Page "Ferdinand Schörner" Paragraph 48

German veterans particularly criticized Schörner for a 1945 order that all soldiers found behind the front lines, who did not possess written orders to be in that particular area, were to be court-martialed on the spot and hanged if found guilty of desertion.

This is mentioned in the writings of Siegfried Knappe, Hans von Luck, and Joseph Goebbels.

" Deserters get no mercy from him ," Goebbels wrote of Schörner on 11 March 1945.

" They are hanged from the nearest tree with a placard round their necks saying: ' I am a deserter.

I have declined to defend German women and children and therefore I have been hanged.

'" The approving Goebbels continued with, " Naturally such methods are effective.

Every man in Schörner's area knows that he may die at the front but will inevitably die in the rear.

" Gottlob H. Bidermann, a German infantry officer who served in Schörner's command in 1944-45, reported in his memoirs that the General was despised by officers and men alike.

Schörner was said to never to have uttered a word of praise, and would demote or punitively transfer soldiers on the spot for the most minor infractions, even as the War was ending.

Bidermann was especially bitter that while Schörner's men were marched off to die in Soviet POW camps at the cessation of hostilities, Schörner made certain that he personally avoided their fate.

When captured by the Americans in their sector, Schörner is said to have been dressed as a Bavarian non-combatant ... behavior he had only recently had his soldiers executed for.

Though despised by his men, Schörner was loved in Berlin.

He was very devoted to Hitler, a view that is seen as confirmed by Hitler's appointment of Schörner as his replacement as Commander-in-Chief of the German Army on his suicide ; ( see Hitler's Last Will ).

Moreover Schörner did not hesitate to second Hitler's daydreams in the last weeks of the war, agreeing that the Red Army's main objective would be Prague instead of Berlin ( in itself a colossal strategic blunder ), and so leading him to weaken the already critically thin defense lines in front of the German capital to counter this perceived threat.