Heinz Karst

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Heinrich Karst (1 December 1914 – 13 January 2002), better known as Heinz Karst, was a German officer, last Brigadier General of the German Armed Forces.

Career overview

Early life and military service

After graduating from the Ratsgymnasium Bielefeld and completing his Reich labor service, Karst studied German, French, English, history and philosophy at the universities of Cologne and Würzburg. In 1936, he was drafted into MG Battalion 6 in Coburg. He liked it there so much that he trained as a reserve officer and was commissioned into active service in 1938. He was promoted to lieutenant on April 1, 1939.

He experienced the beginning of World War II as a platoon leader in Poland, where he was severely wounded. After convalescence, Karst became a company commander in the 3rd/Kradschützenbataillon 10 and was trained here as a reconnaissance officer. As an orderly officer in the 10th Infantry Division in the Soviet Union, he received the Iron Cross 1th Class. Later, he was commander of Panzer-Division 120 on the Eastern Front.

Karst gained educational and training experience as chief of inspection in the training-teaching department for armored infantry in Weimar, as commander of the armored reconnaissance courses for instructors of the reserve army in Luschtieniz, and finally as commander of the army NCO school for armored reconnaissance in Sondershausen. At the end of the war, Karst was a captain and became an American prisoner of war.

Federal Republic of Germany

He took the English interpreting exam and earned a living for the family as a private tutor, as a German teacher for British officers, as an interpreter and translator, and from 1947 also as a lecturer at the School for Booksellers and Publishers in Cologne.

In the early 1950s, Karst was hired by the Blank office as an assistant officer in Unit IV B 2, responsible for Innere Führung, and became deputy to the head of the unit, Wolf Baudissin.

On November 1, 1955, Heinz Karst became one of the first soldiers in the Bundeswehr to be commissioned as a major in Unit IV B 2. On March 1, 1957, he went to the School of Innere Führung in Koblenz, first as a specialist instructor, then as a teaching group commander. From February 1, 1958, to April 30, 1959, Karst commanded Tank Reconnaissance Battalion 11 in Munster, then he became head of the Education Department (Fü B I 4) in the Federal Ministry of Defense and commanded Tank Grenadier Brigade 32 from 1963 to 1967.

Karst was regarded as an exponent of a traditionalist group in the Bundeswehr leadership that was still strong at the time and was skeptical or even strictly opposed to the model of Innere Führung ("citizen in uniform") advocated by Baudissin: instead of democratization, it relied on traditional concepts of command, obedience and education in readiness for death, forbade any criticism of the Wehrmacht and did not want any trade union work behind barracks walls. Karst expressed his ideas about the soldier's profession in the programmatic 1964 paper Das Bild des Soldaten ("The Image of the Soldier"). He is believed to be the author of the Schnez study, which met with fierce public opposition after it became known in 1969/70.[1]

Karst was then assigned to the rank of brigadier general as General des Erziehungs- und Bildungswesens im Heer ("General of Education and Training in the Army"), assigned to the Army Office in Cologne. On October 1, 1970, he was temporarily retired at his own request following differences with the political leadership of the Ministry of Defense under Minister Helmut Schmidt.

Heinz Karst was a recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Heinz Karst was a well-rounded officer, at a time when study was not yet part of the regular course of education for Bundeswehr officers.

After his service, he was chairman of the Germany Foundation from 1973 to 1977. In 1993, he was also one of the initiators of the Hans Filbinger Foundation, which was intended to promote the neo-Rightist Weikersheim Study Center.

Works

  • Unterführerunterricht. Eine Fibel für alle Unterführer der Bundeswehr und solche, die es werden wollen, anhand der gültigen Vorschriften bearbeitet (1958; with Bruno Mohr)
  • Taschenbuch für Wehrausbildung (1968; with Karl Helmut Schnell and Hansdieter Seidel)
  • Das Bild des Soldaten. Versuch eines Umrisses (1969)
  • Identität und Zukunft der Deutschen. Klaus Hornung zum 65. Geburtstag (= Europäisches Forum, Vol. 8) (1992; editor, with Hans Filbinger)
  • Die Bundeswehr in der Krise. Führungsstrukturen im Wechsel, Wandel der Aufgaben, veraltete Technik, Demotivation der Freiwilligen, umstrittene Wehrpflicht, öffentliche Diskreditierung (1997)

Notes

  1. Kutz, Martin (2006). Deutsche Soldaten. Eine Kultur- und Mentalitätsgeschichte. Darmstad, pp. 206–07.

External links