Halder, Franz

Born June 30, 1884, in Würzburg. Colonel general (1940) of the fascist German Army.

Halder entered the army in 1902, graduated from the Bavarian Military Academy in 1914, and fought in World War I (1914-18). In 1936 he became a member of the General Staff of the ground forces, in October 1937 second general quartermaster, and in February 1938 first general quartermaster. From September 1938 to September 1942 he was chief of the General Staff of the ground forces and took an active part in creating Hitler’s army and in drawing up and implementing the plans of aggression against Poland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia, Greece, and the USSR. In view of the failure of the fascist German strategy, Halder was removed from his post in the fall of 1942; he was retired in January 1945. In 1945 and 1946 he was an American prisoner of war and took part in writing works of military history. Halder wrote the pamphlet Hitler as Commander in Chief (1949), in which he tried to represent Hitler as solely responsible for Germany’s defeat and to prove the infallibility of the German generals and their strategy. Halder’s Military Diary (vols. 1-3, 1962-64; in Russian translation, Voennyi dnevnik, vols. 1-2, 1968-69) is an important source on the history of World War II (1939-1945).