Model, FM Walther (1891-1945). Model was born near Magdeburg, son of a music teacher. Commissioned into the infantry in 1910, he won the Iron Cross in 1915 and served on the general staff towards the end of WW I. One of the 4, 000 officers selected for the Reichswehr, he became a technical expert and visited the USSR to discuss rearmament. A convinced Nazi, he was promoted major general in 1938 and was a corps COS in Poland in 1939 and an army COS in France in 1940. Promoted lieutenant general, he commanded a panzer division in the invasion of the USSR, doing so well that he was given command of XLI Panzer Corps that October in the rank of General der Panzertruppen. In January 1942 he took over the threatened Ninth Army at Rzhev, where he won a desperate battle and was promoted colonel-general.
Model voiced misgivings about ZITADELLE, the Kursk offensive, in which his army suffered heavy losses. He took over Army Group North in January 1944, becoming the army's youngest field marshal shortly afterwards, and going on to head Army Group North Ukraine in the chaotic summer of 1944. Transferred to the western front as C-in-C in August, he reverted to command of Army Group B, helping crush the landing at Arnhem and exercising overall command of the Bulge offensive in December. He committed suicide in the Ruhr pocket in April 1945.
Nicknamed ‘the Führer's fireman’, Model was aggressive and energetic, with real flair for command in the armoured battle. Famously blunt, he was one of the few generals who stood up to Hitler.
— Richard Holmes
