| Lothar Rendulic | |
| Birth Date: | 23 October 1887 |
| Signature: | Lothar Rendulic signature.svg |
| Birth Place: | Wiener Neustadt, Austria-Hungary |
| Death Place: | Fraham near Eferding, Austria |
| Allegiance: |  Austria |
| Branch: | Austro-Hungarian Army Austrian Armed Forces German Army |
| Rank: | Oberst (Austria) Generaloberst (Germany) |
| Commands: | 2nd Panzer Army 20th Mountain Army Army Group Courland Army Group North Army Group Ostmark |
| Battles: | World War I World War II |
| Awards: | Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords |
Lothar Rendulic (Croatian: Rendulić; 23 October 1887 – 17 January 1971)[1] [2] was an Austrian army group commander in the Wehrmacht during World War II. Rendulic was one of three Austrians who rose to the rank of Generaloberst (colonel general) in the German armed forces. The other two were Romanian-born Alexander Löhr and Erhard Raus from Moravia.
Rendulic was tried at the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials in 1948. Though acquitted of deliberate scorched earth tactics in Finland during the Lapland War, he was convicted of killing hostages in Yugoslavia at the Hostages Trial and imprisoned. After his release in 1951 he took up writing.
Rendulic was born in 1887 in Austria into a military family of Croatian origin (Rendulić).[3] He studied law and political science at universities in Vienna and Lausanne; in 1907, he was admitted to the Theresian Military Academy and commissioned as an officer into the Austro-Hungarian Army in 1910. He served during World War I from 1914 to 1918. Returning to the University of Vienna, Rendulic obtained his doctorate in law in 1920. He joined the newly formed Austrian Armed Forces and in 1932 joined the banned Austrian Nazi Party. From 1934, Rendulic served as a military attaché to France and United Kingdom. In 1936 he was put on the "temporary inactive list" because of his early membership in the Nazi Party.
Rendulic was called to the German Army, as part of the Wehrmacht, in 1938, after the annexation of Austria to Germany. He commanded the 14th Infantry Division (23 June – 10 October 1940); the 52nd Infantry Division (1940–1942); and the XXXV Corps (1942–1943), with which he participated in the Battle of Kursk. From 1943 to 1944, Rendulic commanded the 2nd Panzer Army during World War II in Yugoslavia. Early in 1944, Adolf Hitler ordered Rendulic to devise a plan to capture Yugoslav partisan leader Josip Broz Tito. In the resultant raid on Drvar on 25 May 1944, German paratroopers stormed partisan Supreme Headquarters in Drvar (western Bosnia) looking for Tito but ultimately failed to capture him, suffering heavy casualties.
From June 1944, Rendulic commanded the 20th Mountain Army and all German troops stationed in Finland and Norway. Following the war, Rendulic was accused of ordering the destruction of the Finnish town of Rovaniemi in October 1944, allegedly as revenge against the Finns for making a separate peace with the Soviet Union. In 1945, Rendulic served as the commander-in-chief of Army Group Courland cut off in the Courland Pocket on the Eastern Front; Army Group North in Northern Germany; and Army Group Ostmark, in Austria and Czechoslovakia. While commanding Army Group North and trying to prevent the loss of East Prussia, he issued orders that any unwounded soldier found in a rear area outside his unit area was to be receive a court-martial on the spot and be shot.[4] Also, a battalion commander was shot for retreating his unit.[4]
On 7 May 1945, following the Soviet Prague Offensive, Lothar Rendulic surrendered Army Group Ostmark to the 71st Infantry Division of the U.S. Army in Austria.[5]
After his surrender, Lothar Rendulic was interned and tried in the Hostages Trial at Nuremberg, because of his involvement in the Wehrmacht's reprisals against civilians in Yugoslavia and the scorched earth policy in Lapland. On 19 February 1948 he was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to twenty years in prison, although he was cleared of charges concerning the scorching of Lapland. Based upon the recommendations of the "Peck Panel", this sentence was later reduced to ten years, and on 1 February 1951 Rendulic was released from the military prison in Landsberg am Lech in Bavaria.
After his release, he worked as an author and was involved in local politics in Seewalchen am Attersee, in the Salzkammergut region of Austria. He died at Fraham near Eferding, Austria, on 17 January 1971.