Botho Henning Elster

The German General of Prussian origin Botho Henning Elster (1894-1952) is an anti-nazi convinced and considered by Hitler as a person in charge of the assassination attempt of July 20th 1944.

Biography

Ordering of Feldkommandantur of Marseilles between April and September 1944, the Elster General is named chief of the southern group at the time of the retirement of the last German units made up of 20.000 men and women. As of its arrival in Poitiers, it contacts resistance to go to the American troops on September 14th, 1944 to Beaugency on a bridge of the Loire with the military honors for its troops. He and its soldiers will be sent to the United States as prisoner of war during two years. The wind of the defeat started to blow for the German troops in France and the Elster General is not in a hurry to re-examine Hitler in Germany since the Putsch missed several German generals on July 20th, 1944. The brigadier general Botho Henning Elster is named officer responsible for the last German units going up towards Germany coming from the Aquitanian south, and it arrives at Poitiers on August 31st, 1944. It deals with the German rout while ordering that the various units under its orders respect the orders imperatively not to be caught some with the French civil population. For some time negotiating a truce with persons in charge F.F.I., the Elster general seeks to avoid a bloody confrontation with the French maquis to obtain a possible military rendering of his army corps to the American units close to the Loire Valley. As of on August 31st, 1944, the Elster General receives an official complaint of Louis Bourgain, regional prefect of the Vichyist government, for the massacres of civilians of Gençay and Bondilly on the commune of Saint-Cyr military school (prefectoral reference: document ref. 26.399).

Let us recall that we are in the last days of the German presence in Poitiers. Also, the authorities and the press of collaboration seek to rejoin the population poitevine by reassuring it in its last relationship with the strict and firm authority of the German general Elster.

Random links: