Wilhelm Mohnke
German Military Officer SS Regiment/Division Brigade commander (1911–2001)
Wilhelm Mohnke (15 March 1911 – 6 August 2001) was a German brigadier general who was one of the original members of the Schutzstaffel SS-Stabswache Berlin ('Staff Guard Berlin') formed in March 1933. Mohnke, who had joined the Nazi Party in September 1931, rose through the ranks to become one of Adolf Hitler's last remaining general officers at the end of World War II in Europe.
Mohnke participated in the fighting in France, Poland and the Balkans as part of the 1. SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. In 1943 he was appointed to command a regiment in the 12. SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend. He led the unit in the Battle for Caen, receiving the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 11 July 1944. Mohnke was given command of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler division during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.
While participating in the Battle of Berlin, Mohnke commanded Kampfgruppe Mohnke ('Combat Group Mohnke') and was charged with defending the government district, including the Reich Chancellery and the Reichstag.
He was investigated after the war for war crimes, which included allegations that he was responsible for the killing of prisoners in France in 1940, Normandy in June 1944 and Belgium in December 1944.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wilhelm Mohnke” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.