General der Panzertruppe Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin

SOME OF THE PRISONERS HELD AT
SPECIAL CAMP 11

NAME: General der Panzertruppe Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin

PW NO: 211006
RANK: General der Panzertruppe
CAPTURED: Trient, Italy
DATE: 2 May 1945

PERSONAL

DATE OF BIRTH:      4 September 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH:   Waldshut / Baden
DATE OF DEATH:    4 January 1963
PLACE OF DEATH: Freiburg
NATIONALITY:        German
RELIGION:                Catholic
OCCUPATION:         Regular Soldier
HEIGHT:                    190cm
WEIGHT:                   75kg
HAIR COLOUR:        Brown
EYE COLOUR:          Green
NEXT OF KIN:         Hilda-Margarete Senger u.Etterlin, (British Zone)

Wife: Hilda Margaretha von Kracht (married 2 December 1919) – one son and one daughter.

Promotions:

Leutnant der Reserve: 1914
Leutnant (Active): 27 June 1917 (Patent 19 February 1913)
Oberleutnant: Unknown
Rittmeister: 1 May 1924
Major: 1934
Oberstleutnant: 1 August 1936
Oberst: 1 March 1939
Generalmajor: 1 September 1941
Generalleutnant: 1 May 1943
General der Panzertruppe: 1 January 1944

Commands & Assignments:

1 October 1910: Entered Army reserve service as a One-Year Volunteer in 5. Badisches Feld-Artillerie-Regiment Nr. 76.
1910-1911: Student at Freiburg University.
1912-1914: Rhodes Scholar at St. John’s College, Oxford.
1914-1918: Artillery officer in Field Artillery Regiment 76 on the Western Front.
1918: Adjutant on the staff of the XIV Reserve Corps.
1919: Freikorps service in the Volunteer Landesjägerkorps [Provincial Rifle or Light Infantry Corps] during the anti-Bolshevik campaign in Saxony. [Formed in December 1918 under command of General Ludwig Maercker, the Commander of the 214th Infantry Division, this was the first major Freikorps unit and the model for almost all others. The unit was later incorporated into the Reichswehr as XVI. Reichswehr Brigade.]
1920: Joined Reichswehr Cavalry School.
1920-1932: Regimental Officer in Cavalry Regiment 18, Stuttgart-Cannstatt.
1934-1938: Chief of Staff of the Cavalry Inspectorate/Army High Command, Berlin.
10 November 1938: Commander of Cavalry Regiment 3, Göttingen.
November 1939: Commander of Cavalry Regiment 22.
2 February 1940: Commander of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade. [Von Senger’s cavalry brigade took part in the invasion of the Netherlands from 10-16 May 1940 before being moved to Cambrai and reorganized as a motorized brigade for employment with the panzer divisions.]
May 1940: Commander of Motorized Brigade “von Senger.” [Von Senger’s brigade took part in the breakthrough Weygand Line in France and, while subordinated to Generalmajor Erwin Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division, took part in the capture of Le Havre and Cherbourg.]
July 1940-July 1942: Liaison Officer between the Franco-German Armistice Commission (headed by General der Infanterie Karl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel) and Franco-Italian Armistice Commission (headed by General Pietro Pintor) in Turin, Italy.
July 1942: Commander of the 10th Panzer Grenadier Brigade in France.
10 October 1942-16 June 1943: Commander of the 17th Panzer Division. [When von Senger assumed command of the 17th Panzer Division, it could muster only 30 tanks while 30-40 percent of its trucks were unserviceable. From 15-25 December 1942, von Senger’s division took part in the counteroffensive that attempted to relieve the encircled German 6th Army at Stalingrad. Although his under strength division performed splendidly and advanced to within 30 kilometers of Stalingrad, the counteroffensive bogged down against heavy odds. From 26 December 1942, the German relief forces moved over to the defensive and eventually withdrew to their original jump-off points.]
June 1943-August 1943: German Liaison Officer to the Italian 6th Army (General Alfredo Guzzoni) defending Sicily. [On 10 July 1943, the Allies launched Operation Husky, the amphibious invasion of Sicily. While General Guzzoni controlled the overall defense of Sicily, General von Senger exercised control of the German units on the island, the main elements initially consisting of the “Hermann Göring” Panzer Division (Generalmajor Paul Conrath) and the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division (Generalleutnant Eberhard Rodt). He continued to lead the German defenders until 17 July 1943 when General der Panzertruppe Hans-Valentin Hube arrived in Sicily with his XIV Panzer Corps headquarters staff and assumed control of all German and, later, Italian troops on the island. General von Senger retained his position of German Liaison Officer to the Italian 6th Army until recalled on 8 August 1943 for his next assignment. The Allies completed their conquest of Sicily on 17 August 1943 after the last of General Hube’s German forces had evacuated across the Straight of Messina to the mainland.]
September 1943-October 1943: Commandant of the German Armed Forces in Sardinia and Corsica. [On 8 September 1943, less than 24 hours after von Senger’s arrival on Corsica, the Italian government concluded an armistice with the Allies which presented something of a problem as the island was garrisoned by the four divisions of Major General Giovanni Magli’s Italian VII Corps. Following the Italian surrender, the Assault Brigade “Reichsführer-SS” (SS-Obersturmbannführer Karl Gesele), the only major German unit on the island, immediately secured a bridgehead at Bonifacio to allow the 90th Panzer Grenadier Division (Generalleutnant Carl-Hans Lungershausen) to evacuate Sardinia to Corsica. In the meantime, von Senger attempted to maintain the status quo with the uneasy Italian garrison—the bulk of which withdrew into the interior of the island—while keeping French insurgents under control. On 13 September 1943, von Senger ordered the SS brigade to attack the Italian garrison holding Bastia after unsuccessfully attempting to negotiate their surrender. Although the attack proceeded slowly as the Italians kept the approach roads under artillery fire, the town fell after a night attack later that day. On the day of the Bastia action, von Senger received orders not to defend Corsica but to commence an immediate air and sea evacuation of the 30,000-man German garrison. Over the next few weeks, von Senger oversaw the orderly evacuation of his garrison in the face of recently landed Free French troops led by General Henri Honoré Giraud and heavy Allied air and submarine attacks. After destroying all road bridges on the east coast, wrecking harbor installations at Bonifacio and Porto Vecchio and rendering airfields unusable, von Senger departed aboard the last German ship to evacuate Corsica on 3 October 1943.]

The senior German officers of the 10th Army in Italy, circa January 1944

Left to Right:

Generaloberst Heinrich Gottfried von Vietinghoff gen Scheel,
Commander-in-chief of 10th Army.
General der Panzertruppe Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin, commanding general of XIV Panzer Corps.

On far right:

Generalleutnant Dr. Friedrich Franek, Commander of the 44th Infantry Division (note the Knight's Cross of the Military Maria Theresa Order - Austria's highest award for military bravery -hanging just below his Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross).

This is the ceremony in which Senger is receiving his Oakleaves to the Knight’s Cross from Hitler at Obersalzberg. Senger notes in his memoirs that he departed the Italian front by car on 17 April 1944 to get the award. He also wrote:

“The ceremony had lost any personal significance now that hundreds of people wore the decoration [Oakleaves], which was being awarded to commanders of successful corps or divisions, and was thus intended to honour the troops under command.” Senger also notes that “the impression made by Hitler was utterly depressing…”

22 October 1943-2 May 1945: Commanding General of the XIV Panzer Corps in Italy. [From January-May 1944, General von Senger conducted a masterful defense of the Cassino Front in a series of battles that he is best remembered for. Following the Allied amphibious landings at Anzio in the rear of the main German defense line in January 1944, Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, Commander of the U.S. Fifth Army, attempted to breach the German mountain defenses at Cassino to draw off enemy reinforcements from Anzio. Over the next few months, Clark’s combined U.S., British Commonwealth, Polish and French forces suffered extraordinary casualties while trying to dislodge General von Senger’s XIV Panzer Corps from that front. From 15-23 March 1944, Indian and New Zealand troops suffered heavy losses attempting to capture the town of Cassino and scale the surrounding heights dominated by the gutted ruins of the Benedictine monastery (see photo caption below). General von Senger paid tribute to the seasoned paratroopers of the 1. Fallschirmjäger-Division commanded Generalleutnant Richard Heidrich for its tenacious defense of Monte Cassino during this phase of the battle. In particular, that division’s Fallschirmjäger-Regiment 3 commanded by Oberst Ludwig Heilmann (also held as a prisoner of war at Special Camp 11, Bridgend) stubbornly defended the bombed out ruins of the town itself in ferocious close-quarter street fighting. In May 1944, the Allies finally broke through the Monte Cassino front and, in conjunction with a breakout from the Anzio beachhead, captured Rome on 4 June 1944. After withdrawing to the Gothic Line, General von Senger’s corps found itself defending Bologna at the end of the war.]
15-24 October 1944: At the same time, delegated with the leadership of the 14th Army in Italy.

On 15 February 1944, American B-17 and B-26 bombers destroyed the magnificent Abbey of Monte Cassino for fear that it was a German observation post (it was not occupied by them). Founded by St Benedictine in 529 A.D., the abbey was one of Europe's most sacred and spectacular sites. General der Panzertruppe Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin, himself a lay Benedictine, commanded the XIV Panzer Corps in the vicinity of the abbey. On 18 February 1944, Abbot Gregorio Diamare visited General Senger to describe the destruction of the abbey for a German radio interview before leaving for Rome.

Abbot Gregorio Diamare (centre with crucifix) is seen departing General der Panzertruppe Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin's headquarters after the bombing of Monte Cassino monastery. Abbot Diamare's secretary and assistant Monk Martino Matronola is on far left. Major Joachim Oster, one of Senger's aides, is standing next to Matronola

General von Senger, devoted catholic, helps Abbot Diamare to enter the car that will be take him to Rome (1944)

2-13 May 1945: Chief negotiator of the surrender of German forces in Italy to General Mark W. Clark, the Commander of the Fifteenth Army Group consisting of all the Allied Forces in Italy.
2 May 1945-16 May 1948: Prisoner of war. [General von Senger was held for varying amounts of time in several POW camps in Italy (Ghedi, Modena, Aversa and Afragola) and Germany (Heilbronn and Heidelberg). In late 1945, he was transferred to Rome where he served as a witness at the war crimes trial of General der Infanterie Anton Dostler, the former Commanding General of the LXXV Army Corps in Italy. Convicted of ordering the execution of 15 American commandos in March 1944, Dostler was himself executed by an Allied firing squad on 1 December 1945. In February 1946, von Senger was flown to London for interrogation at the Central District Cage in Kennsington. After his interrogation he remained at Special Camp 11 at Bridgend, South Wales until his repatriation to Germany in May 1948. During much of his imprisonment at Bridgend, von Senger served as the camp Press Officer.]
- 2nd March 1946 transferred to Island Farm Special Camp 11 from Camp 209 (Italy)
- 12th May 1948 transferred to Camp 186 for repatriation.
1948: Appointed headmaster of Spetzgart, a branch of the famous School Salem Castle near Lake Constance founded in 1920 by Prinz Max von Baden and Kurt Hahn, the latter a fellow Oxford alumnus and old friend of Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin.
August-October 1950: Co-author of the “Himmeroder Denkschrift” (the Himmerod Memorandum—named for the Abbey Himmerod at Großlittgen where the document was completed), Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s then secret plan for building West Germany’s post-World War II Bundeswehr (Federal Armed Forces). The Army plan was formulated by an expert commission composed of four committees led by retired German Army generals (the Luftwaffe and Navy had their own expert commissions):

Leutnant Johann-Gustav von Senger und Etterlin (born 12 December 1894), Fridolin’s younger brother, served as a fighter pilot in Jagdstaffel [Fighter Squadron] 12 in World War I. Joining the Army on 8 August 1914, Johann-Gustav was assigned to his older brother’s unit, the 5. Badisches Feld-Artillerie-Regiment Nr. 76. Wounded on 8 October 1914, he later transferred to the Air Service in October 1916 and completed pilot training. After service in Feld-Flieger-Abteilung 12, he transitioned to fighters and was assigned to Jagdstaffel 12 in July 1917. Johann-Gustav was killed in action on 30 November 1917 during aerial combat with British SE5s fighters near the Moeuvres-Bourlon Wood. He possibly collided with a SE5s piloted by Second Lieutenant R.E. Dungate, No. 46 Squadron, who was captured on this date. The day after his death, Fridolin found the mass grave where his brother was buried and, in the midst of the battle of Cambrai, removed his body for a more dignified interment. Note: An award proposal dated 12 August 1917 for the Baden Order of the Zähringer Lion to Leutnant Karl Kern, Johann-Gustav’s observer in Feld-Flieger-Abteilung 12, claimed von Senger had been assigned to the 2. Badisches Dragoner-Regiment Nr. 21 before transferring to the Air Service.

Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin’s son, Ferdinand Maria, served in the German Army in World War II in Italy and Russia losing an arm in combat in 1944. On 4 September 1944, he received the German Cross in Gold while serving as an Oberleutnant on the Eastern Front in the 3rd Company of Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion 24 of the 24th Panzer Division. After the war he joined the Bundeswehr and retired in 1984 after serving as Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces Central Europe. General Dr. Ferdinand M. von Senger und Etterlin, author of several books on German and worldwide armored fighting vehicles, died in January 1987 while writing the biographical article on his father for the book Hitler’s Generals edited by Corelli Barnett. His son Stefan, Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin’s grandson, then completed the article.