undergoing treatment. In the morning of 15 April 1960 he died in office, one day before his 64th birthday. He was buried in Hamburg (Friedhof Ohlsdorf) at the family grave site.

Family

Hans was born the son of Major of the Reserves Professor Dr. phil. Carl Wilhelm Heinrich Gustav Adolph Röttiger (b. 20 September 1858 in Stade; d. 13 July 1928 in Hamburg), director (Gymnasialdirektor) of the higher secondary school (Oberrealschule) in Eppendorf, and his wife Anna, née Boyer. On 27 July 1923, 2nd Lieutenant Röttiger married his fiancée Ilse Boldt. Their daughter was born in 1924.

Promotions

• 15.9.1914: Fahnenjunker (Officer Candidate)
• November 1914: Fahnenjunker-Unteroffizier
• 30.9.1915 Leutnant (2nd Lieutenant) without Patent
  • 22.3.1916 received Patent
  • 1.7.1922 received new Rank Seniority (RDA) from 1.10.1915
• 31.7.1925 Oberleutnant (1st Lieutenant) with RDA from 1.4.1925
• 1.10.1931 Hauptmann (Captain)
• 1.1.1936 Major i. G.
• 1.2.1939 Oberstleutnant i. G. (Lieutenant Colonel in General Staff)
• 1.1.1941 Oberst i. G. (Colonel in General Staff)
  • 26.7.1941 received new Rank Seniority (RDA) from 1.10.1940
• 1.2.1942 Generalmajor without RDA
  • 1.9.1942 received Rank Seniority (RDA)
• 1.9.1943 Generalleutnant (Lieutenant General)
• 30.1.1945 General der Panzertruppe

Awards, decorations and honours

• Iron Cross (1914), 2nd and 1st Class
• Hanseatic Cross of Hamburg
• Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918 with Swords
• Wehrmacht Long Service Award (Wehrmacht-Dienstauszeichnung), 4th to 1st Class
• Anschluss Medal
• Sudetenland Medal
• Repetition Clasp 1939 to the Iron Cross 1914, 2nd and 1st Class
  • 2nd Class on 18 May 1940
  • 1st Class on 22 May 1940
• Winter Battle in the East 1941–42 Medal on 7 August 1942
• German Cross in Gold on 26 January 1942 as Oberst im Generalstab and Chief of the General-Staff of the XXXXI. Armeekorps (motorized)

Honours

• On 14 September 1962, a barracks of the Bundeswehr (built for the Wehrmacht in 1938) in the south of Hamburg (Hamburg-Neugraben-Fischbek) was named in his honour (Röttiger-Kaserne; closed 2005).