Otto Lasch - Life and Career

Life and Career

Otto Lasch was born in Pleß (Pszczyna) as son of the high master forrester of the Prince of Pless in Silesia. Lasch after graduation took part in World War I in the Jäger-Battalion „Fürst Bismarck“ Nr. 2 in Kulm (Westprussia). After 1918 he joined the police and in 1935 the Wehrmacht. He advanced to the rank of Generalleutnant and functioned as Commandant of Königsberg in East Prussia from November 1944.

Following heavy fighting and surrounding of the city during the Battle of Königsberg by the 36-division strong 3rd Byelorussian Front under Ivan Chernyakhovsky, Lasch, with only badly crippled divisions under his command, decided to surrender the city to the Red Army on 9 April 1945. For this act, Hitler condemned him in absentia and his family to death. His wife and daughters were arrested in Berlin and Denmark. However at the end of the war they were released. Lasch was to remain until 1953 in Soviet labor camp captivity in Workuta, but was released late October 1955, when due to Adenauer's Moscow visit remaining German war prisoners were released. Lasch died in Bonn in 1971.

In 1958 he wrote the book: So fiel Königsberg. Kampf und Untergang von Ostpreußens Hauptstadt about the battle and fall of Königsberg, capital city of East Prussia. 1965 he wrote about the years of his time in Soviet war prison, titled Zuckerbrot und Peitsche.