Erich Hoepner Erich Hoepner ( 14 September 1886 – 8 August 1944 ) was a German general in World War II . A successful panzer leader , Hoepner was executed after the failed 20 July Plot in 1944 . Life . Hoepner was born in Frankfurt an der Oder , Brandenburg . He joined the German Army as an officer cadet in 1905 , was commissioned as a Lieutenant in 1906 and served as a cavalry officer during World War I , reaching the rank of Rittmeister . He remained in the Reichswehr in the Weimar Republic and reached the rank of General in 1936 . Hoepner was an early advocate of armoured warfare and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant - general and given command of the XVI Panzer Corps in 1938 . Hoepner , often called " Der Alte Reiter " ( the old cavalryman ) , led forces in the invasions of Poland ( 1939 ) and France ( 1940 ) , receiving the Knight ' s Cross of the Iron Cross . He was promoted to the rank of colonel - general in 1941 and given command of the Fourth Panzer Group for the invasion of the Soviet Union . Hoepner pulled back his forces in the face of the massive Russian counteroffensive at Moscow in January 1942 and was relieved of his command by Hitler , dismissed from the Wehrmacht and stripped of his decorations and pension rights . He then launched a successful legal action against the government for the restoration of his pension . While Hoepner was opposed to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles , he was also an early opponent of Adolf Hitler ' s rise to power , and he participated in several conspiracies to overthrow Hitler . In the September 1938 , attempt , at the time of the Munich Conference , Hoepner ' s forces were assigned the task of suppressing the SS following the planned capture and intended shooting of Hitler in the act of " resisting arrest " ; the plot collapsed , due to the capitulation by Chamberlain ( which completely undercut the basis for the coup ) , and Hoepner ' s role went undiscovered . Hoepner played an active part in the earliest conspiracies against Hitler . Like other conservative resisters , Hoepner thought Hitler ' s strategic decisions would lead to the ruin of Germany , which was the motivation in the September 1938 plot , in which Hoepner was supposed to use his armored division to impose the surrendering of Hitler ' s personal guard , the SS Leibstandarte , and another in October – November 1939 , after war had already begun - both involving the very top levels of the Abwehr and the High Command , the Oberkommando des Heeres , or OKH . Following the Fall of France , the fears that Hitler ' s expansionist policies would bring ruin upon Germany appeared to have been wrong , and Hoepner , like most opposition generals , even on the OKH , became less critical of Hitler . After Operation Barbarossa had stalled at the gates of Moscow Hoepner became active again . During his command on the Eastern Front , Hoepner pursued a policy of scorched earth , demanding " ruthless and complete destruction of the enemy " from his soldiers . As a commander of the Fourth Panzer Army , he wrote on May 2 , 1941 : " The war against the Soviet Union is the old struggle of the Germans against the Slavs , the warding off of the Jewish Bolshevism . No mercy should be shown towards the carriers of the present Russian Bolshevist system " The commander of the Einsatzgruppe A , Dr . Franz Walter Stahlecker , spoke highly of Hoepner and described his relations with him as " very close , yes , almost cordial " . Hoepner also wrote that Operation Barbarossa represented " the defense of European culture against Moscovite - Asiatic inundation , and the repulse of Jewish Bolshevism " , adding that destruction of Russia " must be conducted with unprecedented severity " . On 5 December 1941 Hoepner ordered a retreat of his over - extended forces , refusing to comply with Hitler ' s rigid categorical ' Halt Order ' . A month later in January 1942 , Hoepner was dismissed from the service with the loss of all his pension rights . Subsequently Hoepner instituted a lawsuit against the Reich over his pension rights . His lawsuit was successful . Hoepner was a participant in the 20 July Plot in 1944 and was present at the Bendlerblock ( Headquarters of the Army ) with General Friedrich Olbricht , Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg , Colonel Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim and Lieutenant Werner von Haeften . Following the failure of their coup attempt , he had a private conversation with General Friedrich Fromm and was not shot by firing squad with the others in the courtyard . Having already been dismissed from the Wehrmacht in 1942 , he was arrested that night and then tortured by the Gestapo , given a summary trial by the " Volksgerichtshof " and sentenced to death . Like other defendants including Erwin von Witzleben , Hoepner was made to wear ill fitting clothes and was not allowed to have his false teeth as a humiliation in his trial . Although judge Roland Freisler continued to brutally verbally attack Hoepner , even Freisler objected to Hoepner being made to dress in such a way . Hoepner was hanged on 8 August , in Berlin ' s Plötzensee Prison . After the war , a school in Berlin was named after him , but after his actions in occupied Soviet Union came to light , its name was changed . Portrayal in the media . In the 2004 German production , " Stauffenberg " , Hoepner is portrayed by actor Ronald Nitschke .