Sunday, July 19, 2026

Photograph of Walter Buhle by Walter Frentz


General der Infanterie Walter Buhle (Chef vom Heeresstab im Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) in a picture taken in 1944 by Walter Frentz. General der Infanterie Walther Buhle (1894-1959), born on 26 October 1894 in Heilbronn in the Grand Duchy of Baden within the German Empire, was a senior Wehrmacht staff officer who rose through the ranks to play key organizational roles during the Second World War; he joined the Imperial German Army as a Fahnenjunker on 10 July 1913, served as an infantry officer in the First World War where he was seriously wounded in 1915 earning the Eisernes Kreuz 1. and 2. Klasse of 1914, the Ritter des Königlicher Preussischer Hausordens von Hohenzollern mit Schwertern, the Ritter zum Militärverdienstorden, and the Verwundetenabzeichen in Schwarz, before transitioning into the Reichswehr between the wars with service on the General Staff as well as in infantry and cavalry units. By the outbreak of the Second World War he had attained the rank of Oberst and was appointed chief of the organizations section of the Oberkommando des Heeres, serving as senior officer to Oberst Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg; promoted to Generalleutnant on 1 April 1942 and later to General der Infanterie, Buhle became Chief of the Army Staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht in 1942, where he oversaw critical army organization and planning efforts amid the escalating demands of the Eastern Front and other theaters. On 20 July 1944 he was badly injured by the bomb detonated by Stauffenberg during the 20 July plot at the Wolf's Lair headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia—having entered the conference room with the conspirator and briefly searching for him in the corridor before returning—yet he recovered sufficiently to be appointed by Adolf Hitler in the final days of the regime as chief of armaments for the army from February 1945; after the war Buhle was held as a prisoner of war at Camp Ritchie in Maryland, participating in the Hill Project translating German military documents for Allied analysis, before his release in June 1947, after which he lived quietly in Stuttgart until his death on 28 December 1959 at the age of 65.



Source :
https://www.geocities.ws/orion47.geo/WEHRMACHT/HEER/General/BUHLE_WALTER.html
https://www.walter-frentz-collection.de/fotoarchiv/personenarchiv-a-z/personen-a-b/#&gid=1&pid=100

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