Background
Wilhelm List was born on 14 May 1880 in Oberkirchberg, the son of a doctor.
Wilhelm List was born on 14 May 1880 in Oberkirchberg, the son of a doctor.
He entered the Bavarian Army in 1898. In 1913 he joined the general staff and served as a staff officer in World War I. After the war, List stayed in the Reichswehr. By 1932, he was promoted to Generalleutnant. In 1938, after the Anschluss of Austria, List was responsible for integrating the Austrian Armed Forces into the Wehrmacht.
A professional soldier who served as a General Staff officer during World War I, List joined the Freikorps in 1919 and from 1923 to 1926 held troop and staff commands in the Reichswehr. In 1927 he was appointed head of the Army Organization Department in the Reichswehr Ministry. Promoted to Major General in 1930, he became Commandant of the infantry school in Dresden, and in 1932 was made a Lieutenant-General. In 1935 he was given command of the Fourth Army Corps in Dresden and then, following the Anschluss in 1938, was transferred to V ienna as Commander-in-Chief of a new army group.
Promoted to Generaloberst in 1939, List commanded the Fourteenth Army in the attack on Poland and the Twelfth Army in the invasion of northern France in 1940, earning promotion to General Field Marshal in July of the same year, after the stunning German victory. In February 1941 List drew up the agreement with Bulgaria enabling the Wehrmacht to attack Greece by passing through Bulgarian territory. From June to October 1941 he was Commander-in-Chief of the German army in the Balkans.
During the invasion of the Soviet Union, List commanded Army Group A in the Caucasus, holding this position from 7 July until 10 September 1942 when he was dismissed bv Hitler, who blamed him for failing to break through on the Russian front.
Tried at Nuremberg, List was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1948 by an American military tribunal. Pardoned and released in 1953, Wilhelm List died in Garmisch on 18 June 1971.