Heinrich Hogrebe

Heinrich Hogrebe
Nickname	Heinz
Birth date	22 June 1913(1913-06-22)
Place of birth	Bochum, Province of Westphalia, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Death date	25 June 1998 (aged 85)
Place of death	Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Allegiance	National Socialist Germany West Germany
Service/branch	Reichswehr Heer Bundeswehr
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant Colonel of the Reserves
Battles/wars	World War II Operation Barbarossa Siege of Leningrad Battle of Berlin
Awards	Iron Cross German Cross in Gold Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves
Other work	Forester, author, North Rhine-Westphalia state representative (Landesbeauftragter) of the Reservist Association of Deutsche Bundeswehr (VdRBw)

Heinrich "Heinz" Hogrebe (22 June 1913 – 25 June 1998) was a German officer of the Wehrmacht and of the Bundeswehr as well as an accomplished and recognized forester and author.

Life

Hogrebe with two of his three sons

Hogrebe with Joseph Goebbels

After graduating from Gymnasium with Abitur, he began training as a district forester, but also completed a year and a half course of study with Franz Heske in Tharandt, including a final examination for colonial forestry. On 1 October 1934, knowing that compulsory military service was soon to come into law, Hogrebe joined the 3rd (Jäger) Battalion in Goslar (a part of the Reichswehr Infanterie-Regiment Braunschweig) as a 12-month-volunteer. Afterwards, he succesfully took the district forester examination in Spangenberg and continued with his forestry profession. As a NCO of the reserves, he also participated in military exercises, finally in the summer of 1939 at the Döberitz Army School west of Berlin in Brandenburg.

WWII

After officer training and being promoted to 2nd Lieutenant in August 1940, he was transferred to the Infantry Regiment 422 in October 1940. With this he fought at the Eastern Front from June 1941. On 22 June 1941, he was appointed commander of the 5th Company and was elevated to active officer on 1 April 1942. For his services as a company commander he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 17 August 1942. Previously, on 7 August 1942, he had been appointed commander of the 2nd Battalion. Since he also fulfilled this leadership role excellently, he was awarded the Oak Leaves by Adolf Hitler as a major in April 1944. He also received the army's Honour Roll Clasp and, as one of only 631 Wehrmacht soldiers, the golden Close Combat Clasp.

Since Hogrebe was seriously wounded in March 1944, he transferred to Berlin after his recovery. After he was given leadership of the Guard Battalion “Greater Germany” (Wach-Bataillon „Großdeutschland“) on 1 September 1944. The battalion was expanded into a regiment on 1 October 1944 and Hogrebe became its first commander. With the rank of lieutenant colonel, he and his regiment took part in the Battle of Berlin. Numerous sources state that Knight's Cross holder Ernst-Günter Lehnhoff led the remnants of the regiment during the last days of the Battle of Berlin, possibly by replacing the commander Hogrebe, who was again seriously wounded. The Field Guard Regiment fought on the Oder in the Küstrin area until the end of April 1945; it was subordinate to Major General Heinrich Voigtsberger's “Berlin” Infantry Division (9th Army).

From the Oder front, parts of the Wach-Regiment „Großdeutschland“ reached Berlin and were collected in two battalions by the Führer-Grenadier-Division and supplemented and re-equipped with personnel from the Luftwaffe, Flakhelfer, etc. The groups were then deployed, mainly in company strength, alongside units of the Volkssturm (“corset rods”) to provide unifying and motivating reinforcement. An independent line was set up in the area of ​​the Schönhauser Allee, Prenzlauer Allee and Zentralviehhof S-Bahn stations (today Storkower Straße S-Bahn station) and was largely maintained until the end.

A company of 76 men under 2nd Lieutenant Thater was deployed between the Shell House (Tiergarten) and the Tourist House to secure the Bendler Block. The Shell House (OKM) was on the north bank of the Landwehr Canal on Stauffenbergstrasse (until 1955 Bendlerstrasse) opposite the Bendlerblock (OKH). The House of Tourism (an already realized part of the Germania project) was to the east of it on the Potsdam Bridge. The Neue Nationalgalerie essentially stands on it today.

The staff company under Captain Hoss moved from Moabit to Lietzensee on 23 April 1945. In another corset rod tactic of the Wach-Regiment in Friedrichshain, Unteroffizier (NCO), Alois Albert Frankl (1920–1987) took out seven T-34s on 26 April 1945 and was one of the last to receive the Knight's Cross directly from Adolf Hitler.

When Berlin was lost on 2 May 1945, shortly after midnight, the survivors dared to make a fighting breakout to the north via Schönhauser Allee with the last armored vehicles or tanks. Five of the vehicles with around 70 to 80 men made it to Oranienburg northwest of Berlin to the still intact German main battle line. Immediately afterwards, the five vehicles were blown up due to a lack of fuel. The survivors then made it to the Elbe or Holstein in four groups. The men of the former alarm unit surrendered on 7 May 1945 due to a lack of ammunition and were taken prisoner of war.

Knight's Cross

Following the closure of the pocket around the Soviet 2nd Shock Army at the end of May 1942, fierce attempts at relief were launched. Among the German units in the path of these attacks was the reinforced Infanterie-Regiment 422, which fought in four weeks of bitter defensive battles. In this time, the regiment managed to repel 97 Soviet relief attempts, 29 of which were supported by numerous tanks and all of which were preceded by heavy artillery barrages. Among the most hard-fighting defending units was the 5th Company/Infanterie-Regiment 422, commanded by 1st Lieutenant Hogrebe. At a critical moment in the fighting, he stormed forward with his exhausted troops without waiting for orders. After a bitter battle he managed to destroy an enemy force that had broken-into the German frontline, close the gap and recapture the old defensive positions. Hogrebe would receive the Knight’s Cross for this and his company's overall distinguished performance in this battle.

The oak leaves were awarded for the outstanding achievements of his battalion during the defensive battles around Leningrad in January 1944, specifically around the village of Krasnoje Sselo.

Post-WWII

After the war, Hogrebe pursued a career in the senior forestry service. After working as a district forester in East Westphalia, he moved to Wuppertal, where from 1951 he headed the state Burgholz district near Küllenhahn of the Düsseldorf-Benrath Forestry Office (later the Mettmann Forestry Office). Although Hogrebe left active military service after the end of the war with serious wounds, he served as a Lieutenant Colonel of the Reserves in the Bundeswehr.

Hogrebe also worked as a consultant outside the state forestry administration. In total, he grew foreign tree species on more than 140 hectares in the Burgholz state forest and other locations in the Federal Republic of Germany and Austria. In doing so, he created an important fund for dendrological and silvicultural studies. Heinrich Hogrebe mostly published his findings in the yearbooks of the German Dendrological Society and in forestry journals.

The experimental area he founded was officially recognized as such by the state forestry administration in the early 1970s and later developed into an arboretum, which also met with great interest outside of dendrological and forestry specialists and acquired high tourist value.

He himself recommended his successor as Burgholz district manager, forestry officer Dr. rer. nat. habil Herbert Dautzenberg (1937–2021), who took office on 1 May 1973. Until his early retirement in 1975, Hogrebe was seconded to the State Institute for Ecology, Landscape Development and Forest Planning of North Rhine-Westphalia (LÖLF).

Family

Heinrich Hogrebe came from a respected family. His father, director of the school supervision service, came from a forestry house and was a passionate hunter. He also passed this passion on to the young Heinrich and his two brothers, one of whom also became a forestry officer within the North Rhine-Westphalia state forestry administration. Heinrich Hogrebe was married and had three sons and two daughters.

Promotions

• 1 August 1940 Leutnant der Reserve (2nd Lieutenant of the Reserves)
• 1941 Oberleutnant der Reserve (1st Lieutenant of the Reserves)
• 1 April 1942 Hauptmann (active Captain)
• 1944 Major
• 1945 Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel)

Awards, decorations and honours

• Iron Cross (1939), 2nd and 1st Class
  • 2nd Class on 25 June 1941
  • 1st Class on 22 August 1941
• Winter Battle in the East 1941–42 Medal on 2 August 1942
• Infantry Assault Badge (Infanterie-Sturmabzeichen) in Silver
• Wound Badge in Black and Silver
• Close Combat Clasp in Bronze and Silver
  • Silver in 1944
• Honour Roll Clasp of the Army (Ehrenblattspange des Heeres)
• German Cross in Gold on 14 April 1942 as 2nd Lieutenant of the Reserves and Platoon Leader in the 1st Company/Infanterie-Regiment 422
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves
  • Knight's Cross on 17 August 1942 as 1st Lieutenant of the Reserves and Commander of the 5th Company/Infanterie-Regiment 422/126. Infanterie-Division/II. Armeekorps/16. Armee/Heeresgruppe Nord
  • 454th Oak Leaves on 13 April 1944 as Captain of the Reserves and Commander of II. Battalion/Grenadier-Regiment 422/126.Infanterie-Division/L. Armee-Korps/18. Armee/Heeresgruppe Nord
• Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Cross of Merit on Ribbon on 25 March 1977

Honours

• 1988: Honorary member of the German Dendrological Society, for his dendrological pioneering work in the Burgholz State Forest
• 2002: Memorial stone in Burgholz, on the road that leads to the arboretum
  • At the beginning of June 2002, a memorial stone was inaugurated in Burgholz for the forester and former district manager in the Burgholz state forest, Heinrich Hogrebe, by the chairman of the Küllenhahner citizens' association and later mayor Peter Jung. Present were Hogrebe's relatives and his successor (since 1 May 1973), forestry officer Herbert Dautzenberg, who recalled that Hogrebe, as the "father of the arboretum", had created a "mecca for scientists, forest experts and forest lovers". The memorial stone was donated by the Küllenhahn Citizens' Association.

Gallery

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Writings (excerpt)

• Fremdländische Baumarten in der staatlichen Revierförsterei Burgholz, Düsseldorf/Wuppertal 1966
• Eigenschaften und Wachstum der kalifornischen Flußzeder (Calocedrus decurrens) im natürlichen Areal und auf Anbauflächen, in: "Mitteilungen der Deutschen Dendrologischen Gesellschaft", Nr. 64, 1972, pp. 32-40
• Mammutbäume auf dem Weg zu 110 m Höhe? Eine Zwischenbilanz der Anbauversuche in Wuppertal-Burgholz
• Nothofagus-Anbauten im Burgholz bei Wuppertal
• Boden und Vegetation im Raum der Iguazu-Wasserfälle am Dreiländereck Brasilien, Argentinien, Paraguay
• Ist Cryptomeria japonica in Mitteleuropa anbauwürdig? in: "Mitteilungen der Deutschen Dendrologischen Gesellschaft", Nr. 67, 1974, pp. 73-83
• Ökologische und waldbauliche Erfahrungen mit dem Fremdländeranbau in Forstbezirk Burgholz des Forstamtes Mettmann, in: "Mitteilungen der Deutschen Dendrologischen Gesellschaft", Nr. 80, 1992, pp. 187-193

Further reading

• Heinrich Hogrebe zum 65. Geburtstag, in "Allgemeine Forstzeitschrift", Nr. 36/1978, p. 1033
• Heinrich Hogrebe wird 70 Jahre, in "Der Forst- und Holzwirt", Nr. 11/1983, pp. 283–284
• Dietrich Böhlmann: Nachruf für Heinrich Hogrebe, in "Mitteilungen der Deutschen Dendrologischen Gesellschaft", Nr. 85/2000, pp. 5–7