The general who represented Germany's surrender in Italy
On 29 April 1945 at Caserta, his representatives signed the surrender instrument for the German forces in Italy.
Born into a Prussian military family, Heinrich von Vietinghoff became a senior commander after serving in the Imperial Army and the Reichswehr. He took part in the invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union, and from 1943 commanded German defensive operations in occupied Italy. In April 1945 he negotiated with the Allies at Caserta and represented the German forces in the surrender arrangements, making him a central participant in ending the German war in Italy. After captivity, he joined West German rearmament discussions.
Also known as: Heinrich Gottfried Otto Richard von Vietinghoff genannt Scheel
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1906–1918Officer in the Prussian Army; served in the First World War
- 1919–1935Officer of the Reichswehr; served in the Army Ministry and corps staff
- 1938–1939Commander of the 5th Panzer Division
- 1940–1942Commander of the XLVI Panzer Corps in the Balkans and on the Eastern Front
- 1942–1943Commander-in-chief of the Ninth and Fifteenth Armies
- 1943–1944Commander-in-chief of the Tenth Army in Italy, defending the Gustav and Gothic Lines
- 1944–1945Commander-in-chief of Army Group C and the Southwest theatre
- 1945Represented the German forces in the Caserta surrender arrangements
Related historical events
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarGerman corps commanderHe commanded the XLVI Panzer Corps in Operation Barbarossa and fought on the Eastern Front.
- 1943–1945The Italian Campaign and the Fall of Mussolinisignatory representative of the surrenderHe signed the surrender document at Caserta on April 29, 1945, and was a direct party to its taking effect on May 2.
XLVI Panzer Corps and the criminal orders on the Eastern Front (1941–1942)
On 6 June 1941 the Wehrmacht High Command issued the so-called Commissar Order, directing that Red Army political commissars be shot without trial as soon as they were captured in battle. The order went to every German corps commander on that front, and commanders such as Erich von Manstein who passed it to their troops were later convicted by a British court; Manstein claimed in his memoirs that he had never enforced the order, a claim historians such as Jürgen Förster refuted by showing that the majority of German units carried it out.
From 22 June 1941 Vietinghoff's XLVI Panzer Corps fought in Operation Barbarossa under Fedor von Bock's Army Group Centre, at Kiev, Vyazma and Volokolamsk. English-language reference material records that, "as did all commanders of the German corps on the Eastern Front during the invasion, Vietinghoff implemented the criminal Commissar Order". The same entry does not specify which of his orders document that transmission and enforcement, or how individual units carried it out, so the precise scope of his command responsibility still depends on the state of the records. This account rests on an English-language encyclopaedic entry; the German-language entry does not name him as responsible for individual war crimes.
In the same theatre he also served alongside Heinz Guderian's 2nd Panzer Army, and on 22 April 1942, as a General der Panzertruppe, he received the German Cross in Gold. On 10 June 1942 he took over the Ninth Army as deputy commander for the wounded Walter Model, which ended his corps command on the Eastern Front.