Background
Born in Munich, Günther Alois Friedrich Blumentritt was the son of Günther Blumentritt (born 23 June 1859), town planner and a Privy Councilor in Munich and Lina Rückart (born 24 March 1868).
Born in Munich, Günther Alois Friedrich Blumentritt was the son of Günther Blumentritt (born 23 June 1859), town planner and a Privy Councilor in Munich and Lina Rückart (born 24 March 1868).
He joined the Prussian Army in 1911, in time to see action in the First World War, entering the 3rd Thuringian Infantry Regiment No. 71. as a Fahnenjunker.
Joining the Reichswehr in 1918, he had a long association with Manstein, in whose memoirs Blumentritt looms large. The officers served together on Leeb’s staff during the Sudetenland crisis, in Poland as Rundstedt’s chief of operations while Manstein was CofS, and in Rundstedt’s AG A in France during the autumn of 1940. Blumentritt then was Kluge’s CofS in the 4th Army as part of Bock’s AG Center in Russia.
For the first nine months of 1942, General- leutnant Blumentritt was in OKH as chief of operations, succeeding Paulus. He then served in France as Rundstedt’s CofS in OB West, remaining when Kluge replaced Rundstedt on 3 July 1944. Blumentritt was closely associated with key officers of the anti-Hitler cabal but unaware of final plans for STAUFFENBERG’S assassination attempt of 20 July 1944 and not immediately a suspect. Only after the arrival of Model as OB West and Kluge's suicide did Blumentritt get the long-expected news that he was being replaced. Succeeded by Wesphal on 5 Sep 1944 and leaving OB West three days later with orders to report to Hitler’s Hq on the 13th. the Bavarian was received at Rastenburg by Guderian, Keitel, and other senior officers as a condemned man. But Hitler was cordial, telling Blumentritt to take a rest before reporting to Rundstedt, who was being reinstated as OB West, for a long-sought command assignment.
After his first home leave in more than two years, Blumentritt briefly commanded elite formations opposing Montgomery in the Low Countries. Toward the end of Sep 1944, promoted to General of SS, he directed fanatic defenses of the 12th SS Corps in the Roermond Triangle. Driven back by Horrocks, he took over the 25th Army in Holland in Jan 1945, and from Mar 1945 he headed the 1 st Parachute Army in NW Germany until war’s end.
Blumentritt was described as the opposite in many ways of his long-time commander Gerd von Rundstedt: Bavarian and Catholic, where von Rundstedt was Prussian and Protestant, swarthy and short whereas Rundstedt was tall and pale. Blumentritt was affable, friendly, and talkative, capable of great diplomacy, and in military terms, detail oriented—all of which made him an excellent staff officer, as well as a good complement to Rundstedt.
In 1920 he married Mathilde Schollmeyer, and subsequently had two children with her; they remained married 47 years, until her death in 1967.