Allegiance Nazi Germany Battles and wars World War II Years of service 1937–45 Service/branch German Army | Battles/wars World War II Rank Major Name Walther-Peer Fellgiebel | |
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Relations Erich Fellgiebel (father) Died October 14, 2001, Frankfurt, Germany Awards Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross Books Elite of the Third Reich: The Recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, 1939-45 | ||
Walther-Peer Fellgiebel (7 May 1918 – 14 October 2001) was a German author and a key member of the Association of Knight's Cross Recipients.
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World War II
Fellgiebel served in World War II reaching the rank of a Major. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Walther-Peer Fellgiebel's father was the General Erich Fellgiebel; as a conspirator of the 20 July plot; he was sentenced to death and executed on 4 September 1944.
Association of Knight's Cross Recipients
Fellgiebel joined the Association of Knight's Cross Recipients (AKCR) in 1954 and as of 1961 served on the board of directors. He became head of the order commission of the AKCR in 1970, a position he held until 1985. From this work evolved the book Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes, 1939–1945 (The bearers of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939–1945). For many years this book was considered a reference work on this topic. Fellgiebel himself indicated that the book was not official. The deteriorating situation of Nazi Germany during the final days of World War II left a number of nominations incomplete and pending in various stages of the approval process; loss of evidence of the presentation was also an issue in the verification process. In some of these instances the AKCR later accepted and listed holders of the Knight's Cross with questionable evidence. Author Veit Scherzer analyzed the German Federal Archives and found discrepancies in 193 instances of the original 7,322 listings by Fellgiebel (false acceptance rate of 2.6%). Fellgiebel's work was translated into English in 2003 as Elite of the Third Reich: the Recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, 1939-45.