Background
Ewald von Kleist was born in Braunfels, Hessen, on 8 August 1881, the descendant of a famous aristocratic family.
commander General Field Marshal
Ewald von Kleist was born in Braunfels, Hessen, on 8 August 1881, the descendant of a famous aristocratic family.
Ewald von Kleist was educated locally.
After field service during World War I, von Kleist joined the Reichswehr, serving in various staff appointments between 1919 and' 1929, when he was promoted to Brigadier.
From 1932 to 1935 the Commander of a cavalry division and promoted again to Lieutenant-General, he was appointed in 1936 as Commandant of Breslau and made General of Cavalry. Retired in the spring of 1939, he was recalled at the outbreak of war to command the Twenty-Second Army Corps during the Polish campaign. During the battle for France in 1940 Colonel General von Kleist commanded the armoured corps which broke through the Ardennes, beginning the rout of the French army, and raced to the Channel coast with a speed that astonished both the Allied generals and the German High Command. In April 1941 von Kleist was given command of the forces that captured Belgrade during the Serbian campaign. Following the invasion of Soviet Russia von Kleist’s Panzergruppe 1 (First Panzer Army) captured Kiev on 19 September 1941 and took part in the drive to the Caucasus during the summer offensive of 1942 with von Kleist as Commander-in-Chief of Army Group A. At first his forces made rapid progress in their efforts to reach the rich Grozny oil fields, but then the tide of battle turned as they ran short of petrol and units were diverted to support the attack on Stalingrad in the autumn of 1942.
Though forced to begin a long retreat from the Rostov area, von Kleist was rewarded for his services by promotion to General Field Marshal on 31 January 1943 and then in March 1944 by the award of the Swords to Oak Leaves of the Knight’s Cross. Dismissed from his command by Hitler shortly afterwards, von Kleist was captured by Allied forces in 1945 and tried for war crimes in Yugoslavia, being sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment.
Released in 1949, he was handed over to the Russians and died in Soviet captivity in October 1954.
A commander of the old school, who had for a time worked in Resistance circles, von Kleist proved himself a competent and skilful general during the war, capable of adapting to the new techniques of armoured warfare, pioneered by gifted subordinates like General Guderian.