General - Panzer commanders of the Western Front: German tank generals in World War II

APPENDIX A

Table of Comparative Ranks

APPENDIX B

German Staff Positions
in World War II

Chief of staff (Not present below the corps level)

APPENDIX C

Characteristics of Selected
World War II Tanks

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CHAPTER 1

Baron Hans von Funck

T he family von Funck originated in East Prussia, probably as descendants of the Teutonic Knights who conquered the region in the twelfth century. Their earliest known ancestor flourished around the year 1355. The first Freiherr (Baron) von Funck was an official of the Prussian monarchy who died in 1643. One of Hans von Funcks later ancestors, Baron Carl von Funck, fought against Napoleon, rose to the rank of major general, and was killed in action during the battle of Leipzig in 1813.

Hanss father, Carl (18511913), was a Royal Prussian administrative official who ran a large rural district contiguous to his state near Aachen. He married Marie von Luetzow in 1887 and had two sons. Baron Albrecht von Funck, the older brother of the future panzer general, was born at Aachen on October 25, 1889. He entered the army in 1908, fought in the First World War, won the coveted Erinritter of the Order of St. John in 1917, and continued service under the Reichswehr through 1939, by which time he was a lieutenant colonel on the staff of the German ambassador to Belgrade. He later served as part of the occupation government in Yugoslavia, was captured by Titos partisans at the end of the war, and died a colonel in a prison compound on October 17, 1945. He and his wife, Freifrau (Baroness) Lonnie von Gultlingen, had no children.

Baron Hans Emil Richard von Funck was born at the family estate on December 23, 1891, and grew to be a large, well-built youth. He was educated at the usual schools in nearby Elbing. His mother died in 1902, and his father subsequently remarried prior to his death in 1913.

Being orphaned at the age of twenty-three prompted Hans to volunteer for the armyhe was urged on by his brother, already a Leutnant (second lieutenant), at the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 (see Appendix A for a Table of Comparative Ranks). On October 11, the younger Funck took the field with the 2nd Dragoon Regiment, serving in one of the hard-pressed divisions facing the Russian onslaught in the east.

Tangentially involved in the victory of Tannenberg, Hanss regiment engaged in the pursuit of the retreating enemy, and he was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd Class, in late 1914. On June 15, 1915, he was patented as a second lieutenant, retroactive to December 19, 1913, and continued as a platoon commander with the dragoons.