Background
Adolf Heusinger was born on 4 August 1897 in Holzminden, the son of a school teacher.
Adolf Heusinger was born on 4 August 1897 in Holzminden, the son of a school teacher.
Following the war, Heusinger was retained in the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic. In 1931, Heusinger was assigned to the operations staff of the Troop Office (Truppenamt) in the Ministry of the Reichswehr, the German Army's covert General Staff in circumvention of the Treaty of Versailles, which forbade that institution. In August 1937, Heusinger was assigned to the Operations Staff of the re-established Army General Staff. He served there, being promoted to lieutenant colonel on March 20, 1939, and remained in that position until October 15, 1940, when he became its chief.
After entering the Imperial army as a cadet in 1915, Heusinger fought on the western front during World War I. After joining the Reichswehr, he served on the General Staff from 1931 and was promoted in 1937 to Major in the Operations Section of the Army High Command (OKW). On 1 October 1940 Heusinger was appointed Brigadier and made Chief of Operations in the High Command.
In 1941 he was promoted to Major General and in 1943 to Lieutenant-General. Following the dismissal of Kurt Zeitzler and before his replacement by General Guderian as Army Chief of Staff, Heusinger was effectively running the operational side of the German military machine.
He was present at Hitler’s headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia, on 20 July 1944 reporting on the situation following the Russian breakthrough on the eastern front, when a tremendous explosion blasted the room, shattering the central table and destroying the ceiling.
Heusinger, who was only slightly wounded, was arrested two days later and tried in August by the People's Court, accused of having known about the conspiracy. He was released in October 1944 but relieved of active duty. A witness in the Nuremberg trials, Heusinger, who had never been a genuine Nazi, was kept in Allied detention until 1948.
A year later he was appointed military adviser to Konrad Adenauer and in 1951 he was involved as a specialist in discussions concerning the European defence community.
After 1952 General Heusinger took a leading part in planning the new Bundeswehr (the West German armed forces), serving as its Inspector-General from June 1957 until 1961. He had earlier succeeded General Speidel as Chief of the Armed Forces in the Federal Ministry of Defence.
From 1961 until his retirement three years later, Heusinger was Chairman of the NATO armed forces based in Washington.