Henning von Tresckow
Henning von Tresckow, Army Major General, born on January 10, 1901 in Magdeburg, Chief of Staff for the 2nd Army, member of the July 20, 1944 assassination plot (Valkyrie) against Hitler, committed suicide by hand grenade July 21, 1944 in Russia after hearing that the plot to assassinate Hitler had failed, last words:
“Now they will all fall upon us and cover us with abuse. But I am convinced now as much as ever that we have done the right thing. I believe Hitler to be the arch enemy, not only of Germany, but indeed the entire world…the moral worth of a man only begins at the point when he is ready to sacrifice his life for his convictions.” (2,000 Quotes From Hitler’s 1,000-Year Reich)
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Tiger Tank of Das Reich Kursk
An ethnic German, Protestant and a farmer, Walter Reibold was born in the village of Schibach in the Crimea on January 10, 1919. Soviet authorities arrested his father on November 15, 1929 and sentenced him to five-to-ten years of hard labor; after 1937 the family never heard from him again. After the arrest, Walter’s mother took the rest of the family to Germany, arriving on December 6, 1929. Walter was in the Hitler Youth from December 1, 1934 to November 1, 1937. He joined the Waffen-SS on August 30, 1939, receiving SS number 363300, and was assigned to the 7th Company of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Regiment. He fought in the Balkans and was promoted to SS-Sturmmann on May 1, 1941. After extensive time in training and replacement units, Walter was assigned to the 8th (Heavy) Company in November 1942 and promoted to SS-Unterscharführer on December 1, 1942. During Kursk, Walter served as a Tiger commander for S23. He was wounded during the offensive and returned to the unit on July 29, 1943 to be the commander once again of Tiger S23. (Waffen-SS Tiger Crews at Kursk: The Men of SS Panzer Regiments 1, 2 & 3 in Operation Citadel, July 5-15, 1943)