What military rank did Ferdinand Schörner have in Sep 1944?
Ferdinand Schörner Ferdinand Schörner ( 12 June 1892 – 2 July 1973 ) was a German general and later field marshal in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II . He commanded several army groups and was the last Commander-in-chief of the German Army . Schörner is commonly represented in historical literature as a simple disciplinarian and a slavish devotee of Hitlers defensive orders , after Germany lost the initiative in the second half of World War II in 1942/43 . More recent research by American historian Howard Davis Grier and German historian Karl-Heinz Frieser depicts Schörner as a talented commander with astonishing organizational ability in managing an army group of 500,000 men during the fighting in late 1944 on the Eastern Front . He was harsh against superiors as well as subordinates and carried out operations on his own authority against Hitlers orders when he considered it necessary , such as the evacuation of the Sõrve Peninsula . Schörner was a dedicated Nazi and became well known for his ruthlessness . By the end of World War II he was Hitlers favorite commander . Following the war he was convicted of war crimes by courts in the Soviet Union , and West Germany , and was imprisoned in the Soviet Union , East Germany and West Germany . At his death in 1973 he was the last living German field marshal . He is also considered by historians to be one of the main reasons why the German military did away with the rank of field marshal altogether . Early life . Schörner was born on 12 June 1892 in Munich , Kingdom of Bavaria , German Empire . He entered the Bavarian Army in October 1911 as a one-year volunteer with the Bavarian Leib Regiment , and by November 1914 he was a Leutnant der Reserve . Serving in World War I , he was awarded the Pour le Mérite military order as a lieutenant when he took part in the Battle of Caporetto , which shattered the Italian lines in autumn 1917 . Continuing in the Reichsheer , between the two wars , Schörner served as a staff officer and instructor . In 1923 he was adjutant to General Otto von Lossow , the commander of Wehrkreis VII ( military district ) in Munich and participated in the defeat of the Beer Hall Putsch . World War II . Schörner commanded the 98th Mountain Regiment in the invasion of Poland in 1939 . During the 1941 Balkans campaign , he commanded the German 6th Mountain Division and earned the Knights Cross for his role in breaching the Metaxas Line . With this division , Schörner took part in Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 . The 6th Gebirgs Division was assigned to the Arctic sectors in the Eastern Front . In 1942 as a General der Gebirgstruppe he took command of the XIX Mountain Corps , part of the German Army in Finland . With this command he participated in the failed attack on Murmansk and the stalemate war that followed . Schörners task was to keep the Pechenga Nickel Works in German hands . When the Soviets opened an offensive against the Arctic sector , the division took part in the fighting . In February 1942 , Schörner was promoted to the rank of Generalleutnant , commanding the Mountain Corps Norway . He later commanded the XXXX Panzer Corps on the Eastern Front from November 1943 to January 1944 . In March 1944 he was made commander of Army Group A , and in May commander of Army Group South Ukraine . After stating that the Crimean port of Sevastopol could be held for a long time even if Crimea fell , he changed his mind and against Hitlers wishes , evacuated the Black Sea port . This retreat occurred too late and the German–Romanian 17th Army that was holding Crimea suffered severe losses , with many men killed or captured while waiting on the piers to be evacuated . During the late spring of 1944 , Schörner oversaw the retreat from the Dniester River in Romania . Schörner was promoted to the rank of Generaloberst in May 1944 . In July he became commander of Army Group North , which was later renamed Army Group Courland , where he stayed until January 1945 when he was made commander of Army Group Centre , defending Czechoslovakia and the upper reaches of the River Oder . He became a favorite of high-level Nazi leaders such as Joseph Goebbels , whose diary entries from March and April 1945 have many words of praise for Schörner and his methods . On 5 April 1945 , Schörner was promoted to field marshal and was named as the new Commander-in-Chief of the German Army High Command ( OKH ) in Hitlers last testament . He nominally served in this post until the surrender of the Third Reich on 8 May 1945 but continued to command his army group , since no staff was available to him . He did not have any discernible influence in the final days of the Reich . On 7 May , the day General Alfred Jodl , Chief-of-Staff of the OKW was negotiating the surrender of all German forces at SHAEF , the last the OKW had heard from Schörner was on 2 May . He had reported he intended to fight his way west and surrender his army group to the Americans . On 8 May , OKW colonel Wilhelm Meyer-Detring was escorted through the American lines to contact Schörner . The colonel reported that Schörner had ordered his operational command to observe the surrender but he could not guarantee that he would be obeyed everywhere . Schörner ordered a continuation of fighting against Red Army and the Czech insurgents of the Prague uprising . Later that day , Schörner deserted and flew to Austria , where he was arrested by the Americans on 18 May . Elements of Army Group Centre continued to resist the overwhelming force of the Red Army invading Czechoslovakia during the final Prague Offensive . Units of Army Group Centre , the last big German units to surrender , capitulated on 11 May 1945 . Post-war trials and convictions . With the war over , on 18 May 1945 Schörner handed himself in to the Americans , who a few weeks later passed him over to the Soviet authorities as a prisoner of war . In August 1951 he was charged with war crimes , and in February 1952 the Military Board of the Soviet Supreme Court sentenced him to 25 years imprisonment . A decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in April 1952 reduced this sentence to 12 and a half years . A decree of December 1954 allowed him to be handed over to authorities of East Germany , and he was released in 1955 . Returning to West Germany , he was arrested and charged with executions of German Army soldiers accused of desertion , found guilty and sentenced to four and a half years jail . Schörner was released on August 4 , 1960 and lived in obscurity in Munich until his death in 1973 . In the late 1960s he gave a lengthy interview to Italian historian Mario Silvestri on his role and actions during the Austro-German victory at the Battle of Caporetto in World War I , but rarely spoke about his World War II service . Assessment . German veterans particularly criticized Schörner for a 1945 order that all soldiers found behind the front lines , who did not possess written orders to be there , were to be court-martialled on the spot and hanged if found guilty of desertion . This is mentioned in the writings of Siegfried Knappe , Hans von Luck and Joseph Goebbels . Deserters get no mercy from him Goebbels wrote of Schörner on 11 March 1945 . They are hanged from the nearest tree with a placard round their necks saying I am a deserter . I have declined to defend German women and children and therefore I have been hanged . ( Ich bin ein Deserteur . Ich habe mich geweigert , deutsche Frauen und Kinder zu beschützen und bin deshalb aufgehängt worden. ) Goebbels continued with , Naturally such methods are effective . Every man in Schörners area knows that he may die at the front but will inevitably die in the rear . Gottlob Bidermann , a German infantry officer who served in Schörners command in 1944–45 , reported in his memoirs that the General was despised by officers and men alike . Schörner was said to be devoted to Hitler , a view that is seen as confirmed by Hitlers appointment of Schörner as his replacement as Commander-in-Chief of the German Army on his suicide in the Last will and testament of Adolf Hitler . Schörner did not hesitate to second Hitlers fantasy in the last weeks of the war , agreeing that the Red Armys main objective would be Prague instead of Berlin ( in itself a colossal strategic blunder ) and so leading him to weaken the critically thin defense lines in front of Berlin . Historian Ian Kershaw described him in 2011 ( BBC History Magazine ) as extraordinarily brutal . In ( 2012 ) Kershaw describes Schörner as a fanatical ( Nazi ) loyalist , an indication of this being that he had served for a brief spell in March 1944 as Chief of the NS Leadership Staff of the Army . The latter was responsible for coordinating relations between the military and the Nazi Party . Awards and decorations . - Iron Cross ( 1914 ) 2nd Class ( 22 December 1914 ) & 1st Class ( 27 January 1917 ) - Pour le Mérite ( 5 December 1917 ) - Military Merit Cross , 3rd class with War Decoration ( Austria-Hungary , 20 April 1916 ) - Military Merit Order , 4th class with Swords and Crown ( Bavaria , 24 October 1917 ) - Clasp to the Iron Cross ( 1939 ) 2nd Class ( 12 September 1939 ) & 1st Class ( 20 September 1939 ) - Eastern Front Medal ( 20 August 1942 ) - Golden Party Badge of the NSDAP ( 30 January 1943 ) - Order of the Cross of Liberty 1st Class ( Finland , 1 July 1942 ) - Knights Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves , Swords and Diamonds - Knights Cross on 20 April 1941 as Generalmajor and commander of 6 . Gebirgs-Division - 398th Oak Leaves on 17 February 1944 as General der Gebirgstruppe and commander of XXXX . Panzerkorps - 93rd Swords on 28 August 1944 as Generaloberst and commander-in-chief of Heeresgruppe Nord - 23rd Diamonds on 1 January 1945 as Generaloberst and commander-in-chief of Heeresgruppe Nord