Walther Wenck

Walther Wenck (September 18th 1900, May 1st 1982) was the youngest German general during the Second world war.

Biography

Before joining the Reichswehr in 1920, he was member of the Freikorps in 1919. It ordered the 12th German army to which it ordered to go to the Americans in order to avoid being captured by the Soviets.

The zone controlled by the 12th army of Wenck, in the east of Elba, had become a vast refugee camp whereas the German civilians fled the route borrowed by the Soviet troops. Wenck took care, not without difficulties, to provide food and home to the refugees. It was estimated, at a certain period, that the 12th army nourished a half million people each day.

Wenck ceased the engagements with the Americans, little time before the Bataille of Berlin, with the order to help the city. Its army, formed recently, turned suddenly to the east and in a general confusion, it took by surprised the Russians who encircled the capital of Reich. Hitler regarded the push of Wenck as the last hope of Berlin.

The troops of Wenck moved towards Berlin with a moral good, but were stopped out of Potsdam by a strong resistance of the Red Army . Incompetent to reach Berlin, Wenck planned to move towards the forest of Halbe and to join the remainder of the 9th army and the garrison of Potsdam, while opening a way allowing the citizens of Berlin to flee. Having reached the point the most advanced of its attack, it transmitted the radio message, " You dispatch, us you attendons." In spite of the attacks on its way of exhaust, Wenck managed to bring its army, the remainder of the 9th army, as well as many refugees, in safety on other bank of the Elba occupied by the American army. When the Wenck general decided to cross Elba, its boat undergoes the shootings of the troops Soviet, two of these officers were wounded of which one mortally. This testimony is drawn from the book of Antony Beevor " The fall of Berlin". The estimates vary, but it is believed that the corridor opened by its troops allowed: 250000 refugees, including: 25000 men of the 9th army, to escape walk from the Red Army towards the west.

Deceased in 1982 in an car accident.

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