Dietrich von Choltitz Military person
General der Infanterie Dietrich Hugo Hermann von Choltitz (9 November 1894 – 4 November 1966) was a German career military officer and war criminal who served in the Imperial German Army during World War I and the Wehrmacht during World War II. In 1945 he was held responsible for the extermination of thousands of Russian Jews after the siege and capture of Sevastopol, and spent several years in British and American prison camps. He is chiefly remembered as the last commander of Nazi-occupied Paris in 1944 who disobeyed orders to level the city before surrendering it to the Free French, and was hailed in some contemporaneous accounts as the "saviour of Paris".Choltitz later asserted that his defiance of Hitler's direct order stemmed from its obvious military futility, his affection for the French capital's history and culture, and the realization that Hitler had by then become completely insane; but in the absence of independent corroboration his true motivation remains unknown.
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Military person
| allegiance | (to 1918) (to 1933) |
|---|---|
| award | |
| military operations | |
| military branch | |
| military command | 11. Panzer Division |
| service start | 1907 |
| service end | 1945 |