25 Facts About Hans Speidel

Hans Speidel was a German military officer who successively served in the armies of the German Empire, Nazi Germany and West Germany.

Hans Speidel served as Commander of the Allied Land Forces Central Europe from 1957 to 1963 and then as President of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs from 1964.

Hans Speidel served as chief of staff to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel during World War II and was promoted to lieutenant general in 1944.

Hans Speidel is thus regarded as one of the founders of the Bundeswehr.

Hans Speidel was appointed as the military advisor of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1950 and joined the predecessor of the Federal Ministry of Defence in 1951, was the West German chief delegate to the conference on the Treaty establishing the European Defence Community from 1951 to 1954 and was a lead negotiator when West Germany joined NATO.

Hans Speidel served as COMLANDCENT from 1957 to 1963, with headquarters at the Palace of Fontainebleau in Paris.

Hans Speidel was a historian by training, taught at the University of Tubingen and wrote several books.

Hans Speidel received the Grand Cross with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1963.

Hans Speidel was the father of Brigadier General Hans Helmut Speidel and the father-in-law of European Commissioner and liberal politician Guido Brunner.

Hans Speidel joined the German Army in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War and was quickly promoted to second lieutenant.

Hans Speidel stayed in the German Army during the interwar period and studied history and economics at different universities.

Hans Speidel took part in the invasion of France of 1940 and in August became Chief of Staff of the military commander in France.

Hans Speidel would send reports on the reprisals to the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht in Berlin, and at one point attempted to justify the measures, claiming that they were aimed at the Jewish communists who were behind attacks on the Wehrmacht.

In 1942 Hans Speidel was sent to the Eastern Front where he served as Chief of Staff of the 5th Army Corps, and as Chief of Staff of 8th Army in 1943, where he was promoted to general.

When Rommel was wounded, Hans Speidel continued as Chief of Staff for the new commander of Army Group B, Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge.

On 26 August 1944, Hans Speidel answered the phone when Alfred Jodl, the OKW chief of staff, called Field Marshal Walter Model, commander in chief of the western front, with Hitler's order to start targeting Paris immediately with V1 and V2 rockets.

Hans Speidel managed to become Rommel's confidant, purely by chance: Lucie Rommel, after having an argument with the wife of Alfred Gause about who had the more honourable place at a wedding, decided to not only evict the Gause couple out of her house but to order her husband to dismiss Alfred Gause as well.

Hans Speidel's involvement was suspected by the Gestapo, and he was arrested on 7 September 1944.

Maurice Remy comments that Hans Speidel's testimony did not truly betray Rommel, although Hans Speidel probably blamed himself until his death for his revered Field Marshal's fate afterwards.

Hans Speidel was jailed for seven months by the Gestapo.

In 1950, Hans Speidel was one of the authors of the Himmerod memorandum which addressed the issue of rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany after World War II.

Hans Speidel was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied NATO ground forces in Central Europe in April 1957, a command that he held until retirement in September 1963.

Hans Speidel's headquarters were at the Palace of Fontainebleau in Paris.

In 1960, Hans Speidel took legal action against an East German film studio which portrayed him as having been privy to the assassinations of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou in 1934, as well as having betrayed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to the Nazis after the 20 July Plot in 1944.

Hans Speidel died in 1984 at Bad Honnef, North Rhine-Westphalia, aged 87.