Artur Gustav Martin Phleps (; 29 November 188121 September 1944) was an Austro-Hungarian, Romanian and Nazi German army officer who held the rank of (lieutenant general) in the Waffen-SS during World War II. An Austro-Hungarian Army officer before and during World War I, Phleps specialised in mountain warfare and logistics, and had been promoted to (lieutenant colonel) by the end of the war. During the interwar period he joined the Romanian Army, reaching the rank of (major general), and also became an adviser to King Carol. After he spoke out against the government, he was sidelined and asked to be dismissed from the army.
In 1941, he left Romania and joined the Waffen-SS as an (colonel) under his mother's maiden name of Stolz. Seeing action on the Eastern Front as a regimental commander with the SS Motorised Division Wiking, he later raised and commanded the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen, raised the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian), and commanded the V SS Mountain Corps. Units under his command committed many crimes against the civilian population of the Independent State of Croatia, German-occupied territory of Serbia and Italian governorate of Montenegro. His final appointment was as plenipotentiary general in south Siebenbürgen (Transylvania) and the Banat, during which he organised the evacuation of the (ethnic Germans) of Siebenbürgen to the Reich. In addition to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, Phleps was awarded the German Cross in Gold, and after he was shot and killed in the aftermath of the 1944 Romanian coup d'état, he was awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight's Cross.
Early life
Phleps was born in what was then called Birthälm (Biertan), near Hermannstadt (Sibiu) in Siebenbürgen, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (modern-day Transylvania, Romania). At the time, Siebenbürgen was densely populated by Romanian ethnic Germans, commonly referred to as Transylvanian Saxons. He was the third son of a surgeon, Dr. Gustav Phleps, and Sophie (née Stolz), the daughter of a peasant. Both families had lived in Siebenbürgen for centuries. After finishing the Lutheran school in Hermannstadt, Phleps entered the Imperial and Royal cadet school in Pressburg (Bratislava in the modern-day Slovak Republic) in 1900, and on 1 November 1901 was commissioned as a (lieutenant) in the 3rd Regiment of the (Tyrolean mountain infantry of the Kaiser).
In 1903, Phleps was transferred to the 11th (rifle) Battalion in Güns (in modern-day Hungary), and in 1905 was accepted into the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. He completed his studies in two years, and was endorsed as suitable for service in the General Staff. Following promotion to (first lieutenant) he was transferred to the staff of the 13th Infantry Regiment at Esseg in Slavonia, then to the 6th Infantry Division in Graz. This was followed by a promotion to (captain) in 1911, along with a position on the staff of the XV Army Corps in Sarajevo. There, he specialised in mobilisation and communications, in the difficult terrain of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
World War I At the outbreak of World War I, Phleps was serving with the staff of the 32nd Infantry Division in Budapest. His division was involved in the early stages of the Serbian campaign, during which Phleps was transferred to the operations staff of the Second Army. This Army was soon withdrawn from the Serbian front and deployed via the Carpathian Mountains to the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia (modern-day Poland and Ukraine), to defend against a successful offensive by the Russian Imperial army. The Second Army continued to fight the Russians in and around the Carpathians through the winter of 1914–1915. In 1915 Phleps was again transferred, this time to commanded by (lieutenant general) Franz Rohr von Denta, which was formed in the Austrian Alps, in response to the Italian declaration of war in May 1915. became the basis for the formation of the 10th Army, which was headquartered in Villach. Phleps subsequently became the deputy quartermaster of the 10th Army, responsible for organising the supply of the troops fighting the Italians in the mountains.
On 1 August 1916, Phleps was promoted to major. Later that month, King Ferdinand I of Romania led the Kingdom of Romania in joining the Triple Entente, subsequently invading Phleps's homeland of Siebenbürgen. On 27 August, Phleps became the chief of staff of the 72nd Infantry Division, which was involved in Austro-Hungarian operations to repel the Romanian invasion. He remained in this theatre of operations for the next two years, ultimately serving as the chief quartermaster of the German 9th Army, and was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class, on 27 January 1917. In 1918 he returned to the mountains when he was transferred to , and ended the war as an (lieutenant colonel) and chief quartermaster for the entire Alpine front.
Between the wars After the war, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was dissolved and Phleps returned to his homeland, which had become part of the Kingdom of Romania, officiated later under the Treaty of Trianon. He was appointed as commander of the Saxon National Guard, a militia which was serving with the Romanian Army and formed of the German-speaking people of Siebenbürgen, in 1918.
On 1 April 1919, he was named chief of staff of the , a unit formed from Transylvanian volunteers under the command of a Romanian officer, (brigadier general) . In this role, Phleps confronted the Hungarian communist revolutionary government of Béla Kun, which fought against Romania in 1919. He participated in the Carei-Debrecen offensive, and in the crossing of the Tisza, distinguishing himself in the battles for the bridgehead at Tokaj and at Miskolc.
On 17 July 1919, he was admitted in the Romanian Army with the rank of (lieutenant colonel). For his tactical and commanding abilities displayed in the war, he was praised by Generals Hanzu, and Petala, and was decorated with the Officer's cross of the Order of the Star of Romania with swords and ribbon of military virtue. He was also promoted to the rank of in June 1920. Between 1921 and 1923, he commanded the 84th Infantry Regiment from Bistrița, then joined the general army headquarters and started teaching logistics at the Romanian War Academy in Bucharest. He attended the V Army Corps staff college in Brașov, and published a book titled Logistics: Basics of Organisation and Execution in 1926, which became the standard work on logistics for the Romanian Army. Ironically, after the book was published, Phleps failed his first general's examination on the topic of logistics. He commanded various Romanian units, including the 1st Brigade of the (mountain troops), while also serving as a military advisor to King Carol II in the 1930s. Phleps was promoted to (brigadier general) in 1933, and reached the rank of (major general) in 1938, despite his reported disdain for the corruption, intrigue and hypocrisy of the royal court. After criticising the government's policy and publicly calling King Carol a liar when another general tried to twist his words, he was transferred to the reserves in 1940 and finally dismissed from service at his own request in 1941.
World War II
SS Motorised Division Wiking In November 1940, with the support of the leader of the (ethnic Germans in Romania), Andreas Schmidt, Phleps had written to the key Waffen-SS recruiting officer (brigadier) Gottlob Berger offering his services to the Third Reich. He subsequently asked for permission to leave Romania to join the , and this was approved by the recently installed Romanian (leader), the dictator General Ion Antonescu. Phleps volunteered for the Waffen-SS instead, enlisting under his mother's maiden name of Stolz. According to the historian Hans Bergel, Phleps joined the Waffen-SS because were not permitted to join the . He was appointed an (colonel) by Heinrich Himmler and joined the SS Motorised Division Wiking, where he commanded Dutch, Flemish, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish volunteers. When Hilmar Wäckerle, the commander of SS-Regiment Westland, was killed in action near Lvov in late June 1941, Phleps took over command of that regiment. He distinguished himself in fighting at Kremenchuk and Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine, commanded his own , became a confidant of (brigadier) Hans-Valentin Hube, commander of the 16th Panzer Division, and was subsequently promoted to (senior colonel). In July 1941 he was awarded the 1939 clasp to his Iron Cross (1914) 2nd Class and then the Iron Cross (1939) 1st Class.
7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen On 30 December 1941, (field marshal) Wilhelm Keitel advised Himmler that Adolf Hitler had authorised the raising of a seventh Waffen-SS division from the (ethnic Germans) of Yugoslavia. In the meantime, Phleps reverted to his birth name from his mother's maiden name. Two weeks later, Phleps was selected to organise the new division. On 1 March 1942, the division was officially designated the . Phleps was promoted to (major general) on 20 April 1942. After recruitment, formation and training in the Banat region in October 1942, the two regiments and supporting arms were deployed into the southwestern part of the German-occupied territory of Serbia as an anti-partisan force. Headquartered in Kraljevo, with its two mountain infantry regiments centred on Užice and Raška, the division continued its training. Some artillery batteries, the anti-aircraft battalion, the motorcycle battalion and cavalry squadron continued to form in the Banat. During his time with the 7th SS Division, Phleps was referred to as "Papa Phleps" by his troops.
In early October 1942, the division commenced Operation Kopaonik, targeting the Chetnik force of Major Dragutin Keserović in the Kopaonik Mountains. The operation ended with little success, since the Chetniks had forewarning of the operation and were able to avoid contact. After a quiet winter, in January 1943 Phleps deployed the division to the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) to participate in Operation Weiss. Between 13 February and 9 March 1943 he was responsible for the initial aspects of raising the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian) in the NDH in addition to his duties commanding the 7th SS Division. In his strongly apologetic history of the division which he later commanded, Otto Kumm claims that the 7th SS Division captured Bihać and Bosanski Petrovac, killed over 2,000 partisans and captured nearly 400 during Operation Weiss. After a short rest and refit in April, the division was committed to Operation Schwarz in May and June 1943, during which it advanced from the Mostar area into the Italian governorate of Montenegro killing, according to Kumm, 250 partisans and capturing over 500. The historian Thomas Casagrande notes that all German units fighting partisans routinely counted the uninvolved civilians they murdered as partisans, so that the reported number of inflicted casualties is likely to have included many civilians. The division played a decisive role during the fighting. Although Himmler had already planned to award Phleps the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his role in organising the 7th SS Division, it was for the achievements of his division during Operation Schwarz that Phleps received the award. Phleps was also portrayed in the SS-magazine . He was awarded the Knight's Cross in July 1943, and was promoted to (lieutenant general), and placed in command of the V SS Mountain Corps.