German Forces

General Dietl

German general Dietl. Having a good time with the ladies? The man died in an air-crash in 1943. A convinced Nazi and one of Hitler's favorite generals, he was the first German soldier to receive, on 19 June 1940, the oak leaves cluster to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Dietl commanded German forces in Norway and northern Finland and in Eastern Europe and rose to the rank of Generaloberst (equivalent to a US four-star general), commanding the 20th Mountain Army on the northern Eastern Front, where the results of the German Arctic campaign were disappointing. On June 23, 1944, Ju 52 aircraft carrying Dietl crashed in the vicinity of the small village of Rettenegg, Styria; there were no survivors. Obrigado-Overlord.