In December 1933, he retired from the army with the rank of major, and the following year he became a training adviser. Steiner left the regiment in 1933 and was used for special assignments by the training department of the newly formed Wehrmacht. In 1932, he was leading a company of the regiment, using the skills that he had learned during the war to train a new generation of German soldiers. Promoted to captain on December 1, 1927, he became adjutant to the 1st Ostpreussischen Infanterie Regiment headquartered in Königsberg. For the next few years, he served in several positions, including duty with the General Staff. He joined the 1st Infantry Regiment in 1921. Returning to Germany, Steiner found a place in the 100,000-man Reichswehr, the postwar German Army. His experience during the war made him a natural leader, and he was soon in command of a unit fighting in the area around Memel, on the Lithuanian frontier. In January 1919, he joined a volunteer corps to fight against Communist elements on the eastern border. Like many of his comrades, the 21-year-old former officer felt lost and betrayed in the new democratic Germany. Two months later the war was over and he was demobilized. On October 10, 1918, the battle-hardened Steiner was promoted to first lieutenant. (Get an in-depth look at World War I and the conflicts that came to define history inside the pages of Military Heritage magazine.) A Lack of Direction at War’s End Impressed by their boldness and high level of training, Felix Steiner would carry the memory of their final battles into the postwar period. In those final battles, Steiner noticed that the Sturmtruppen (assault troops), which were special groups used to breach the Allied lines, enjoyed both success and a camaraderie that was not found in the Regular Army units. Although successful at first, the armies of the Kaiser soon ran into an Allied defense that slowed and then stopped any hope for victory. The German Army’s offensive in the fall of 1918 was its last gasp. Both the Germans and the Allies had wasted the cream of their armies in four years of trench warfare, and the recruits that now bore the brunt of the fighting were little more than cannon fodder, sullenly waiting for another charge that would more than likely end their young lives. The carnage that he saw in Flanders and France left a deep impression on him. In the spring of 1918, Steiner’s unit was sent to the slaughterhouse in the west. Throughout 19, he led his men in battles around the Düna River and Riga, where he earned the Iron Cross, First Class.
In 1916, he was transferred to the Kurland (Lithuanian) Front as a company commander in Machine Gun Sharpshooter Detachment Ober-Ost 46. On January 27, 1915, he received a promotion to second lieutenant while still on convalescent leave.Īfter months of recovery, the young officer was posted to Fortress Machine Gun Detachment 1. He was severely wounded in November, earning him a stay in the hospital as well as the Iron Cross, Second Class. In the cold, damp months that followed, he saw the face of war on a very personal level as his regiment fought in the Masurian Lakes area. With the outbreak of war, Felix Steiner’s regiment was sent to the Russian border to deal with an expected Russian invasion. That training was short lived, however, as the war clouds that had been gathering over Europe burst that August.
He found that he was well suited to army life, throwing himself into the training and lectures that would eventually make him an officer. Felix Steiner’s Early Exposure to the Pain of War At age 17, he decided that he wanted a career in the Army, and in March 1914 he enlisted as a cadet officer in the 5th (East Prussian) Infantry Regiment von Bozen. The son of a middle-class grammar-school teacher, Felix would have many options to make a decent living in the Kaiser’s Reich when he grew to manhood. His family had been Austrian in origin, but had emigrated from Salzburg to Prussia in 1731. Steiner was born in Ebenrode, East Prussia, on May 23, 1896. “Is he attacking yet?” The Steiner in question was SS Obergruppenführerund General der Waffen SS Felix Steiner, a man who had served in Hitler’s Black Guard since 1935. “Where is Steiner?” Adolf Hitler demanded as his Thousand Year Reich crumbled around him in April 1945.