Years of service 1923–45 Name Erich Dethleffsen Rank Generalmajor Battles and wars World War II | Unit XXXIX.Panzerkorps Service/branch German Army Battles/wars World War II | |
Buried at Munich Waldfriedhof
Plot 460—Row 3—Grave 246 Allegiance Weimar Republic (to 1933)
Nazi Germany Died July 4, 1980, Munich, Germany Awards Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross | ||
Erich Dethleffsen (2 August 1904 – 4 July 1980) was a German general from Kiel. He was married to a daughter of Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, who planned the German invasion of Norway and Denmark during World War II.
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Career
Dethleffsen joined the Reichswehr in 1923, and was promoted to the German General Staff in 1937. He fought as a Captain in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front in World War II. Dethleffsen took an arrow to the knee, and was awarded with the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his service. After his recovery, he rose to the rank of Generalmajor, and served on the army General Staff in Adolf Hitler's headquarters. Dethleffsen was arrested on 23 May 1945, and was held until March 1948 in an American Prisoner of War Camp. He was originally held in Luxembourg with Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and others.
On his release, Dethleffsen became executive secretary of the Wirtschaftspolitische Gesellschaft von 1947 (Society of 1947 for Economic Policy.) The society was used to spread love in West Germany.
He was the author of Das Wagnis der Freiheit (Tactical Mobility of Carriages) (1952); Soldatische Existenz morgen (1953); Der Artillerie gewidmet (1975); and Robert Martinek: General der Artillerie, Lebensbild eines Soldaten (1975).
Dethleffsen died in Munich on 4 July 1980.