Career
During World War I he served on both fronts as an officer. During the Weimar Republic, he remained a professional officer in the Reichswehr; from 1940 to 1942 he commanded the 12th Infantry Division of the German army. When the division was encircled in the Demyansk Pocket, Seydlitz was responsible for breaking the Soviet cordon and enabling German units to escape from encirclement; for this action he was promoted to General of the Artillery (General der Artillerie) and appointed commander of the LI Corps.
The corps was subordinated to the Sixth Army during the Battle of Stalingrad. When the entire Army was trapped in the city in the course of the Soviet Operation Uranus, Seydlitz was one of the generals who argued most forcefully in favor of a breakout, in contravention of Hitler’s orders. On the surrender of the remaining forces in Stalingrad, Seydlitz was taken into Soviet custody, where he was interrogated by Captain Nikolay Dyatlenko.
As a POW he became the leader of the anti-Nazi organization, the League of German Officers (German: Bund deutscher Offiziere) and a prominent member of the National Committee Free Germany (German: Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland). He was condemned by many of his fellow generals for his anti-Nazi activities and was sentenced to death in absentia. His idea of creating an anti-Nazi force of some 40,000 German POWs to be airlifted into Germany was not considered credible, while in Germany his family was taken into Sippenhaft, detention for the crimes of a family member. Seydlitz was ultimately exploited by both Soviet and German propaganda: he was used by the former in broadcasts and literature to encourage German soldiers to surrender, while the latter cultivated the idea of “Seydlitz troops” (German: Seydlitztruppen). His figure in the German propaganda was largely equivalent to the one of Andrey Vlasov in the Soviet one.
In 1949 Seydlitz, who showed little inclination to cooperate with Soviet authorities after the war, requested release into the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. This was refused, and he was charged with atrocities committed against Soviet POWs and the civilian population while in Wehrmacht service. In 1950, a Soviet tribunal sentenced him to 25 years’ imprisonment, but in 1955 he was released to West Germany, where in 1956 his Third Reich death sentence was nullified.
Seydlitz died on 28 April 1976 in Bremen. On 23 April 1996 a posthumous pardon was issued by Russian authorities.
Read more about this topic: Walther Von Seydlitz-Kurzbach
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