The Kaiser's men’s medals

But Gerd von Rundstedt was also a father....



The father of Leutnant Dr. Hans Gerd von Rundstedt (Kassel, January 21,1903- Hannover, December 1, 1948)



Hans Gerd was Generalfeldmarschall only child.

Breaking from the family tradition Hans Gerd become an academic. He achieved a doctorate in the early 30s and worked as archivist in Berlin University. Called up for military service in 1939, was asigned to the Army high Command Historical Section in Berlin. On 1 May 1945 he was captured with his father, and he elected to accompany his father throughout his captivity to British POW camps. Years later his father said he was a lousy soldier......


On May 1, 1945, Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, former commander-in-chief of German forces on the Western Front, was captured in Bad Tölz, Bavaria, by American troops of the 36th Infantry Division along with his son, Hans von Rundstedt.

Photograph taken in Augsburg on May 6, 1945.
From left to right: Lieutenant Dr. Hans Gerd von Rundstedt, Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt and Lieutenant General Alexander "Sandy" Patch, Jr (Commander of the US 7th Army).
Of them, the German marshal was the oldest (69 years old), but fate determined that he outlived the other two.
General Patch died a few months after this photo was taken, precisely on November 21, 1945. (pneumonia, just two days before his 56th birthday)
The Marshal's only son, Hans, died on January 12, 1948 from throat cancer (days before his 44th birthday).
Gerd von Rundstedt himself died five years later (in 1953) at the age of 77, due to the heart disease he suffered from. Several months earlier he had also lost his wife, Luise "Bila" von Goetz, who died in October 1952.