Gerhard Schmidhuber (9 April 1894 – 11 February 1945) was a Major-General of the German Wehrmacht armed forces during World War II. He was the commander of the 13th Panzer Division during the war, and he was killed during the Siege of Budapest.
Biography[]
Gerhard Schmidhuber was born on 9 April 1894 in Dresden, Saxony, German Empire. He enlisted in the Imperial German Army in 1914, and he was twice awarded the Iron Cross for bravery during World War I. During World War II, he was given command of the Heer's 13th Panzer Division, and he became the supreme commander of German forces in Hungary in 1944 after Nazi Germany's occupation of the country. He was involved in negotiations with the diplomat Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden, and Schmidhuber agreed to prevent the liquidation of the Jewish ghettoes in the country as the Red Army advanced. On 11 February 1945, he was killed in action during the Soviets' Siege of Budapest.