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Franz von Roques

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Franz von Roques
Franz von Roques in 1931
Born1 September 1877
Died7 August 1967(1967-08-07) (aged 89)
Allegiance German Empire
 Weimar Republic
 Nazi Germany
Service / branchArmy (Wehrmacht)
RankGeneral of the Infantry
CommandsArmy Group North Rear Area
Battles / warsWorld War II
RelationsKarl von Roques (cousin)

Franz von Roques (1 September 1877 – 7 August 1967) was a German general during World War II. He was the commander of Army Group North Rear Area behind Army Group North from March 1941 to April 1943.

Biography

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Roques was the descendant of Huguenots who had fled to German territories from France.[1] Adolf Hitler regarded him as a member of the "ultra-reactionaries" within the Wehrmacht, older officers who had a low opinion of Nazism.[2] Roques was one of many retired officers who were reactivated upon the outbreak of World War II to command rearguard and occupation units; his early activities in this role were uneventful.[3]

In March 1941, Roques was appointed commander of Army Group North Rear Area; he assumed the post in July 1941.[4] Notably, his cousin Karl von Roques served as commander of Army Group Centre Rear Area.[1] Roques was not enthusiastic about Adolf Hitler's concept of waging a racial war.[1] In late June and early July 1941, Roques informed his superior Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb of the massacres of Jews by Einsatzgruppe A, Lithuanian auxiliaries and the men of the 16th Army outside of Kaunas. He expressed opposition to the mass shootings, stating that this was not the right way to solve the Jewish question. Leeb claimed that he could not do anything about these incidents, and the two soldiers eventually agreed it might be "more humane" to sterilise the Jewish men.[5] Neither took any action to prevent further massacres. Historian Johannes Hürter argued that the exchange between Roques and Leeb showcased that the officers might've had weak moral concerns, but ultimately condoned the mass murder by excusing their inaction with claims of powerlessness.[6] Conversely, the leadership of other Wehrmacht army groups did not even offer this kind of weak protest over the mass murders.[3]

Roques occasionally criticized how the German security forces were behaving. He disparagingly described the SS killing squads as "headhunters" and called Joachim von Ribbentrop an "idiot". His chief of staff Arno Kriegsheim stated that killing Jewish civilians was "unworthy" of German soldiers.[2] Kriegsheim was removed from his post and transferred to the Führerreserve for his comments.[7] Roques was also slow in implementing some policies of the Holocaust: While ordering all Jews in his territories to wear the yellow badge, he put low priority on organizing ghettos and gave only vague orders to the security divisions under his command.[1]

In the end, however, Roques ultimately followed the orders given to him and cooperated with those agencies which were most supportive of the Holocaust and other crimes.[2] For instance, Roques allowed SS-Brigadeführer Franz Walter Stahlecker, head of Einsatzgruppe A, to act with impunity in all of Latvia.[8] Major massacres of Jews also took place in other Army Group North areas such as Estonia, Luga, and Pskov.[7] Historian Valdis O. Lumans stated that "–except for incidental jibes–von Roques stayed out of the matter, looked the other way".[9] Like other Army Group Rear Areas, the territories under Roques' control became the sites of mass murder during the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity that targeted the civilian population. Rear Area commanders operated in parallel and in co-operation, with the Higher SS and Police Leaders, who were appointed by the head SS leader, Heinrich Himmler, for each of the army group's rear areas.[10] In the words of the historian Michael Parrish, the army commanders "presided over an empire of terror and brutality".[11]

After World War II, Franz von Roques was never persecuted for his role in the massacres committed under the Army Group North Rear Area.[12]

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b c d Buttar 2013, p. 106.
  2. ^ a b c Lumans 2006, p. 164.
  3. ^ a b Pohl 2011, p. 100.
  4. ^ Lumans 2006, p. 163.
  5. ^ Wette 2006, p. 106.
  6. ^ Hürter 2007, p. 541.
  7. ^ a b Pohl 2011, p. 269.
  8. ^ Lumans 2006, pp. 165–166.
  9. ^ Lumans 2006, p. 166.
  10. ^ Megargee 2007, p. 36.
  11. ^ Parrish 1996, p. 127.
  12. ^ Pohl 2011, p. 334 (note 49).

Bibliography

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  • Buttar, Prit (2013). Between Giants. The Battle for the Baltics in World War II. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1472807496.
  • Pohl, Dieter (2011). Die Herrschaft der Wehrmacht: Deutsche Militärbesatzung und einheimische Bevölkerung in der Sowjetunion 1941-1944 [The rule of the Wehrmacht: German military occupation and the native population in the Soviet Union 1941-1944]. S. Fischer Verlag. ISBN 978-3596188581.
  • Hill, Alexander (2005). The War Behind The Eastern Front: The Soviet Partisan Movement In North-West Russia 1941–1944. London & New York, NY: Frank Cass. ISBN 978-0-7146-5711-0.
  • Hürter, Johannes (2007). Hitlers Heerführer - Die deutschen Oberbefehlshaber im Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion 1941/42. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. ISBN 978-3486583410.
  • Megargee, Geoffrey P. (2007). War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-4482-6.
  • Parrish, Michael (1996). The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939–1953. Praeger Press. ISBN 978-0-275-95113-9.
  • Wette, Wolfram (2006). The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality. Cambridge, MS: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02577-6.
  • Lumans, Valdis O. (2006). Latvia in World War II. Fordham University Press. ISBN 9780823226276.

Further reading

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