Hellmuth Reymann (24 November 1892 – 8 December 1988) was a Generalleutnant of the German Wehrmacht during World War II. Reymann was one of the last commanders of the Berlin Defense Area, and he led the German defenders of Berlin during the Battle of Berlin in April–May 1945.
Biography[]
Hellmuth Reymann was born on 24 November 1892 in Neustadt, Upper Silesia, German Empire (present-day Prudnik, Poland), and he joined the Imperial German Army in 1912 before World War I. He became an officer in the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht after the war, and he commanded German divisions on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union during World War II. In October 1944, his division was encircled in the Courland Pocket in Latvia, and Gerhard Feyerabend replaced him as commander when Reymann arrived in Berlin to take command of the "defense area" in March 1945. On 21 April 1945, he signed 2,000 passes to allow for Nazi Party leaders to flee Berlin rather than stay in the city, as Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels had ordered for all capable German men to take up arms in defense of Berlin. On 22 April, he was replaced as commander by Helmuth Weidling, and Reymann was given command of a weak division near Potsdam. Reymann's forces were unable to link up with Walther Wenck's forces to the south of the city, but 20,000 of Reymann's men managed to escape to the Elbe due to the efforts of Wenck's men. Reymann surrendered to the Allied Powers, and he died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, West Germany in 1988 at the age of 96.