Ferdinand Schörner Ferdinand Schörner ( 12 June 1892 – 2 July 1973 ) was a General and later Field Marshal ( " Generalfeldmarschall " ) in the German Army ( " Wehrmacht Heer " ) during World War II . He was one of 27 people to be awarded the Knight ' s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves , Swords and Diamonds ( " Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub , Schwertern und Brillanten " ) and one of the youngest German generals . The Knight ' s Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grade the Oak Leaves , Swords and Diamonds was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or outstanding military leadership . Schörner was a convinced Nazi and became infamous for his brutality . By the end of World War II he was Hitler ' s favourite commander . Early life . Schörner was born on 12 June 1892 in Munich in the Kingdom of Bavaria , a federated state of the German Empire . A noted veteran of World War I , he was awarded the Pour le Mérite military order as a lieutenant when he took part in the Austro - Hungarian and German Caporetto Offensive , which shattered the Italian lines in the fall of 1917 . Schörner served as a staff officer and instructor between the two wars . In 1923 he was adjutant to General von Lossow , the Commander of Military District VII in Munich , and participated in the defeat of the Beer Hall Putsch . As an army instructor he was instrumental in turning the Waffen SS from a paramilitary force into a corps of military stormtrooper s able to fight alongside the Wehrmacht . World War II . Schörner was highly successful during the German campaigns in Poland , commanding the 98th Mountain Regiment . During the Balkans campaign he commanded the German 6th Mountain Division and earned the Knight ' s Cross for his role in breaching the famous Metaxas Line . He remained with this division for the remainder of the year and took part in Operation Barbarossa . When the German Invasion of the Soviet Union began , 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 resulted from it . His famous statement " " Arktis ist nichts " " ( " the Arctic is nothing " ) originated here , meaning that Arctic climatic conditions were not bad enough to negatively affect the German soldiers . Schorner ' s primary job was to keep the Pechenga Nickel Works in German hands . When the Soviets opened an offensive against the Arctic sector , the 6th Gebirgs . Division took part in the Defensive ; it is said that during these battles , Schorner took part in hand to hand combat with his men . In January 1942 , Schorner was promoted to the rank of Generalleutnant , commanding the Mounted Corps Norway . While commanding the Mounted Corps Norway , Schorner held off Soviet offensives . He later commanded the German 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 initially stating that the Crimean port of Sevastopol could be held for a long time even if Crimea fell , he changed his mind and , against Hitler ' s wishes , evacuated the Black Sea port . This retreat occurred too late , and the German / Romanian 17th Army which 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 managed in a series of defensive battles to stabilize the crumbling front in the south on the Dniester River in Romania . Schörner was promoted to the rank of " Generaloberst " in April 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 . Finally , on 4 April 1945 , Schörner was promoted to Field Marshal and was named as the new Commander - in - Chief of the German Army ( Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres ) in Hitler ' s last testament . He nominally served in this post until the surrender of the Third Reich on 8 May 1945 , but in reality , 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 German Armed Forces High Command ( German acroynym " 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 an " 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 . In fact , Schörner ordered a continuation of fighting against Red Army and Czech insurgents . Later that day Schörner deserted his command and flew to Austria where on 18 May he was arrested by the Americans . Elements of Army Group Centre continued to resist the overwhelming force of the Red Army liberating Czechoslovakia during the final Prague Offensive . Units of Army Group Centre were the last large - size German units to surrender , on 11 May 1945 . Post - war trials and imprisonments . Schörner was arrested in August 1951 by the Soviet authorities on charges that " he occupied positions of command in the former German Army , actively participating in the preparation and carrying on of a criminal war against the USSR in violation of international law and treaties . " In February 1952 the Military Board of the USSR Supreme Court sentenced him to 25 years ' imprisonment . A decree of the Praesidium 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 the German Democratic Republic , who allowed him to leave for West Germany in 1958 . There he was arrested and charged with the illegal executions of German Army soldiers accused of desertion . He was found guilty and sentenced to four and a half years ' jail , which he served . He was released in 1963 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 which centered on his role and actions during the Austro - German victory at the battle of Caporetto in World War I rather than on his World War II service . At the time of his death he was the last living German field marshal , having outlived Erich von Manstein by 23 days . No field marshals have been created since . He is buried in Mittenwald . Criticism . 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 in that particular area , were to be court - martialed 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 . ' " The approving Goebbels continued with , " Naturally such methods are effective . Every man in Schörner ' s area knows that he may die at the front but will inevitably die in the rear . " Gottlob H . Bidermann , a German infantry officer who served in Schörner ' s command in 1944 - 45 , reported in his memoirs that the General was despised by officers and men alike . Schörner was said to never have uttered a word of praise , and would demote or punitively transfer soldiers on the spot for the most minor infractions , even as the War was ending . Bidermann was especially bitter that while Schörner ' s men were marched off to die in Soviet POW camps at the cessation of hostilities , Schörner made certain that he personally avoided their fate . When captured by the Americans in their sector , Schörner is said to have been dressed as a Bavarian non - combatant , behavior he had only recently had his soldiers executed for . Though despised by his men , Schörner was loved in Berlin . He was very devoted to Hitler , a view that is seen as confirmed by Hitler ' s appointment of Schörner as his replacement as Commander - in - Chief of the German Army on his suicide ; ( see Hitler ' s " Last Will " ) . Moreover Schörner did not hesitate to second Hitler ' s daydreams in the last weeks of the war , agreeing that the Red Army ' s main objective would be Prague instead of Berlin ( in itself a colossal strategic blunder ) , and so leading him to weaken the already critically thin defense lines in front of the German capital to counter this perceived threat . Ian Kershaw described him in 2011 ( BBC History Magazine ) as " " extraordinarily brutal " " . In his book " The End " ( p50 ) the historian Ian 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 .