Walther-Peer Fellgiebel

Who was Walther-Peer Fellgiebel?

Walther-Peer Fellgiebel was a German officer in the Wehrmacht, serving during World War II and a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. His father was the General der Nachrichtentruppe Erich Fellgiebel, who as a conspirator of the 20 July plot was sentenced to death and executed on 4 September 1944.

He joined the Association of Knight's Cross Recipients in 1954 and as of 1961 served on the board of directors. He became head of the order commission of the AKCR in 1970, a position he held until 1985. From this work evolved the book Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes, 1939–1945: Die Inhaber der höchsten Auszeichnung des Zweiten Weltkrieges aller Wehrmachtteile — The bearers of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939–1945: The owners of the highest award of the Second World War of all Branches of the Armed Forces. For many years this book was considered a reference work on this topic. Fellgiebel himself indicated that the book is not official. The deteriorating situation of the Third Reich during the final days of World War II left a number of nominations incomplete and pending in various stages of the approval process, loss of evidence of the presentation was also an issue in the verification process. In some of these instances the AKCR later accepted and listed holders of the Knight's Cross with questionable evidence. Author Veit Scherzer analyzed the German National Archives and found discrepancies in 193 instances of the original 7,322 listings by Fellgiebel.