Nickname: “Our poison dwarf” (German: “Unser Giftzwerg”)
Date of birth: 25 December 1886 - Gumbinnen, East Prussia (German Empire)
Date of death: 10 December 1971 - Endersbach, Baden-Württemberg (West Germany)
Religion: Protestant (Lutheran)
Parents: Paul Ferdinand Constantin Heinrici, Lutheran superintendent and clergyman (1859–1937) and Gisela Henriette Elisabeth Heinrici, née von Rauchhaupt (1846–1939)
Siblings: Multiple older brothers, among whom the eldest, Friedrich Heinrici, became a general in the Wehrmacht; the family had a long tradition of military service dating back to the 12th century
Spouse: Gertrud (Gertrude) Heinrici, née Scheel, who was half‑Jewish; this led to special favor by Adolf Hitler, who issued a “German blood certificate” for the family to confirm their German status
Children: Hartmut Heinrici (son, one‑quarter Jewish by Nazi racial definitions) and Gesela Heinrici (daughter, also one‑quarter Jewish)
Promotions:
8 March 1905 Fahnenjunker (Officer Candidate)
19 July 1905 Fahnenjunker-Unteroffizier (Officer Candidate with Corporal/NCO/Junior Sergeant rank)
19 December 1905 Fähnrich (Officer Cadet)
18 August 1906 Leutnant (2nd Lieutenant) with Patent from 15 February 1905
17 February 1914 Oberleutnant (1st Lieutenant)
18 June 1915 Hauptmann (Captain)
1922 received Reichswehr Rank Seniority (RDA) from 18 June 1915 (13)
1 February 1926 Major (6)
1 August 1930 Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel)
1 March 1933 Oberst (Colonel)
18 January 1936 Generalmajor (Major General) with effect and RDA from 1 January 1936 (3)
28 February 1938 Generalleutnant (Lieutenant General) with effect and RDA from 1 March 1938 (1)
17 May 1940 General der Infanterie (General of the Infantry) with effect and RDA from 1 June 1940 (1a)
21 January 1943 Generaloberst (Colonel General) with effect and RDA from 1 January 1943 (1)
Career:
Entered Army Service (08 Mar 1905)
Fahnenjunker in the 6th Thuringian 95th Infantry-Regiment (08 Mar 1905-10 May 1910)
Detached to the War-School Hannover (1905-1906)
Adjutant of II. Battalion of the 95th Infantry-Regiment (10 May 1910-00 Nov 1914)
Regiments-Adjutant of the 95th Infantry-Regiment, Gotha (00 Nov 1914-1915)
Company-Leader and also Battalion-Leader in the II. Battalion of the 95th Infantry-Regiment (1915-00 May 1916)
Adjutant of the 83rd Infantry-Brigade (00 May 1916-27 Aug 1916)
Transferred into a General-Staff Position of the General-Command of XXIV. Reserve-Corps (27 Aug 1916-07 Dec 1916)
Transferred into the General-Staff of the 115th Infantry-Division (07 Dec 1916-13 Mar 1917)
While retaining previous post, Transferred into the Army General Staff (13 Mar 1917-28 Mar 1917)
Transferred into the General-Staff of Staging-Inspection 15 (28 Mar 1917-00 Sep 1917)
General-Staff-Course in Sedan (00 Sep 1917-09 Oct 1917)
Officer of the Army and Assigned yo the General-Command of VII. Army-Corps as 2nd General-Staff-Officer for Special Duties (09 Oct 1917-04 Dec 1917)
Assigned with the High Command of Army-Detachment B for Special Duties (with VIII. Army-Corps) (04 Dec 1917-28 Feb 1918)
Chief of Operations (Ia) in the General-Staff of the 203rd Infantry-Division (28 Feb 1918-19 Jan 1919)
Transferred back into the 95th Infantry-Regiment (19 Jan 1919-18 Feb 1919)
Transferred to the General-Staff of I. Army-Corps, In Border-Protection in East Prussia, and Chief of Operations (Ia) of Volunteer-Division von Tschischwitz (18 Feb 1919-01 Oct 1919)
Transferred into the Staff of Military-District-Command I (01 Oct 1919-01 Oct 1920)
Tactics-Instructor with the Subsidiary-Leadership-Training with the Staff of 1st Division (01 Oct 1920-01 Sep 1924)
Chief of 14th Company of the 13th Infantry-Regiment, Schwäbisch Gmünd (01 Sep 1924-01 Oct 1927)
Transferred into the RWM, Group-Director, Army Organisation Department (T2) Troop Office (01 Oct 1927-01 Oct 1930)
Transferred into the 3rd Infantry-Regiment (01 Oct 1930-01 Nov 1930)
Commander of III. Battalion of the 3rd Infantry-Regiment, Osterode (01 Nov 1930-01 Oct 1932)
Detached to Firing Course for heavy infantry weapons in D�beritz (07 Oct 1930-30 Oct 1930)
Detached to the Lithuanian (10 Sep 1931-01 Oct 1931)
Chief of Operations (Ia) in the Staff of Group-Command 1, Berlin (01 Oct 1932-01 Feb 1933)
Chief of the General Department of the Defence-Office, RWM (01 Feb 1933-01 Mar 1933)
Department-Chief in the RWM (01 Mar 1933-21 May 1935)
Department-Chief in the RKM (21 May 1935-01 Jun 1937)
Chief of Office-Group Replacement & Army Matters in RKr/Min./AHA (01 Jun 1937-12 Oct 1937)
Commander of the 16th Infantry-Division, M�nster (12 Oct 1937-31 Jan 1940)
F�hrer-Reserve OKH (31 Jan 1940-08 Apr 1940)
At the same time, Delegated with the Leadership of VII. Army-Corps (31 Jan 1940-12 Feb 1940)
Delegated with the Leadership of XII. Army-Corps (08 Apr 1940-18 Jun 1940)
Commanding General of XXXXIII. Army-Corps (18 Jun 1940-20 Jan 1942)
Commander-in-Chief of the 4th Army (20 Jan 1942-06 Jun 1942)
On Leave (06 Jun 1942-13 Jul 1942)
Commander-in-Chief of the 4th Army (13 Jul 1942-01 Jun 1943)
On Leave (01 Jun 1943-31 Jul 1943)
Commander-in-Chief of the 4th Army (31 Jul 1943-00 May 1944)
Contracted Hepatitis, 4 week hospital stay in Karlsbad (00 May 1944-04 Jun 1944)
Führer-Reserve OKH (04 Jun 1944-16 Aug 1944)
Commander-in-Chief of the 1st Panzer-Army (16 Aug 1944-20 Mar 1945)
Commander-in-Chief of Army-Group Vistula (20 Mar 1945-29 Apr 1945)
Recalled from his Position because of differences with Keitel & Jodl (Personally dismissed by Keitel after conducting an unauthorised withdrawal, Generaloberst Kurt Student was named as his replacement, but he was unable to reach his command until 01 May 1945, therefore his command was relinquished to the most senior Army commander, General der Infanterie Kurt von Tippelskirch) (29 Apr 1945)
Surrendered to British Troops in Flensburg, in British Captivity (28 May 1945-19 May 1948)
Released (19 May 1948)
Awards and Decorations:
1914 Eisernes Kreuz II.Klasse: 27.09.1914
Ritterkreuz II.Klasse des Herzoglich Sachsen-Ernestinischen Hausordens mit Schwertern: 04.11.1914
Kaiserlich und königlich österreichische Militär-Verdienstkreuz III.Klasse mit der Kriegsdekoration: 10.12.1914
Hausorden vom Weißen Falken, Ritterkreuz II.Klasse mit Schwertern: 00.05.1915
Fürstlich Schwarzburgisches Ehrenkreuz III.Klasse mit Schwertern: 00.05.1915
1914 Eisernes Kreuz I.Klasse: 24.07.1915
Grossherzoglich Sachsen-Coburg-Gothaisches Karl Eduard-Kriegskreuz: 09.04.1916
Grossherzoglich Sachsen-Coburg-Gothaische Karl Eduard-Medaille II. Klasse mit Schwertern: 20.01.1917
Hamburgisches Hanseatenkreuz: 23.07.1918
Reussisches Ehrenkreuz III.Klasse mit Schwertern
Ritterkreuz des Königlich Preussische Hausordens von Hohenzollern mit Schwertern: 09.08.1918
Ehrenkreuz für Frontkämpfer
Wehrmacht-Dienstauszeichnung IV. bis I. Klasse: 02.10.1936
1939 spange zum 1914 Eisernes Kreuz II.Klasse: 13.05.1940
1939 spange zum 1914 Eisernes Kreuz I.Klasse: 16.06.1940
Medaille "Winterschlacht im Osten 1941/1942": 1942
Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes #510 (18.09.1941) as General der Infanterie and Kommandierender General XLIII. Armeekorps. The award recognized his corps aggressive and swift leadership in the summer advance that proved decisive in the gomel shlobin pocket battle. In early august 1941 the xxxxiii armeekorps executed a rapid thrust that allowed its divisions to reach the berezina river at schazilki on 10 august a full three days ahead of schedule. The very next day the corps crossed the dnieper river near strechnin and cut the vital gomel shlobin railway line. This interdiction prevented soviet reinforcements trucked in from gomel from reaching the pocket in time effectively sealing the fate of the soviet 21st army. Despite fierce resistance and the chaos of mobile warfare in vast open terrain heinricis forces maintained momentum through determined infantry assaults supported by whatever armor and artillery could keep pace. The result was the encirclement and destruction of large soviet formations contributing significantly to the broader success of the kiev encirclement operations. His personal drive and ability to coordinate corps level movements under pressure earned him this early recognition as an energetic and capable commander in the blitzkrieg phase of the invasion.
Medaille "Winterschlacht im Osten 1941/42" (Ostmedaille): 01.08.1942
Mentioned in Wehrmachtbericht: 23.11.1943
Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub #333 (24.11.1943) as Generaloberst and Oberbefehlshaber 4. Armee. This decoration highlighted his exceptional defensive leadership during the orsha offensives particularly the intense fighting along the so called panther line east of orsha in belarus. By late 1943 the 4th army under heinrici had constructed robust defensive positions in the orsha region facing repeated assaults from the soviet western front commanded by general vasiliy sokolovsky. Soviet forces launched major attacks in october and november seeking to shatter the german line and open the road toward minsk and smolensk. Heinrici employed innovative elastic defense tactics thinning out forward positions during the heaviest soviet artillery barrages to minimize casualties then committing fresh reserves for sharp counterattacks once the bombardment lifted. This approach repeatedly disrupted soviet momentum prevented any decisive breakthrough and inflicted disproportionately heavy losses on the attacking red army despite numerical superiority often exceeding three to one. As the germans conducted a controlled withdrawal heinricis army continued to fight tenaciously in snow and ice turning the retreat into a series of punishing delaying actions. In his diary heinrici vividly described the ordeal hampered by snow and especially snowdrifts often shoveling ourselves out metre by metre and traveling with vehicles and equipment that are by no means adequate for the russian winter behind us the enemy pressing on concern to bring the troops to safety in time to carry the wounded along not to let too many weapons or too much equipment fall into enemy hands all this was sorely trying for the troops and their leaders kitted out with fabulous winter equipment the russians everywhere push through the wide gaps that have opened up in our front the retreat in snow and ice is absolutely napoleonic in its manner the losses are similar. These actions not only stabilized the central sector for a critical period but cemented heinricis standing as a master of attrition warfare who could hold ground or yield it deliberately while bleeding the enemy.
Mentioned in Wehrmachtbericht: 08.10.1944
Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern #136 (03.03.1945) as Generaloberst and Oberbefehlshaber 1. Panzerarmee. The award recognized his tenacious command during the defensive battles and skillful retreat in hungary and slovakia in late 1944 and early 1945 particularly in the carpathian region and around the dukla pass. After assuming command of the 1st panzer army in august 1944 following the disastrous soviet summer offensive heinrici faced the task of stabilizing shattered forces while coordinating with the hungarian 1st army. In the carpatho dukla operation and subsequent fighting his army prevented soviet forces from achieving a rapid linkage with slovak rebels during the slovak national uprising. Through masterful use of terrain mountain passes and elastic defense he conducted a fighting withdrawal that kept the panzer army relatively intact despite being outnumbered and short on fuel and ammunition. In february 1945 as part of the broader soviet vistula oder offensive heinricis forces halted or severely delayed enemy thrusts aimed at overrunning the last intact coalfields near mährisch ostrau in upper silesia. His troops fought with extraordinary tenacity in bitter cold deploying anti tank defenses minefields and rapid redeployments of limited reserves to channel soviet attacks into kill zones. This stubborn resistance bought vital time for other german formations and preserved combat effectiveness during a phase when many units were disintegrating. The award underscored heinricis ability to stabilize critical sectors even as the reich collapsed earning him praise for leadership that inflicted maximum delay and damage on the advancing red army.
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Gotthard Heinrici (25 December 1886 – 10 December 1971) was a German general during World War II. Heinrici is considered as the premier defensive expert of the Wehrmacht. His final command was Army Group Vistula, formed from the remnants of Army Group A and Army Group Center to defend Berlin from the Soviet armies advancing from the Vistula River.
Heinrici was born in 1886 in East Prussia, the son of a minister of the (Protestant) Evangelical Church in Germany. He came from a long line of East Prussian theologians, including his uncle Georg Heinrici and his grandfather Carl August Heinrici, and remained a devout Lutheran throughout his life. Following graduation from secondary school in 1905, he broke from family tradition and joined the army on 8 March 1905 as a cadet in an infantry division. From 1905 to 1906, Heinrici attended a war school. During World War I, Heinrici fought in the German invasion of Belgium and earned the Iron Cross 2nd Class in September 1914. Heinrici's division was then transferred to the Eastern Front. There, he fought in the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes and the Battle of Łódź, receiving the Iron Cross 1st Class in July 1915.
In May 1916, Heinrici took part in the Battle of Verdun. Beginning in September 1916, he served in General Staff positions with the XXIV Reserve Corps and the 115th Infantry Division. In March 1917, Heinrici was posted to the German General Staff. In September, he attended a General Staffs officer training course, and later served as a staff officer with VII Corps and the VIII Corps. In February 1918, Heinrici was posted to an infantry division, serving as a staff officer responsible for operations. In this position, he was awarded the Prussian Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords in August 1918.
Heinrici had two children, Hartmut and Gisela, with his wife Gertrude. He was a devout Protestant who regularly visited the church. His religious faith and refusal to join the Nazi party made him unpopular with the Nazi hierarchy and led to clashes with Hitler and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, who scorned him. Because Heinrici's wife Gertrude had a Jewish parent, their children were labeled Mischlinge (partly Jewish) under Nazi racial law. However, Heinrici received a "German Blood Certificate" from Hitler himself, which validated their supposed "Aryan" status and protected them from discrimination.
During the Battle of France, Heinrici's command was part of General Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb's Army Group C. He commanded the XII Army Corps which was part of the 1st Army. Heinrici's forces succeeded in breaking through the Maginot Line south of Saarbrücken on 14 June 1940.
In 1941, during Operation Barbarossa, Heinrici served in the 4th Army under Günther von Kluge as the commanding general of the XXXXIII Army Corps during the Battle of Białystok–Minsk, the Battle of Kiev and the Battle of Moscow. He received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in 1941. Late in January 1942, Heinrici was given command of the 4th Army. On 24 November 1943 he was awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight's Cross for his leadership during the Battle of Orsha, during which the 4th Army taking defensive positions near the Orsha region in Belarus, temporarily halted the advance of the Western Front led by General Vasiliy Sokolovsky. During the 4th Army's retreat, it inflicted heavy losses on the advancing Red Army. These successes contributed greatly to Heinrici's reputation as a defensive specialist. Later in 1943 he refused to obey an order to destroy the city of Smolensk by fire before the German army's retreat, and he was temporarily dismissed from his post as commander.
In 1944, after the previous successes of the Red Army in Ukraine, Heinrici repeatedly argued for the retreat of Army Group Center and a concomitant shortening of the front line, Hitler rejected these plans at a staff meeting on 20 May 1944. On 4 June Heinrici was relieved of command of the 4th Army, which was later encircled east of Minsk and nearly destroyed during Operation Bagration.
In the summer of 1944, after eight months of forced retirement, Heinrici was sent to Hungary and placed in command of the 1st Panzer Army; as well as the Hungarian First Army which was attached to it. He was able to keep the 1st Panzer Army relatively intact as it retreated into Slovakia. Later in 1944 during the Battle of the Dukla Pass, the 1st Panzer Army prevented Soviet forces from linking up with Slovak rebel forces of the concurrent Slovak National Uprising. Heinrici was awarded the Swords to the Oak Leaves of his Knight's Cross on 3 March 1945.
On 20 March 1945, Adolf Hitler replaced Heinrich Himmler with Heinrici as Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula on the Eastern Front. Indicating that he was ill, Himmler had abandoned his post on 13 March and retired to a sanatorium at Lychen. At this time, Army Group Vistula's front was less than 50 miles from Berlin.
Army Group Vistula consisted of two armies: the 3rd Panzer Army led by General Hasso von Manteuffel and the 9th Army led by General Theodor Busse. Heinrici was tasked with preventing a Soviet attack across the Oder River amid shortages of manpower and materiel. Only the terrain itself favoured Heinrici; he dug the 9th Army into three defensive lines atop Seelow Heights, overlooking the sandy, swampy banks of the Oder. Manteuffel's 3rd Panzer Army, which had fewer panzers than the 9th, was similarly positioned in the north to delay a possible flanking strike by Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky's 2nd Byelorussian Front.
On 16 April the Battle of the Oder-Neisse began. The Soviets attacked with about 1,500,000 men for what they called the "Berlin Offensive Operation". During the Battle of Berlin, Heinrici withdrew his troops westward and made no attempt to defend the city. By late April, Heinrici ordered the retreat of his army group across the Oder River. Hitler only became aware of the retreat of Army Group Vistula around 21 April, after a puzzling request by Heinrici, who sought permission to move his headquarters to a new site, which was further west than Berlin.
On 28 April Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, was riding along the roads north of Berlin when he noticed that troops of the 7th Panzer Division and of the 25th Panzergrenadier Division were marching north, away from Berlin. These troops were part of General Hasso von Manteuffel's 3rd Panzer Army. As one of the two armies which made up Heinrici's Army Group Vistula, it was supposed to be on its way to Berlin. Instead, Heinrici was moving it northward in an attempt to halt the Soviet breakthrough at Neubrandenburg, contrary to orders of Keitel and his deputy, General Alfred Jodl. Keitel located Heinrici on a road near Neubrandenburg, accompanied by Manteuffel. The encounter resulted in a heated confrontation that led to Heinrici's dismissal by 29 April for disobeying orders.
Heinrici was replaced by General Kurt Student. General Kurt von Tippelskirch was named as Heinrici's interim replacement until Student could arrive and assume control of Army Group Vistula. Student was captured by the British before he could take command. The rapidly deteriorating situation that the Germans faced meant that Army Group Vistula's coordination of the armies under its nominal command during the last few days of the war was of little significance.
Heinrici was dismissed by Keitel for refusing to save Hitler. He was summoned to Berlin and would have complied had Captain Hellmuth Lang not persuaded him to "drive as slowly as you can" to Plön instead, informing him that he would be murdered in Berlin like Rommel (who had been Heinrici's adjutant, and later Lang's commander). Heinrici then gave himself up to British forces on 28 May.
After his capture, Heinrici was held at Island Farm, a British prisoner of war camp at Bridgend, South Wales, where he remained, except for a three-week transfer to a camp in the United States in October 1947, until his release on 19 May 1948. In the 1950s, he helped create the Operational History (German) Section of the United States Army Center of Military History, established in January 1946 to harness the operational knowledge and experience of German prisoners of war for the United States Army. He was also featured prominently in Cornelius Ryan's 1966 book, The Last Battle. Heinrici died in 1971 in Karlsruhe and was buried with full military honours at the Bergäcker cemetery in Freiburg im Breisgau.
Despite being married to a half-Jewish (Mischling) woman, Heinrici supported many Nazi nationalistic and fascistic policies including the Lebensraum concept of territorial expansion, but disagreed with many of their racial policies. He was shocked by the anti-Jewish pogroms of Kristallnacht, although this did not lead him to distance himself from the Nazi regime.
On the eve of Operation Barbarossa, Heinrici, on receiving the Commissar Order, justified it as easing pressure on the front lines through the exercise of "preventive terror" in the rear. Heinrici wrote home to his family that the Soviet soldier fought "very hard", he concluded that Soviet soldiers were "a much better soldier than the Frenchman. Extremely tough, devious and deceitful." He repeatedly ignored "scorched-earth" orders, such as the order to destroy the historically significant city of Smolensk.
As a military commander, historians have described him as the premier defensive expert of the Wehrmacht and a genius admired by his peers, although little-known today because he was, in the words of Samuel W. Mitcham, "as charismatic as a 20-pound sack of fertilizer".
In 2014, Heinrici's private letters and diaries were published in the book A German General on the Eastern Front: The Letters and Diaries of Gotthard Heinrici 1941-1942 edited by Johannes Hürter. In his writings, Heinrici revealed his growing doubts about Hitler's strategy and his mounting concern as the Wehrmacht was implicated in war crimes and the first actions of the Holocaust.
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Source :
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Heinrici
https://www.geocities.ws/orion47.geo/WEHRMACHT/HEER/Generaloberst/HEINRICI_GOTTHARD.html
https://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Personenregister/H/HeinriciG.htm
https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/34589/Heinrici-Gotthard.htm
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