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Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin
Born	(1904-08-30)August 30, 1904 Breslau, Silesia, German Empire (now Wrocław, Poland)
Died	June 28, 1997(1997-06-28) (aged 92) Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Allegiance	Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany
Service / branch	Reichswehr Heer
Years of service	1924–45
Rank	Generalmajor
Unit	III Army Corps 197th Infantry Battalion Second Army Afrika Korps / Panzer Army Africa XLVIII Panzer Corps Army Group G 5th Panzer Army
Commands	9th Panzer Division
Battles / wars	Battles/Campaigns Invasion of Poland Battle of France Balkans Campaign Siege of Tobruk Battle of Gazala First Battle of El Alamein Second Battle of El Alamein Battle of Stalingrad Battle of Kursk Battle of Kiev Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive Battle of Nancy Battle of Metz Battle of Arracourt Battle of the Bulge
Awards	Awards German Cross in Gold
Other work	Author of Panzer Battles, director of Lufthansa in South Africa

Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin (30 August 1904 – 28 June 1997) was a Generalmajor in the German Army during World War II. A participant in most of the major campaigns of the war, he became well-known afterwards for his memoirs Panzer Battles, first published in 1956 and regularly reprinted since then.

Early life and Interwar years

Mellenthin was born in Breslau, Silesia, into a military family; his father was a lieutenant-colonel of artillery who was killed in action in 1918. Friedrich's older brother, Horst von Mellenthin, was also a World War II general. In 1924, upon graduation from Breslau's gymnasium, Mellenthin enlisted as a private in the Reichswehr and was assigned to the 7th Cavalry Regiment. He studied for his commission over the next several years, and was promoted to lieutenant in 1928. He married Ingeborg von Aulock, the granddaughter of a South African emigrant, in 1932. Although he described himself as "perfectly happy" with regimental life, his superiors assigned him to prepare operational reports to divisional headquarters, at which he excelled. In recognition of his administrative talents, he was assigned to the Prussian Military Academy in 1935, where he took its two-year course for General Staff officers.

World War Two

Early war — Poland/France/Balkans/Greece

Between 1937 and December 1939, he served as the Third General Staff Officer (Ic-Intelligence) in the III. Armeekorps of the Wehrmacht. He participated in the September 1939 Invasion of Poland, where the III. Armeekorps attacked from Pomerania and pressed along the Vistula River toward Warsaw, cutting off the retreat of Polish units in the Corridor.

From June to August 1940, he was the First General Staff Officer (Ia-Operations) with the 197th Infantry Division during the Battle of France and the preparations for Operation Sea Lion. From September 1940 to February 1941, he was the Third General Staff Officer (Ic-Intelligence) in the First Army, then on occupation duty in northern France. After this quiet period, from March through May 1941, he was the Third General Staff Officer (Ic-Intelligence) with the Second Army during Germany's invasion of the Balkans.

Africa

Following this, von Mellenthin was posted to North Africa, where from June 1941 to September 1942 he served as the Third General Staff Officer (Ic-Intelligence) in Generaloberst Erwin Rommel's Deutsches Afrika Korps (which later became Panzer Armee Afrika - PAA). He stayed in this role during the battles of Tobruk, Gazala, and First and Second El Alamein. From July to September 1942 he also served as the Acting Operations Staff Officer to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel at PAA HQ.

On 10 July during First Alamein, PAA HQ came under direct attack by Australian troops who had routed the Italian Sabratha Division. Von Mellenthin formed the HQ personnel into a battle group and held off the Australians until German reserves arrived.

Due to the high stress of these assignments, he spent September and October 1942 in a military hospital at Garmisch, Germany, recovering from exhaustion and amoebic dysentery.

Eastern Front

Upon recovery from his illness, von Mellenthin was assigned as Chief of Staff for the 48th Panzer Corps, on the Eastern Front in Russia. He served with 48th Panzer Corps from November 1942 to May 1944. He participated in the battles following the encirclement of Stalingrad, and was in frequent radio contact with Paulus, the commander at Stalingrad. After the defeat at Stalingrad, von Mellenthin described the German war on the Eastern Front in the following terms: "We are in the position of a man who has seized a wolf by the ears and dare not let him go." (May 14, 1943).

Von Mellenthin continued with 48th Panzer Corps through the Battle of Kursk, the Battle of Kiev and the spring 1944 battles in western Ukraine, including the battle for Tarnopol. During the first days of the Lvov-Sandomierz Operation, in July 1944, 48th Panzer Corps failed to relieve the Brody encirclement.

In August 1944, during the later stages of the battles in western Ukraine and south-eastern Poland, several German commanders were moved; von Mellenthin followed General Hermann Balck when Balck was promoted from 48th Panzer Corps to commander of 4th Panzer Army. During this time Soviet Marshal Konev's forces pressed the German forces behind the San river in south-eastern Poland, creating a bridgehead that became one of the springboards for the Vistula-Oder offensive in January 1945.

Western Front

In September 1944, Balck was promoted to command Army Group G in eastern France, and again von Mellenthin followed. They served there until November 1944, during fighting in Lorraine and Alsace, including the Battle of Nancy, Battle of Metz, and Battle of Arracourt. In early December 1944, Balck was relieved of command by Hitler for "unauthorized retreat", and von Mellenthin was retired to the OKW Officers’ Pool. General Heinz Guderian, then Chief of Staff of the German Army, interceded for him and he was restored to duty in late December.

On December 28, he received command of 9th Panzer Division, whose commander von Elverfeldt had been wounded. 9th Panzer was then engaged in the Battle of the Bulge, fighting just north of Bastogne. Von Mellenthin commanded 9th Panzer through the remainder of the battle, and until February, when von Elverfeldt recovered. This was von Mellenthin's only command assignment in his career.

From March to May 1945 he was chief of staff of 5th Panzer Army under General Hasso von Manteuffel, defending western Germany against US and British forces in the Ruhr region and around Cologne.

During the eastward retreat he was captured by the British at Höxter on the Weser River, on May 3, 1945.

Later life

Mellenthin spent and a half years in prison. After his release, he emigrated with his family to South Africa, later becoming director of Lufthansa in South Africa. He died in Johannesburg.

The reliability of Panzer Battles has been called into question over the years. Critics say that Mellenthin tends to downplay German failures while focusing exclusively on successes and that some of his observations on the positive and negative qualities of the Russian soldier are over-generalizations.

Works

1956 English-language edition of Panzer Battles

• Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War. First Ballantine Books Edition (1971). New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-24440-0
• German Generals of World War II: As I Saw Them (1977). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
• R. H. S. Stolfi, E. Sobik: NATO Under Attack: Why the Western Alliance Can Fight Outnumbered and Win in Central Europe Without Nuclear Weapons. Duke Press Policy Studies, 1984.
• Schach dem Schicksal. Ein deutscher Generalstabsoffizier berichtet von seiner Herkunft, seinem Einsatz im 2. Weltkrieg und seinem beruflichen Neubeginn nach dem Kriege. In: Soldatenschicksale des 20. Jahrhunderts als Geschichtsquelle. Bd. 11, Osnabrück 1988, ISBN 3-7648-1729-1.

References

• Citino, Robert M. (2012). The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1826-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Smelser, Ronald; Davies, Edward J. (2008). The Myth of the Eastern Front: the Nazi-Soviet war in American popular culture. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521833653. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wette, Wolfram (2007). The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674025776. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Mellenthin, Friedrich (1971). Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War. New York, New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN ISBN 0-345-24440-0. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Category:1904 births Category:1997 deaths Category:Wehrmacht generals Category:German military writers Category:People from Wrocław Category:People from the Province of Silesia Category:German male writers Category:Recipients of the Gold German Cross Category:World War II prisoners of war held by the United Kingdom