Erich Hoepner
German general
Died when: 57 years 329 days (694 months)Star Sign: Virgo
Erich Kurt Richard Hoepner (14 September 1886 – 8 August 1944) was a German general during World War II.An early proponent of mechanisation and armoured warfare, he was a Wehrmacht army corps commander at the beginning of the war, leading his troops during the invasion of Poland and the Battle of France.
Hoepner commanded the 4th Panzer Group on the Eastern Front during Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
Units under his command closely cooperated with the Einsatzgruppen and implemented the Commissar Order that directed Wehrmacht troops to summarily execute Red Army political commissars immediately upon capture.
Hoepner's Panzer group, along with the 3rd Panzer Group, spearheaded the advance on Moscow in Operation Typhoon, the failed attempt to seize the Soviet capital.
Dismissed from the Wehrmacht after the failure of the 1941 campaign, Hoepner restored his pension rights through a lawsuit.He was implicated in the failed 20 July plot against Adolf Hitler and executed in 1944.
