Hermann-Eberhard Wildermuth
| Hermann-Eberhard Wildermuth | |
|---|---|
Hermann-Eberhard Wildermuth (far right standing) in Trent Park, November 1944
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|
| Born |
23 October 1890 Stuttgart |
| Died | 9 March 1952 (aged 61) Tübingen |
| Allegiance |
 German Empire (to 1918) Weimar Republic (to 1921) Nazi Germany
|
| Service/branch | Army |
| Years of service | 1908–21 ?–1945 |
| Rank | Oberst |
| Battles/wars |
|
| Awards | Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross |
| Other work | Politician |
Hermann-Eberhard Wildermuth (23 October 1890 – 9 March 1952) was a German politician and a member of the FDP/DVP. From 1949 until his death he was the Federal Minister for Housing under Konrad Adenauer. During World War II Wildermuth was a highly decorated colonel in the Wehrmacht and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. He was a grandson of the Swabian writer Ottilie Wildermuth.
After Wildermuth completed secondary schooling in 1908 he studied law and political sciences in Tübingen, Leipzig and Berlin from 1909 to 1914. In Tübingen, Wildermuth was a member of the South German liberal fraternity "Academic Society Stuttgardia". Here he met future political associates Reinhold Maier, Karl Georg Pfleiderer, Konrad Wittwer and Wolfgang Haussmann. After graduation in 1921 Wildermuth worked at the Imperial Institute for Job Placement and Unemployment in Berlin, and later as a senior executive officer eventually worked in the Ministry of Labour. From 1928 Wildermuth was director of Deutsche Bank's construction operations and in addition from 1930, board member, later president of the German Society for Public Works.
Wildermuth served in 1908/09 as a one-year volunteer in the 1st Württemberg Infantry Regiment. He returned as an officer of this regiment in the First World War, serving from 1914 to 1918 on the Western and Eastern Fronts and in Italy. From 1919 to 1921 he was commander of a battalion composed of students in Tübingen to quell uprisings against the Weimar republic. His main enemies in this period were the (Communist) Spartacus League, who returned the compliment by putting a price on his head. At the outbreak of the Second World War Wildermuth was drafted as a reserve major and during the Battle of France was commander of the Second Battalion of Infantry Regiment 272. In 1941/42 he served as commander of Infantry Regiment 737 in Serbia, where he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in December 1941. During this period he was ordered to undertake mass shootings in reprisal for partisan activity, but later stated that he never carried out such orders (though officers in nearby zones clearly did). As of 1 May 1942, Wildermuth was commander of Infantry Regiment 371 at Army Group Center on the Eastern Front and then from May 1943 as commander of Infantry Regiment 578 in Italy.
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