Adolf Heusinger occupation career soldier
Adolf Bruno Heinrich Ernst Heusinger (4 August 1897 – 30 November 1982) was a German military officer whose career spanned the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany and West Germany. He joined the German Army as a volunteer in 1915 and later became a professional soldier. He served as the Operations Chief within the general staff of the High Command of the German Army in the Wehrmacht from 1938 to 1944. He was then appointed acting Chief of the General Staff for two weeks in 1944 following Kurt Zeitzler's resignation. That year, Heusinger was accused of involvement in the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, but was cleared by the People's Court.
Heusinger was later appointed head of the military cartography office when the war ended. He later became a general for West Germany and served as head of the West German military from 1957 to 1961 as well as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 1961 to 1964.Early life and career
Heusinger was born in Holzminden, in the Duchy of Brunswick, German Empire. He entered the Prussian Army in 1915 and became an officer in 1917. After the First World War, Heusinger was retained in the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic. In 1931, Heusinger was assigned to the operations staff of the Troop Office (Truppenamt) in the Ministry of the Reichswehr, the German Army's covert General Staff that circumvented the Treaty of Versailles, which forbade the institution. In August 1937, Heusinger was assigned to the Operations Staff of the re-established Army General Staff of Wehrmacht. He served there, was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 20 March 1939 and remained in that position until 15 October 1940, when he became its chief.Second World War
With the outbreak of the Second World War, the German Army High Command (the OKH) assumed its wartime organisation. Heusinger accompanied the field staff and assisted in the planning of operations for the invasions of Poland, Denmark, Norway, and France and the Low Countries. He was promoted to colonel on 1 August 1940 and became chief of the Operationsabteilung in October 1940, which made him number three in the army's planning hierarchy, after the Chief of the General Staff, General Franz Halder, and the Deputy Chief of the General Staff/Chief Quartermaster, General Friedrich Paulus.
After the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the OKH became responsible primarily for planning operations in that theatre, and the Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) was responsible for other theatres. Halder was replaced as Chief of the General Staff in September 1942 by General Kurt Zeitzler. Heusinger remained chief of the Operationsabteilung and was promoted to Generalleutnant on 1 January 1943. In June 1944, Zeitzler suffered a nervous breakdown and abandoned his post, and on 10 June, Heusinger temporarily assumed his office as Chief of the General Staff of the Army. In this capacity, he attended the meeting at Hitler's Wolf's Lair on 20 July 1944, and he was standing next to Hitler when the bomb exploded that had been planted by Claus von Stauffenberg.
Heusinger was hospitalised for his injuries in the explosion, but was later arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo to determine his role, if any, in the 20 July plot. Although there was evidence that Heusinger had contacts with many of the conspirators, like for all other high-ranking Nazi military leaders, there was no evidence to connect him to the plot, and he was released in October 1944. According to Heusinger's own autobiography, he published an essay ("Denkschrift"), which Hitler received very positively. Heusinger made available all information that he had on the conspirators who had plotted against the Führer. He reaffirmed that he had not participated in the assassination plot since he still felt an obligation to fulfil his duty as a soldier of the German Reich, despite his personal view that the war had been lost. After his release, he was placed into the Führerreserve, a reserve army of high-ranking Nazi military leaders awaiting assignments, and was not assigned to another position until 25 March 1945, when he was made chief of armed forces mapping department (Chef Wehrmacht-Kartenwesen). He was later taken prisoner by the Western Allies in May 1945.
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