Heinz Hellmich


Heinz Hellmich was a German general in the Wehrmacht during World War II and a posthumous recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross of Nazi Germany.
On 1 April 1942, Hellmich was appointed commander of the 141st Reserve Division. In 1943, he worked with a Soviet defector, Red Army general Andrey Vlasov, and other volunteers from the Soviet Union as "General of the Eastern Troops", a position he held until early January 1944.
On 10 January 1944, Hellmich was moved to France and put in a command of the 243rd Infantry Division, a coastal defense division stationed in the Cotentin Peninsula. The division protected the western coast of the Cotentin Peninsula when Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy, began on 6 June 1944. Hellmich was killed by 20-millimeter cannon shells during an Allied air attack on 17 June 1944.

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