Background
Kurt Zeitzler was born in Heideblick on 9 June 1895, the son of a parson.
Kurt Zeitzler was born in Heideblick on 9 June 1895, the son of a parson.
After serving in World War I as Commander of an infantry regiment, Zeitzler continued his career in the Reichswehr, establishing himself as an able staff officer and expert in mobile warfare.
Under the Third Reich, Zeitzler was promoted to a series of demanding positions while still a relatively young Commander. Attached to the Army Command in 1937-8 as a Lieutenant-Colonel, he served as a corps Chief of Staff during the Polish invasion and then in the 1940 campaign of von Kleist’s Panzer army in France.
From March 1940 to April 1942 Zeitzler was Chief of Staff of the First Panzer Group and then, as Major General, Chief of Staff of Army Group D under von Rundstedt in the West. A master of improvisation, Zeitzler’s string of successes in exacting posts impressed Hitler, who appointed him Chief of the Army General Staff on 22 September 1942 in succession to General Franz Haider. Hitler evidently hoped that Zeitzler would conduct the Russian campaign with more vigour than the old military leadership and that he would not question the Führer’s methods of command.
By the autumn of 1942, however, it was apparent that the German position in Russia was precarious and that a temporary retreat was necessary. Zeitzler urged Hitler to allow the Sixth Army to withdraw from Stalingrad where they were being encircled by Russian forces, or at least to authorize a breakout while it was still possible. Hitler rejected this advice, though after the final surrender of von Paulus’s Sixth Army, Zeitzler was able to persuade the Führer to make strategic withdrawals from Moscow' and Leningrad.
The failure of the planned German offensive at Kursk (July 1943) and then the Crimean collapse in 1944, disillusioned Zeitzler, who sought to resign on several occasions. He went on sick leave and on 20 July 1944 he retired for reasons of ill-health.
In January 1945 Hitler had him dismissed from the army and deprived of the customary right to wear uniform. Zeitzler died at Hohenasschau, Upper Bavaria, on 25 September 1963.