Walter von Reichenau occupation military officer
Walter Karl Ernst August von Reichenau (8 October 1884 – 17 January 1942) was a field marshal in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. Reichenau commanded the 6th Army, during the invasions of Belgium and France. During Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, he continued to command the 6th Army as part of Army Group South as it captured Ukraine and advanced deep into Russia.
While in command of the 6th Army during Operation Barbarossa in 1941, he issued the notorious Severity Order which encouraged German soldiers to murder Jewish  civilians on the Eastern Front. Reichenau's troops cooperated with the SS Einsatzgruppen in the commission of the massacre of over 33,000 Jews at Babi Yar, and assisted with other crimes against humanity that occurred in areas under his command during the Holocaust.Interwar period
After the war, he joined the Grenzschutz Ost Freikorps as a General Staff officer, serving in Silesia and Pomerania. In 1919 Reichenau joined in the newly established Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic. The officer corps of the new armed forces' was limited to 4,000, and there was to be no General Staff. Reichenau took a post in the Truppenamt, which was the "underground" equivalent of the General Staff formed by Hans von Seeckt. He was promoted to Major in 1924, to Lieutenant Colonel on 1 April 1929 and Colonel on 1 February 1932. In 1930, Reichenau was appointed Chief of Staff to the Inspector of Signals at the Ministry of the Reichswehr. He was later introduced to Hitler in April 1932 by his uncle, a diplomat. Extremely ambitious, he saw the Nazi Party as a revolutionary vessel in which he could propel his career and so broke with the pro-Monarchist politics of the Prussian military caste and became a devoted Nazi.
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