Dietrich von Saucken

Friedrich Wilhelm Eduard Kasimir Dietrich von Saucken (16 May 1892 – 27 September 1980) was a general in the German Army during World War II. Saucken commanded the 4th Panzer Division at Kursk, before becoming acting commander of the III Panzer Corps in June 1944. Turning down an offer to escape by air, he surrendered to the Red Army in May 1945. In captivity, he was crippled for life, before his release in 1955. Saucken was the last officer to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds.

Collegium Fridericianum

Saucken was born on 16 May 1892 in Fischhausen, East Prussia, a province in the Kingdom of Prussia. Today it is Primorsk in Baltiysky District of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia. He was the son of Landrat, the chief administrative officer of a Landkreis, Wilhelm Eduard Erich von Saucken and wife Berta Marie, née Westphal. As a child, Saucken attended the Collegium Fridericianum, a prestigious gymnasium in Königsberg, present-day Kaliningrad, where he graduated with his Abitur (university-preparatory high school diploma) in 1910. As a student, Saucken showed aptitude as an artist, a talent supported by his mother and the director of the Fridericianum, Georg Ellendt. He often visited Nidden, present-day Nida, Lithuania, where his ambitions to become an artist were influenced by the Künstlerkolonie Nidden, an expressionist artists' colony.

Following graduation, Saucken joined the Imperial German Army (Deutsches Heer) on 1 October 1910 as a Fahnenjunker (Cadet) in Grenadier-Regiment König Friedrich William I (2. Ostpreußisches) Nr. 3 (2nd East Prussian Grenadier Regiment King Frederick William I Nr. 3), one of the oldest Prussian regiments, subordinated to the 1. Division (1st Division) and based in Königsberg. There, he was promoted to Leutnant (second lieutenant) on 19 June 1912.

With the outbreak of World War I, the division was deployed on the Eastern Front. With the division, Saucken fought in the battles of Stallupönen, Gumbinnen, and Tannenberg and earned the Iron Cross 2nd Class in October 1914.

Saucken then fought in the Battle of Verdun and in the battles of the Carpathian Mountains in September 1917, and received the Iron Cross 1st Class in May 1916. For combat in the Spring Offensive and Hundred Days Offensive on the Western Front, he received the Prussian Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords and the Austrian Military Merit Cross. In 1918, he also served with the Baltic Sea Division under the command of General Rüdiger von der Goltz which fought in the Finnish Civil War (27 January – 15 May 1918).

After the First World War he served in the Volunteer Border Protection Unit East of the Freikorps and the Provisional National Army. In 1921 he joined the Reichswehr. From 1927 on he was on special assignment in the Soviet Union, where he learned to speak Russian. In 1934 he was promoted to Major and posted as an instructor to the War School Hannover. He was promoted to Oberst (colonel) on 1 June 1939.

Saucken commanded a regiment during the Invasion of Poland. After fighting in the Battle of France he was assigned command of the 4th Motorized Infantry Brigade, the main infantry component of the 4th Panzer Division. With the brigade he fought in the Balkan Campaign and in the early phase of the Eastern Front in Operation Barbarossa. He was promoted to Generalmajor on 1 January 1942 and Sauck appointed divisional commander during the Battle of Moscow. He was wounded and thereafter spent several months in the hospital. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) on January 6, and was appointed commandant of the School for Mobile Troops (Schule für Schnelle Truppen). On 1 April 1943 he was promoted to Generalleutnant; in June he returned to the 4th Panzer Division, which he commanded during the Battle of Kursk.

Saucken became acting commander of the III Panzer Corps in late June 1944. During his second tenure with the 4th Panzer Division, he was mentioned in the Wehrmachtbericht, the OKW's daily propaganda dispatch, for his service in the Gomel Sector. He received both the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub) and the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern) in 1944.

In June and July, Saucken formed Kampfgruppe von Saucken (Battlegroup von Saucken) an ad hoc unit composed of the remnants of several units that had been smashed in the Soviet Operation Bagration against the Army Group Centre. Composed mainly of the 5th Panzer Division, 170th Infantry Division and the 505th Heavy Panzer Battalion, the battlegroup was later designated the XXXIX Panzer Corps. During the Soviet Minsk Offensive, it temporarily maintained an escape route across the Berezina River for retreating German soldiers. For his actions, Saucken was mentioned in the Wehrmachtsbericht and, on 1 August 1944, promoted to General der Panzertruppe (General of Armored Troops).

Saucken left the XXXIX Panzer Corps in late September 1944, when he took command of the forming Panzerkorps Großdeutschland. The still incomplete corps was divided when half of it, including Saucken, was ordered eastward to stop the Vistula–Oder Offensive. He led the corps until February 1945, when he was removed from his position and placed in the Führerreserve by Heinz Guderian, the Chief of Staff of the Army at the OKH.

A month later Saucken commanded the Second Army in Prussia and provided logistical support to the Evacuation of East Prussia. In April, his army was renamed to Army East Prussia. On 8 May, Saucken received notice that he had been awarded the Knight's Cross with Oakleaves, Swords, and Diamonds (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub, Schwertern und Brillanten), making him the last of 27 officers to receive this award. Though an airplane stood by to evacuate him, he refused to leave his troops when they surrendered to the Red Army on the following day of 9 May 1945.

Oryol Prison

After surrendering on the Hel Peninsula, Saucken went into Soviet captivity. Initially he was imprisoned in the Lubyanka Building and the Oryol Prison before being transferred to the Siberian Tayshet camp in 1949. Kept in solitary confinement, ordered to hard labor and maltreated by Soviet interrogators after refusing to sign false confessions, Saucken was confined to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Released from Soviet captivity in 1955, he settled in Pullach near Munich. He died there in 1980.

A cavalry officer who regularly wore both a sword and a monocle, Saucken personified the archetypal aristocratic Prussian conservative who despised the braune Bande ("brown mob") of Nazis. When he was ordered to take command of the Second Army on 12 March 1945, he came to Hitler's headquarters with his left hand resting casually on his cavalry sabre, his monocle in his eye, . . . [and then] saluted and gave a slight bow. This was three 'outrages' at once. He had not given the Nazi salute with raised arm and the words 'Heil Hitler', as had been regulation since 20 July 1944, he had not surrendered his weapon on entering....and had kept his monocle in his eye when saluting Hitler.

When Hitler told him that he must take his orders from Albert Forster, the Gauleiter (Nazi governor, or "District Leader") of Danzig, Saucken returned Hitler's gaze....and striking the marble slab of the map table with the flat of his hand, he said, 'I have no intention, Herr Hitler, of placing myself under the orders of a Gauleiter'. In doing this he had bluntly contradicted Hitler and not addressed him as Mein Führer.

To the surprise of everyone who was present, Hitler capitulated and replied, "All right, Saucken, keep the command yourself." Hitler dismissed the General without shaking his hand and Saucken left the room with only the merest hint of a bow.

• Iron Cross (1914)
  • 2nd Class (19 October 1914)
  • 1st Class (23 May 1916)
• Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords
• Austrian Military Merit Cross (3rd Class with War Decoration)
• Bavarian Military Merit Cross (3rd Class)
• Panzer Badge in Silver (3rd Class)
• Wehrmacht Long Service Award 4th to 1st class
• Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918 with swords (1934)
• Eastern Front Medal (1942)
• War Merit Cross, 1st and 2nd class with Swords
• Wound Badge in Gold (1914 and 1939)
• Clasp to the Iron Cross (1939)
  • 2nd Class (13 September 1939)
  • 1st Class (3 October 1939)
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds
  • Knight's Cross on 6 January 1942 as Generalmajor and leader of the 4. Panzer-Division
  • 281st Oak Leaves on 22 August 1943 as Generalleutnant and commander of the 4. Panzer-Division
  • 46th Swords on 31 January 1944 as Generalleutnant and commander of the 4. Panzer-Division
  • 27th Diamonds on 8 May 1945 as General der Panzertruppe and commander in chief of AOK Ostpreußen
• Mentioned three times in the Wehrmachtbericht (3 December 1943; 5 July 1944; 9 May 1945)

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