Alexander von Falkenhausen
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Alexander Ernst Alfred Hermann von Falkenhausen (October 29, 1878 - July 31, 1966) was the head of the military government of Belgium during the German occupation of Belgium in World War II.
He is related to Ludwig von Falkenhausen, who was the governor-general of Belgium during the German occupation, from 1917 until 1918, during the First World War.
Falkenhausen was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the German Army in 1897 and served as a military attaché in Japan prior to the First World War. He was one of the Generals of the sixth German army out of the total 19 armies during the First World War. He was awarded the Pour le Mérite during the war while serving with the Ottoman Army in Palestine. After the war he stayed in service and later headed the Dresden Infantry School in 1927. In 1930 he retired from service and went to China to serve as Chiang Kai-Shek's military advisor.
In 1937 Nazi Germany officially allied themselves with Japan, whom by then had declared war with the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Nazi party, as a goodwill gesture to Japan withdrew German support to China, including forcing Falkenhausen to resign his advisor post by threatening to have his family back in Germany punished for treachery. After a brief goodbye dinner party with Chiang Kai-Shek's family, Falkenhausen promised to Chiang Kai-Shek that he would never reveal any battle plans he had taught him to the Japanese. Recalled to active duty in 1938, he served as an infantry general on the Western Front until his appointment as military governor for Belgium in 1940.
He was a close friend of two anti-Hitler conspirators, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, and soon came to detest Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, offering his support to von Witzleben for a planned coup d'etat. After the failure of the July 20 Plot in 1944, von Falkenhausen spent the rest of the war transferred from one concentration camp to another until freed by the Allies in 1945.
Falkenhausen was sent to Belgium for trial in 1948, and in March 1951 he was sentenced to 12 years hard labour for deporting 25,000 Jews and executing Belgian hostages. However, he was acquitted and released three weeks into his sentence after overwhelming evidence proved that von Falkenhausen tried to save as many Jews and Belgians as possible from deportation and execution. Falkenhausen died on July 31, 1966.
[edit] Interesting notes
- During his 72nd birthday in 1950, von Falkenhausen received a million dollar cheque from Chiang Kai-shek as his birthday gift and a personal note declaring him a "Friend of China".
- During his trial in Nuremberg, he was vouched for by a Chinese woman named Qian Xiuling who was living in Belgium, provided numerous evidence that he tried to save Belgian and Jewish lives.
- In his youth, Alexander already showed his interested towards the Eastern Asia and its culture in which he stayed in Japan for a few years as an advisor, he also claimed that he liked the Chinese cuisine best.
- According to some sources (especially from Communist Chinese during late 1930's), Falkenhausen still kept contact with Chiang Kai-Shek after his return to Germany and would occasionally send him European luxury items and food to the Chiang household and his officers.
