Background
Alexander von Falkenhausen was born on 29 October 1878 in Blumenthal, Silesia, he was a descended from a Junker family,
Alexander von Falkenhausen was born on 29 October 1878 in Blumenthal, Silesia, he was a descended from a Junker family,
He attended a Gymnasium in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) and then the cadet school at Wahlstatt (now Legnickie Pole). In his youth, Falkenhausen showed an interest in Eastern Asia and its societies. He travelled and studied in Japan, northern China, Korea and Indochina from 1909–1911.
A professional soldier of the old Prussian school, he was military attaché to the German embassy in Tokyo in 1912, and during World War I was attached to the Turkish army, serving in Palestine. From 1927 to 1930 von Falkenhausen was Commandant of the Infantry School in Dresden.
In 1934 he succeeded General von Seeckt as head of the German Military Mission in China, where he remained for over four years, training the army of Chiang Kai-Shek and helping to develop a modern Chinese arms industry.
In 1939 he was recalled by Hitler to active service in Germany and on 1 September 1940 appointed General of Infantry. During his four years as Military Governor of Belgium and northern France, von Falkenhausen sought to protect the native population from the worst excesses of occupation.
After the failure of the July 1944 plot he was sent to Dachau concentration camp, where he was saved by American troops in May 1945, just as he was about to be executed. Later re-arrested by the Americans and handed over to the Belgian authorities, he was tried and convicted by a Brussels military tribunal on 7 March 1951 for executing hostages and ordering the deportation of 25,000 Belgian Jews. Sentenced to twelve years’ imprisonment, he was released after three weeks as an act of clemency and in recognition of the fact that he had also protected Belgians from the SS.
Von Falkenhausen died in Nassau on 31 July 1966.
A correct, chivalrous officer who disliked Nazi extremism and the methods of the SS, von Falkenhausen nonetheless approved the deportation orders for all foreign Jews in Belgium and ordered Belgian hostages to be executed. Though he initially opposed the imposition of the Jewish badge in Belgium, he was obliged to yield to pressure from the Reich Main Security Office. Under his administration, Belgian Jews were deprived of employment, their firms ' Aryanized' without compensation and they were obliged to do compulsory labour service. Von Falkenhausen, however, was suspected of complicity with the German Resistance movement and relieved of his command shortly before the attempt on Hitler's life.