Career
The Knight"s Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grade Oak Leaves was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. Legally it was Germany"s highest military decoration at the time of its presentation to Rudolf Schmidt. He joined Infantry Regiment 83 of the German Imperial Army in 1906 as an officer cadet and in World War I he served on the eastern and western fronts and by the end of the war he was a Hauptmann on the General Staff.
He was then retained in the Reichswehr where he served as a staff officer and was promoted to Major in 1927 and Oberstleutnant in 1931.
On 1 October 1934 he was promoted to Oberst as commander of the 13th Infantry Regiment in Ludwigsburg. In October 1937 he was promoted to Generalmajor and appointed commander of the 1st Panzer Division in Weimar as the successor to Maximilian von Weichs.
On 1 June 1938 he was promoted to Generalleutnant. In 1939 General Schmidt led the 1st Panzer Division in the invasion of Poland.
On 1 February 1940 he was appointed commanding general of the XXXIX Panzer Corps.
He led the Corps in France and was awarded the Knight"s Cross of the Iron Cross for his role in that campaign on 3 June 1940. He was promoted to General der Panzertruppe and appointed acting commander of the 2nd Army which was involved in the Battle of Moscow. On 25 December 1941 he was appointed Commander of the 2nd Panzer Army (replacing the sacked General Guderian).
In January 1942 he was promoted to Generaloberst.
He appeared before a court martial but was acquitted and transferred to the leadership reserve on 30 September 1943. He was never re-employed.
On 16 December 1947 Rudolf Schmidt was captured by Soviet forces at Nordheim on his way to his home in Weimar. Taken to Moscow, he was initially imprisoned at the Vladimir Central Prison and Butyrka prison.
In 1952, he was sentenced to 25 years of forced labor by a military tribunal.
On 30 September 1955, Schmidt was among the last prisoners to be released. He died on 7 April 1957 in Krefeld. (22 September 1939) (2 October 1939) Bibliography.