Today In Wyoming's History: May 13: 1943 A measles epidemic was raging in the state. As everyone in my family has the stomach flu today, I can sympathize with epidemics. Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.
That was, of course, in 2013, when that entry was written. Other health problems are visiting now, ten years later, of a more serious nature.
Lieutenant General Bernard Freyberg (left), commander of the 2nd New Zealand Division, Brigadier Graham and Major General Kurt von Liebenstein at the surrender.
The German Army's 164th Infantry Division laid its weapons down and Major General Kurt Freiherr von Liebenstein surrendered the unit, becoming the last Afrika Korps unit to do so.
Of significant note, in the few days that the final Axis surrender in North Africa took place, 267,000 Afrika Korps troops became POWs.
In contrast, the Soviets took 91,000 German prisoners at Stalingrad. In fairness, the Germans lost 500,000 men at Stalingrad. However, in fairness again, during the entire North African campaign, the Germans and Italians suffered 620,000 casualties. The British Commonwealth lost 220,000 men and the United States 18,500, one of whom was the brother of one of my father's good friends.
I note this as, once again, it sheds light on the Soviet propaganda of the time that they were fighting the war alone. The Soviets lost 750,000 men fighting the Germans at Stalingrad, which is a massive loss, and the battle is regarded as the largest in human history, but in terms of campaign loss, if viewed that way, the Germans and Italians loss more men fighting the British (mostly) and the Americans in North Africa.
Von Liebenstein would go on to join the Bundesherr in 1955 and retire five years later at his World War Two rank of Major General. He died in 1975 at age 76. His career dated back to World War One.
This raises a question I've never been able to get a good answer for. Did the Federal Republic of Germany recognize per 1955 military service for retirement purposes for West German soldiers? I'm thinking it must have.
The early Bundesheer was packed with former members of the Wehrmacht, and even a handful of SS officers, capped at major for career advancement, were allowed into it, after first being declined. I don't know the percentage, but a roster of Bundesheer officers reads like a whose who of former Nazi era Heer rolls.
Indeed, amazingly, the West German government called upon ten senior former Nazi era officers in the early 1950s, including Erich von Manstein, about how to reestablish a German army. In 1953 Manstein addressed the Bundestag on this topic, noting that he favored a conscript army with 18 to 24 months mandatory male service, thereby looking back to the pre-1939 German system. This system was in fact adopted. Von Manstein himself was not allowed back into that army, but it's well known that he had a veto power over former German officers applying to join it, and that he did not want "traitors".
One American historian, a former Army officers, has called this group a "handful", but that's far from true. There were a lot of them. And more than a few of them had a background like von Liebenstein. He'd started off as a junior Imperial German Army in 1916, had gone on to the Reichsheer after the German defeat, had served the Nazi's after that, and completed his career in the service of the Federal Republic of Germany.
How did he view his loyalties?
On this, it ought to also be noted, the post World War Two German Federal Republic's offices were simply packed with those who had served the Third Reich. Over 70% of its judiciary in that era had. This really began to come apart with the upheavals of 1968, which gave us the Germany, culturally, we have today.
FWIW, the post-war Austrian Army also had officers who had been in the German Heer, and before that, in the Austrian Army.
Famous Motwon singer Mary Wells was born on this day in Detroit.
