Service/branch German Army | ||
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Commands held 82nd Infantry DivisionLVI Panzer Corps4th Army Battles/wars World War IWorld War II Award Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross | ||
Friedrich Hossbach (22 November 1894 – 10 September 1980) was a German staff officer in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany who in 1937 was the military adjutant to Adolf Hitler. Hossbach created the document which later became known as the Hossbach Memorandum.
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Hossbach Memorandum
Hossbach created the document which later became known as the Hossbach Memorandum. This was a report of a meeting held on 5 November 1937 between Hitler and Feldmarschall von Blomberg, General von Fritsch, Admiral Dr. Raeder, Generaloberst Hermann Göring, Baron von Neurath and Hossbach. His account was found among the Nuremberg papers, where it was an important piece of evidence.
In early 1938, Hossbach was present when Hitler was presented by Goering with a file purporting to show that General von Fritsch, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, was guilty of homosexual practices. In defiance of Hitler's orders, Hossbach took the file to Fritsch to warn him of the accusations he was about to face. Fritsch gave his word as an officer that the charges were untrue, and Hossbach passed this message back to Hitler. This did not, as it might have, cost Hossbach his life, though he was dismissed from his post as Hitler's adjutant two days later. Hossbach was restored to the general staff in 1939 and promoted to Major General on the 1st of March 1942, exactly 5 months later he was promoted again to Lieutenant General and his last promotion happened on the 1 November 1943 where he became General of Infantry and was given command of the 16th Panzer Corp. He spent the next 2 years on the Russian front, taking over as commander of the 4th army on 28 January 1945, only to be dismissed two days later for defying Hitlers orders and withdrawing his troops from East Prussia in fear of a second stalingrad. At the end of the war, Hossbach was being treated for a minor illness in Göttingen when US troops approached the town. As a traditionalist conservative largely opposed to the Nazi regime, Hossbach had been warned by friends to expect a visit from the Gestapo, who arrived at his house an hour before the Americans. Hossbach, armed with his pistol, proceeded to engage the visitors in a firefight until they fled, and was thereafter taken into American custody. After the war Hossbach wrote the book "Zwischen Wehrmacht und Hitler"
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