Walter Bestmann was a Oberführer

Oberführer

Oberführer was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party dating back to 1921. Translated as “Senior Leader”, an Oberführer was typically a Nazi Party member in charge of a group of paramilitary units in a particular geographical region...

 (Senior Leader/Brigadier General) in the Waffen SS during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 who was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was a grade of the 1939 version of the 1813 created Iron Cross . The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was the highest award of Germany to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership during World War II...

. Which was awarded to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership by Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 during World War II.

Early life

Walter Bestmann was born on the 2 October 1907 in Luebeck.
He was one of the early volunteers to join the SS (SS service number 20.135), NSDAP (Party Number 307,449) and was selected to become an officer promoted to Untersturmführer

Untersturmführer

Untersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the German Schutzstaffel first created in July 1934. The rank can trace its origins to the older SA rank of Sturmführer which had existed since the founding of the SA in 1921...

 (Second Lieutenant) in August 1933.

World War II

In September 1939 he was in command of the 4th (MG)(Machine Gun) Company, LSSAH (Leibestandarte 1st Division SS-Adolf Hitler) for the Polish Campaign and was then given command of the III.Battalion, 1st SS Infantry Regiment, in the newly formed SS Totenkopf

Totenkopf

The Totenkopf is the German word for the death's head and an old symbol for death or the dead. It consists usually of the skull and the mandible of the human skeleton...

Division for the Battle of France

Battle of France

In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...

.

He participated in the invasion of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 (Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

), in 1941 where he was awarded the Knight's Cross

Knight's Cross

Knight's Cross refers to a distinguishing grade or level of various orders that denotes bravery and leadership on the battlefield....

 in September 1941 while in command of the 3rd SS Reconnaissance Battalion, SS Totenkopf.

In September 1942, Walter Bestmann was promoted to Sturmbannführer

Sturmbannführer

Sturmbannführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party equivalent to major, used both in the Sturmabteilung and the Schutzstaffel...

 (Storm Unit Leader/Major) and given command of the 10th SS Panzer Regiment, 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg

Frundsberg

Frundsberg may refer to:*10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg*Georg von Frundsberg*SMS Frundsberg...

until September 1943 when he took over as the commander of the SS-Junkerschule at Klagenfurt

Klagenfurt

-Name:Carinthia's eminent linguists Primus Lessiak and Eberhard Kranzmayer assumed that the city's name, which literally translates as "ford of lament" or "ford of complaints", had something to do with the superstitious thought that fateful fairies or demons tend to live around treacherous waters...

 until the end of the war.

Commands

• 4th (M.G.) Company, LSSAH
• III.Battalion, 1st SS Infantry Regiment, SS Totenkopf
• 3rd SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion, SS Totenkopf
• 10th SS Panzer Regiment, 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg
  10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg
  The 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg or 10.SS-Panzer-Division Frundsberg was a German Waffen SS panzer division. The division was formed at the beginning of 1943 as a reserve for the expected Allied invasion of France. However, their first campaign was in the Ukraine in April 1944...
  
  
• SS-Junkerschule Klagenfurt

Promotions

• Untersturmführer 10.07.1933
• Obersturmführer 01.01.1935
• Hauptsturmführer 10.03.1935
• Sturmbannführer 1939
• Obersturmbannführer 01.09.1942
• Standartenführer 21.12.1943
• Oberführer

Further reading