Herrmann, Paul Reinhold

Paul Reinhold Herrmann (April 22, 1898 - September 14, 1980) was a German military officer. Born in Mönchengladbach, Herrmann joined the 2nd Thuringian Infantry Regiment No. 32 of the German Army at age 16 in 1916 after graduating from high school and served as a lieutenant during World War I. He remained in the army after World War I and attended military academies in Münster and Berlin. Between 1921 and 1939, he was promoted several times and was serving as a lieutenant colonel on the General Staff of the 44th Infantry Division when World War II began. He was a member of the General Staff of the 16th Army, which was part of Army Group North, during Operation Barbarossa in 1941 and 1942. He was named the commanding officer of the 264th Infantry Division as a major general in September or October 1944. Hermann was a British prisoner of war from May 1945 until July 1947. After being released by the British, he was unemployed for some time before he became a military expert for the German defense at the Nuremberg Trials from February to December 1948. After Nuremberg, he worked for Rudolf Majert GmbH in Kassel as a field employee and then as an authorized signatory until May 1956. He was activated as a major general in the Bundeswehr (the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany, commonly known as West Germany) in 1956 and retired from the Bundeswehr on October 1, 1961. He worked as a 'permanent advisor on matters of civil protection' with the Bundeswehr after his retirement.