Hans von Salmuth
Biography
Hans von Salmuth was born on November 11, 1888, in Metz, then under Prussian rule. He enlisted in the Imperial Army on September 19, 1907, and took part in the First World War. In 1918, promoted to the rank of captain, he decided to pursue a career in the military and remained in the Reichswehr.
A colonel by May 1, 1934, he served on the staff of the 2nd Corps until August 1937. Promoted to general, he was appointed to the staff of the 2nd Army before becoming chief of staff of Army Group North (commanded by Fedor von Bock) in 1939. He participated in the invasion of Poland and then commanded Army Group B during the Battle of France in 1940.
The following year, von Salmuth was sent to the Russian front in command of the 30th Corps, with which he participated in Operation Barbarossa. From February to July 1943, he commanded the 2nd Army. The following month, he took command of the 15th Army (comprising 18 divisions), which was then stationed in the Pas-de-Calais, in an area likely to be chosen by the Allies for a massive landing to open a front in the west.
These 250,000 soldiers pre-positioned in Upper Normandy represented a significant threat to Operation Overlord, so the Allies developed a series of deception missions as part of Operation Fortitude, which notably misled von Salmuth. On June 6, 1944, he was convinced that the Normandy landings were merely a diversion and gave no orders to move towards Calvados.
The 15th Army awaited a hypothetical landing in the Pas-de-Calais, which never materialized, and was only sent to Lower Normandy at the end of August, when the Allies could no longer be pushed back to the sea. Held responsible by Hitler for the consequences of his army’s inactivity during the two months of fighting in Normandy, Hans von Salmuth was relieved of his command, especially since he had been in contact with officers plotting against the Führer.
At the end of the war, he was taken prisoner and tried at the Nuremberg Trials. Sentenced in 1948 to twenty years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity, he was finally released in 1953. He died in 1962 in Heidelberg and is buried in Wiesbaden.
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