ORIGINAL SIGNATURE GGENERALOBERST ADOLF STRAUSS – BRITISH POW

ORIGINAL SIGNATURE GGENERALOBERST ADOLF STRAUSS – BRITISH POW
Original signature of General GENERALOBERST ADOLF STRAUSS. This autograph was acquired during his time as a British prisoner of war.

Adolf Kurt Ernst Strauß (6 September 1879 – 20 March
1973) was a German army officer who attained the rank of Generaloberst in the Wehrmacht during World War I, commanding the II Army Corps in the 1939 invasion of Poland and the 9th Army on the Eastern Front from 1940 to 1942. For his leadership of II Corps in Poland, Strauß received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross on 27
October 1939. Under his command, the th Army participated in Operation Barbarossa, including the Battle of Smolensk and subsequent defensive operations amid the Soviet counteroffensives, where it implemented Wehrmacht policies such as the Commissar Order directing the execution of captured Soviet political commissars. In 1944-1945, Strauß briefly commanded the Fortification Area East before his capture by British forces on 3 May 1945; he was held as a prisoner of war until released in 1949 due to ill health, despite accusations of involvement in ill-treatment of prisoners and crimes against civilians on the Eastern Front.