FIELD MARSHAL ALFRED JODL SEEKS THE RELEASE OF A WAFFEN-SS COMMANDER IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE GERMAN ...

FIELD MARSHAL ALFRED JODL SEEKS THE RELEASE OF A WAFFEN-SS COMMANDER IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE GERMAN SURRENDER
An amazing and quite surprising signed document the two-page 8 x 11 inch manuscript text of a radiogram signed with rank by Field Marshal ALBERT JODL requesting the assistance of a Waffen-SS commander sent on the very same day Jodl surrendered Germany to the Allies. Jodl sent this dispatch from Reims to the headquarters of the German government in Flensburg Germany. It reads in part: “…Colonel (General Staff) Kurt Fett head of the Organization Section in the General Staff of the Wehrmacht took over as a replacement command of the 3rd SS Armored Corps…during a visit to the front on the 1st of May 1945…Since then nothing whatsoever has been heard of him. We should be grateful to establish whether…[he] is a prisoner in American hands. If so could he please be released to help deal with the tasks which have fallen to the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces as a result of the surrender…” Jodl signs at conclusion adding his rank as “Colonel General” Some of the graphite writing is a bit rubbed-off otherwise in fine condition. Kurt Fett (1910-1980) served on the Wehrmacht staff from June 1940 to October 1941 after which he was he was assigned to the staff of the 68th Infantry Division. In July 1943 Fett was appointed to head the planning section of the Army High Command. He was pressed into service in the final days of the war under SS General Felix Steiner and placed in command of remnants of III SS (Germanic) Panzer Corps. Parts of that corps had been trapped in the Halbe Pocket around April 28 1945. After hard fighting it appears that Fett’s remaining SS men surrendered on 4 May 1945 to US troops across the Elbe near Tangermünde Germany. Fett was indeed captured by the Americans escaping gthe fate of most of the men under his command. Fett redeemed himself in the post-war years: he was a member of the German military delegation to the Paris Conference for the organization of a European defense community and also served in the Bundeswehr. This lot was obtained by our consignor directly from Major-General Sir Kenneth William Dobson Strong (1900-1982) a senior officer of the British Army who served as Eisenhower’s chief of intelligence at SHAEF and played a leading part in the negotiations of the unconditional surrender of Germany.