SS_Obergruppenfuhrer und General der Waffen-SS Karl Maria Demelhuber

SOME OF THE PRISONERS HELD AT
SPECIAL CAMP 11


Note: That Demelhuber is wearing a Finnish Cross of Liberty.

NAME: SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS
Karl-Maria Demelhuber

PW NO: B33421
RANK: SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS
CAPTURED: Schleswig-Holstein
DATE: 16th May 1945

PERSONAL

D.O.B: 27 May 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH: Freising, Oberbayern
DIED: 18 March 1988
PLACE OF DEATH: Seeshaupt, Bayern
NATIONALITY: German
RELIGION: "gottgläubig" ("believer in God")
OCCUPATION: Regular Soldier
HEIGHT: 178cms
WEIGHT: 10st 7lbs
HAIR COLOUR: Turning Grey
EYE COLOUR: Brown
NEXT OF KIN: Karl/Maria Demelhuber (American Zone)

Nicknamed "Tosca" after his favourite cologne, Demelhuber was the last living officer to hold the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer when he died in 1988. In The SS: Alibi of a Nation, 1922-1945, Gerald Reitlinger commented: "[General der Kavallerie Siegfried] Westphal writes contemptuously that in the Regular Army Demelhuber had been a horse groom." Obviously an exaggerated assessment, it nonetheless reflected the attitude many Regular Army officers felt towards their less classically military trained counterparts in the Waffen-SS.

NSDAP-Number: (Joined 20 February 1922 with NSDAP-Number 4 439; left after Munich Putsch and did not rejoin)
SS-Number: 252 392 (Joined 15 March 1935)

Promotions:

Polizei-Hauptmann: 1 June 1933

SA-Standartenführer: 1 May 1934

SS-Obersturmbannführer: 15 March 1935 (entered SS at that rank)

SS-Standartenführer: 1 October 1936

SS-Oberführer: 30 January 1940

SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS: 9 November 1941

SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS: 20 April 1942

SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS: 21 June 1944

Commands & Assignments:

2 August 1914: Enlisted as a War Volunteer in the Royal Bavarian 1. Feldartillerie-Regiment Prinz-Regent Luitpold seeing action on the Western Front including Arras and Verdun.

January 1915: Transferred to the antiaircraft section of his regiment.

March 1919-May 1920: Served with Freikorps "Epp" commanded by General Franz Xaver Ritter von Epp in the suppression of the communist uprisings in München and the Ruhr.

May 1919-February 1920: Served in Artillery Regiment 21.

February 1920: Separated from the Army, studied in München and found occupation as a salesman.

1 January 1921: Joined the Bavarian Landespolizei [Land Police] as a platoon leader.

10 March 1933-31 January 1935: Adjutant to the Police President of München.

31 January 1935: Left police service.

1 May 1934-15 March 1935: Joined the Sturm Abteilung (SA-the "Brown Shirts") and served as an instructor with the SA training command.

15 March 1935: Joined the SS.

1 April 1935: Commander of II Battalion/SS-Regiment "Deutschland."

1 October 1936: Commander of SS-Regiment "Germania" [His regiment saw action during the campaign in Poland in 1939 under the 14th Army attached to several different units. Later assigned to the SS-Verfügungs-Division commanded by SS-Gruppenführer Paul Hausser, Demelhuber's regiment saw action during the campaign in France in 1940.].

November 1940: Commander of Waffen-SS East in Krakau, General Government (Poland).

Demelhuber, then an SS-Oberführer and commander of SS-Regiment Germania,"
consulting with his divisional commander, then SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser, during the campaign in France, 1940

24 April 1941: Commander of the 1st SS-Infantry-Brigade (Motorized).

15 May 1941-20 April 1942: Commander of SS-Division "Nord" in Finland. [On 1 July 1941, the German Higher Command for Special Employment XXXVI commanded by General der Kavallerie z.V. Hans Feige, consisting of the 169th Infantry Division (Generalmajor Kurt Dittmar) and SS-Division "Nord" (Demelhuber) plus the attached Finnish 6th Division (Colonel Verner August Viikla) launched Operation "Polarfuchs" (Polar Fox), an attack against Russia from Finland with the objective of cutting the Murmansk Railroad at Kandalaksha. During hard fighting in which portions of SS-Division "Nord" broke and ran, the command captured Salla and Aalakurtti but ground to a halt in mid-September 1941 about 22 miles short of its objective. The command made no further gains and dug in along the Verman River. Composed primarily of poorly trained reservists and policemen, SS-Division "Nord" could not stand up to Russian veteran troops. Unable to trust the division to hold its own sector, Generaloberst Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, Commander-in-Chief of the Army High Command Norway, split the division up amongst other German and Finnish formations. Although Demelhuber had briefed his superiors on the shortfalls of his command, he was still held partly responsible for its poor performance.]

21 September 1941: While retaining titular command of SS-Division "Nord," Demelhuber briefly returned to Germany to assume duties as Inspector of SS Noncommissioned Officer Schools in the SS Main Operational Office.

11 June 1942-9 November 1944: Commander of Waffen-SS in the Netherlands [After 2 ½ years in this position, Demelhuber apparently threatened to resign unless his request for a combat assignment was honored.].

Photo shows the senior German military occupation authorities in the Netherlands attending a ceremony at Grebbeberg in 1943.

From left to right:

Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer Hanns Baptist Albin RAUTER (born 4 Feb 1895 Klagenfurt (Austria), died (firing squad) 24 Mar 1949 at the Waalsdorpervlakte near The Hague.
Wearing the black NSB (National Socialist Movement) uniform is Dutch national-socialist leader Anton Mussert. He was convicted of high treason on November 28 after a two day trial, and was sentenced to death on December 12 of that year. On 7th May 1946, Mussert was executed by a firing squad on the Waalsdorpervlakte, a site near The Hague where hundreds of Dutch citizens had been put to death by the Nazi regime.
SS-Gruppenführer Karl-Maria Demelhuber (in helmet), the Waffen-SS commander in the Netherlands.
Hitler's viceroy, the infamous Reich Commissioner of the Netherlands Dr. jur. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, (wearing glasses). He was hanged as a war criminal at Nuremberg, 16 October 1946.
Standing at far right (saluting) is Luftwaffe General der Flieger Friedrich Christiansen, the Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief of the Netherlands (note his Prussian Order Pour le Mérite around his neck-he won it as a Navy seaplane pilot in WWI).
Additional Information Courtesy of Arie Bos: The irony of this ceremony at the Grebbeberg is the fact that the victors and their dutch national-socialist supporters are staging a ceremony on the place where the dutch army almost checked the german advance in May 1940. Almost immediately after the cease fire on May 15 a military cemetary was made and handed over to the civil authorities on 20 May. Nowadays it's a memorial site where 425 dutch soldiers have their last resting place.

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