Hans von Salmuth

Hans von Salmuth (November 11 1888–January 1, 1962) was a German army officer, serving in both World War I and World War II.

Born in 1888 in Metz, Germany (now a part of France) into a military family, he joined the German army in 1907. He served in the First World War, being promoted to the rank of captain by the war's end.

He stayed in the army after the war. He served as chief of staff, II Corps from 1934 to 1937, at which time he was promoted to brigadier general made chief of staff to 1st Army Group Command. In 1938 he was assigned as chief of staff for the 2nd Army. In 1939 he was chief of staff for Army Group North, commanded by General Fedor von Bock.

Von Salmuth continued as chief of staff to General von Bock when the latter was given command of Army Group B in the invasion of France in May of 1940.

In 1941 Von Salmuth was given his own command, the XXX Corps, and assigned to participate in Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 attack against the Soviet Union. In 1942 he was made acting commander of the 17th Army, then the 4th Army. In July he was made commander of the 2nd Army.

He was promoted to full general in January 1943. He was again given command of the 4th Army, then sent to France, where he commanded the Fifteenth Army stationed in the Pas-de-Calais area in France from August 8 1943 to August 24 1944, when he was replaced by General Gustav-Adolf von Zangen. He then retired from active service.

Von Salmuth wrote this anecdote in his diary about the morning of the D-Day invasion, June 6,1944;

“At 6 A.M., since it had been daylight for an hour and a half, I had my Chief of Staff telephone Seventh Army again to ask if the enemy had landed anywhere yet. The reply was, ‘Fleets of troop transports and warships big and small are lying at various points offshore, with masses of landing craft. But so far no landing has yet taken place.’ Thereupon I went back to sleep with a calm mind, after telling my Chief of Staff ‘—So their invasion has miscarried already !"

After the war, von Salmuth was held by the United States Army as a prisoner of war until 1948, when he was one of 185 defendants prosecuted in the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Allied Control Council (ACC) Law No. 10. Von Salmuth was tried in the High Command Trial and found guilty of war crimes against prisoners of war and enemy belligerents, and crimes against humanity involving civilians in occupied countries and was sentenced to twenty years in prison. However, he was released early after serving only five years, in 1953. He died in Heidelberg, West Germany, in 1962. He was buried in the Nordfriedhof cemetary located in Wiesbaden, Germany.

In the 1962 film, "The Longest Day", von Salmuth was portrayed by actor Ernst Schröder.

References

"Salmuth, Hans von." Encyclopædia Britannica from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9344629> [Accessed March 25, 2006].

Biography of Colonel-General Hans von Salmuth http://www.generals.dk/general/von_Salmuth/Hans/Germany.html

Graves of Famous WWII Personalities http://www.xs4all.nl/~ejnoomen/wwgrave.html

David Irving: Hitler's War,Germany 1939-1945, ch. 36 (D-Day quote) http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Hitler/1977/html_chapter/36.html