Rudolf Schmidt

Passions

Vocation

German Nazi general in the Wehrmacht during World War II who commanded the 2nd Panzer Army on the Eastern Front. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. In January 1942 Schmidt was promoted to Generaloberst. On 10 April 1943 he was relieved of his command after the Gestapo arrested his brother for spying for the French and found letters that Schmidt had written in which he was highly critical of Hitler’s conduct of the war and the Nazi Party. He appeared before a court martial but was acquitted and transferred to the leadership reserve on 30 September 1943. He was never re-employed. His brother Hans-Thilo Schmidt sold details of the Germans' Enigma machine and other sensitive military information to the French Deuxieme Bureau from 1931 until the German invasion of France in 1940. On 16 December 1947 Schmidt was arrested by Soviet forces on his way to his home in Weimar. Taken to Moscow, he was initially imprisoned at the Vladimir Central Prison and Butyrka prison. In 1952, he was sentenced to 25 years by a military tribunal. On 30 September 1955, Schmidt was among the last prisoners to be released. He died on 7 April 1957 in Krefeld, aged 70. Link to Wikipedia biography