The Life of Ferdinand Cernar

Cernar and his Mountain Infantry Regiment performed well in the Polish campaign, especially commanding the 98th and 99th Mountain Infantry Regiments to attack Lviv on September 12, and successfully defended the attack of Polish troops east of Lviv with a small number of troops, so their rank was promoted to colonel. The Germans soon opened up the western front, and Cernar became the commander of the newly established 6th Mountain Infantry Division, responsible for the eastern assault launched from Vogerson across the Rhine. After the French campaign, Cernar should have participated in the plan of sea lions invading Britain, but he gave up because of the failure of German-British air combat. 1in August, 1940, Cernar was promoted to major general. Then in June, 194 1, he led the 6th Mountain Infantry Division to take part in the attack on the Greek and British troops in the Balkan theater, and broke through the Greek defense line in Metaxas. 1941On April 20th, Chenal won the Knights Iron Cross. On April 27th, his vanguard troops raised the German flag on Mount Olympus and the Acropolis, becoming the first German division to occupy this area.

East line

194 1 In June, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and opened up the eastern front battlefield. In autumn, Cernar and his mountain infantry were sent to Murmansk to replace eduard dietl. Chenal then commanded the 19 Mountain Army in northern Finland, responsible for attacking allied merchant ships that came to the port via the Atlantic Ocean and protecting nickel mines near Pehenga province. In this area, Cernar defended the attack of Soviet superior forces many times, and did not make any land fall into his hands. When Chenal fought there, he always set up a command post in the center of the army to coordinate. During this time, he has a saying.

The popular slogan in the army: "Even the North Pole is no big deal! (german: Arktis ist nichts! ) "to inspire the fighting morale of the Arctic troops. 1942 was extended to Lieutenant General on February 28th; Zep 1942 was only 18 years old when he reported to the Eastern Front. He was a rifleman. Zep was unfortunately injured in the battle of stavropol, but he also tried to capture a Soviet sniper rifle during his recovery. Finally, he finally killed 27 people with a sniper, and then he was selected to enter Seetaleralpe for sniper training. After the training, the troops distributed a K98 sniper rifle with an optical sight magnified 6 times to Zepu. However, Zep claimed that he had been using a Russian sniper rifle (probably a Mosinnagan rifle) that he had personally seized, and later switched to his own K98 sniper rifle. As for the Gew 43 rifle made by Washer, Zep will be used to perform the task as appropriate. What Zepu relishes in the battle is that he will use the skills he learned during training to add leaves to an umbrella skeleton with an umbrella cloth removed, and then put the umbrella in front of him, which becomes a hidden body in disguise. Such a hidden fuselage is not only light, but also can be collected and carried when not in use, and can be used almost everywhere. /kloc-promoted to general in May of 0/5.

Soviet counterattack

1943 65438+ 10, Cernar became a member of the Nazi party. The Soviet Red Army began to counterattack and the Germans began to retreat. 1943, 165438+ 10. In October, Chenal was in charge of commanding the 20th Panzer Corps. In the early stage, Cernar led his troops to repel the Soviet attack many times, but in 1944, the Soviet army broke through the defense of 30 troops, which made the whole army face the danger of being besieged, but he still insisted on the 3-kilometer retreat route and the whole army escaped from being trapped. In addition, Hitler asked him to stick to the bridgehead on the east bank of the Nipper River, but Cernar and his men thought it was not feasible and did not hesitate to withdraw against orders. On February 1944 and 17, Chenal added "oak leaf" to the Knights Iron Cross.

When Cernar commanded the Romanian Legion, he linked it with the German defense line, so that ion antonescu (the highest military authority in Romania) could not let go of his own army; At the same time, in order to improve the morale of Romanians, they infiltrated their troops into German commanders and tried to give them complete equipment. He also ordered that anyone who gave up his position should be regarded as an fleeing enemy and executed unconditionally; If the Soviet army breaks through the defense line to the rear, the German army in front will fill the gap as soon as possible, the Soviet army in the rear will continue to advance and the soldiers in the rear will be punished. In contrast, any soldier who destroys Soviet tanks with rockets or armored boxing will have a three-week long vacation. Cernar was also appointed as the director of the "National Socialist Command" of the Army General Command, and he had a fierce quarrel with martin bormann of the Nazi Party. The reason is that Bowman insisted on using party member as the Army Command, while Cernar objected and resigned after taking this position 14 days.

Continue to retreat

1944 In March, he changed his command to Army A, and in May, he took over as commander-in-chief of the South Ukrainian Army. Under the Soviet offensive, German and Romanian troops were forced to retreat to the vicinity of Sevastopol, and the Fuehrer's base camp believed that even if Crimea fell, it could be guarded for a long time. In order to get rid of the panic crisis, Cernar quickly persuaded Hitler to retreat to the Black Sea port, but when Hitler agreed, it was too late. The German/Romanian 17 army had suffered heavy losses and lost a lot of equipment. The scene was in chaos, and many people gathered in the port waiting to retreat. In the late spring of 1944, Chenal directed a series of defensive actions to stabilize the Transnistrian River, which is a natural defense line very close to the Romanian mainland. Later, when the Soviet army broke through the defense line with superior forces, he found that the Sixth Army was facing the possibility of being encircled and asked the Fuehrer's base camp to retreat again. But he was rejected because he wanted to consider the political interests of Romania and Turkey (mainly because he didn't want to see Crimea return to Soviet hands). ChengNaEr flew to the Fuehrer's base camp to meet with alfred jodl, the first-class general of the High Command, and got the same answer. Chenal once again disobeyed orders, ordered the Sixth Army to leave there, and set up a new defense line on the south bank of the Nipper River. Although Chenal lost Odessa, he kept most of his manpower and equipment, and this new defense line was defended until August 20.

1In July, 944, Chenal became the commander of the reorganized Union Army (the Union Army later assembled its remnants and renamed it the Kurlan Army). After taking office, he knew that the German army could not stop the Soviet breakthrough, and ordered the 16 Legion and the Narwa Battle Group (Narva) located in the north of Riga-Fort Denner to leave the enemy as soon as possible, cross the Riga Corridor to Kurland and abandon the cities in the northern Baltic Sea. On August 8, Chenal added "sword" to his knighthood. Cernar also refused to obey Hitler's order to "stick to Salma Island" and secretly evacuated 20,000 German troops who would have been completely annihilated.

1 945,65438+10/,Chenal won the Knight's Iron Cross with diamonds, oak leaves and swords. However, on 12, the Soviet army launched an offensive on the Vistula-Oder River, which not only broke through the baranov defense line, but also advanced further. On 20th, Chennault was first appointed commander of A Army, and was later appointed commander-in-chief of the Central Army. However, the Soviet Union launched a series of offensives in East Prussia, and the Germans could not defend themselves effectively, which made it impossible to resist the Soviet attack on German soil. At this time, the number of German and Soviet tanks was one to seven, the number of infantry was one to ten, the number of artillery was one to twenty, and the number of aircraft was one to forty. Cernar had to continue to withdraw its troops to avoid the tough offensive of the Soviet Union and reduce its casualties. It took 20 days to withdraw its troops to the Oder River between Latibauer and Kosele. After the war with the Cernar Legion and the Silesia offensive (in order to eliminate the flank threat when attacking Berlin), the Soviets spent too much money and suspended the attack to reorganize the army. On February 25th, 1945, an article in Free Germany began to be printed as a leaflet and distributed to the front. The main content is to disturb German morale and criticize Cernar, which has also become a basis for the West German media to comment on Cernar after the war.

Continental Germany

Cernar helped the refugees in Sudetenland and Silesia to evacuate in the later period of the war, and about 6,543,800 people were evacuated from the Soviet-occupied areas. At the same time, he sent many soldiers and national commandos to carry out similar suicide attacks to resist the Soviet Union and rescue more refugees. He became the favorite military general of Nazi high-level, such as Nazi German propaganda minister Josef Goebbels. In his 1945 March and April diary, there are many words praising Chenal. "The head of state also thinks that Chenal is the best commander of our army ... Chenal has solved the front line and restored the morale of the army there. Chennault reported to the Fuehrer that drastic measures had been taken to achieve this goal. He didn't forgive the soldier who ran away from the enemy. He hung the deserter from a tree and hung a sign on his body, which said,' I am a deserter, so I was hanged for failing to protect German women and children.' This method is obviously very effective, and the soldiers under the command of Chenal will clearly realize before they die that if they escape from the rear, they will die. "

–Josef Goebbels's diary,1March 945 12. 1945 On April 5, Cernar was promoted to field marshal (but Hitler didn't advise him as a marshal because of the dangerous situation in Germany), and on April 30, he was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the German Defence Force Army and the commander-in-chief of the Alpine fortress. However, at this time, there are not enough soldiers in the house.

Command, he can only be the nominal army commander-in-chief, and has no influence on the final failure of Nazi Germany. On May 7th, Chenal disbanded his troops and staff, and then left at midnight. On May 8, Nazi Germany surrendered. After the war, the West German media and Cernar's soldiers pointed out that on May 18, Cernar abandoned his subordinates in Berlin and left by Stork. He went to Tyrol to meet guderian, and guderian was captured by the Allies. Later, Scheiner also surrendered to the American army at the headquarters of the First German Army Corps, and the American army quickly handed him over to the Soviet army. The reason why he left to command the group army was that he was afraid of falling into the hands of the Soviet Union, and that he was going to command the Alpine fortress and rectify the whole line as a backup. Soviet prison

Cernar was later sent to the 27th POW camp in Krasnogorsk near Moscow. After being taken in for a short time, Schenar was forced to move to a different place. He was tortured by the People's Internal Affairs Committee in Lubyanka and Lefortsovkaya, and was treated inhumanely in Butyrskaya. Later, due to Cernar's early record of eliminating party member in western Germany with the army, and "as Hitler's favorite, he commanded the German army in the occupied area and actively participated in the preparation of the war against the Soviet Union, which violated international laws and treaties", the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union sentenced him to 25 years' imprisonment (50 years from the original judgment) in February 1952, and forced him to work in the military commission because he stood out for other prisoners in the political prison. The sentence was later reduced to 18. While serving his sentence in Chenal prison, he repeatedly rejected the Soviet Union's proposal to let him join the National Committee of Free Germany.

Reports from West Germany

During the Soviet prison camp, many local media in West Germany reported on Cernar. The British Daily Telegraph reported on June 1950, 65438+1October1Japan: "Cernar wrote from North Korea that he was an adviser to the North Korean Army General Command." On June 20th, 1952, Lubecker Nachrichten reported: "Chenal was sent to work in an infantry school in Russia, where he taught attack tactics and army command." He also said, "He was indeed summoned by Stalin." The Echo of May 1952 reported that "Marshal Cernar was a Soviet spy in the Near East." British journalist Antheunis Terry reported: "According to the intelligence information of the Soviet Union, former German Marshal Chainal now commands an' Arab Ranger' with about 40,000 people of his own, and all weapons were obtained from the warehouses of the former German Defence Forces." There are other reports, such as "Cernar became the marshal of the Soviet Union and the director of the East German People's Army, but Cernar is actually no longer alive", but most of these reports were released behind the scenes by the East German government and Moscow, with the main purpose of arousing the West German people to oppose Germany's rearmament and let Cernar stay in East Germany to work for it.

east germany

1952 in April, Chenal's sentence was reduced to 12 and 6 months. Cernar was released from a Soviet prison camp and arrived in East Berlin on 1955. He was welcomed by Ludwig, President of the Red Cross Society in the Soviet-occupied area, Gesner, a worker of the German Social Unity Party, Pushkin, the representative of the Soviet ambassador, and the delegation of the former National Defence Force. In the "John Hotel" in East Berlin, Gerhard of the former Wehrmacht. Gassner said, "Don't have any illusions! If you want to go to the west, you will be arrested as soon as you cross the border. Otherwise, we will use our means and strength to make you and your children unable to survive. What do you want in the west? Here you can know from the West German newspaper you read every day! " In February 65438, he was handed over to the East German authorities and was not allowed to go to West Germany until 1958.

West german court

After returning to Munich, West Germany, Chenal was sued by the local court, accusing him of executing Colonel Arndt without trial in March 1945 because he was found drunk behind the wheel of a supply truck. Chenal's lawyer is Rudolf Aschenauer. Later, schenauer found a witness and pointed out that arndt was not executed, but was released by other officers, but this testimony was not Nazi.

The court rejected the request for retrial. In addition, Chenal was also charged with two counts of attempted murder:1When Nietz fell on March 24, 945, Chenal thought it was the negligence of Colonel Sparre, the commander there, and demanded the execution of the commander and his deputy (but in fact, the colonel fell because of a heart attack and lack of command ability). After arguing with Chenal, Goldhard Heinrich and Friedrich Schulz cancelled the order, but Chenal was sentenced to four and a half years in prison and deprived of his pension. Chenal said after the verdict: "I am willing to take full responsibility for everything I have done. I served my country and made every effort to stand on the front line to resist the Bolshevik attack ... "He was released from landsberg prison (German: JustizVolzugsanstallandsberg) in 1963 and lived in obscurity in Munich (although German President Heinrich Lubeck gave him a part of his pension, he still needed the help of his relatives and friends) until 6543. In the late 1960s, Italian historian Mario Silvestri visited Cernar. His performance in World War I was not in World War II.