Lothar Rendulic

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Lothar Rendulic (November 23, 1887 – January 18, 1971) was an Austrian Colonel General in the German Wehrmacht during WWII.

Rendulic was born on in Wiener Neustadt, Austria to a Croatian family (Croatian spelling of the surname is Rendulić). He entered the Austro-Hungarian Army in 1910 and served during World War I.

He joined the Austrian Nazi Party in 1932. He joined the diplomatic corps and served as military attaché in London and Paris from 1933 to 1935 but was retired from diplomatic duty in 1936 because his early membership in the Nazi Party was considered undesirable for a diplomat.

Rendulic was recalled into the Wehrmacht in 1938 and served as a division commander in the Balkans, in Norway, and on the Eastern Front. In early 1944, Hitler ordered Rendulic to devise a plan of capturing the Yugoslav resistance leader Tito. Subsequently, on May 25, 1944, the German paratroopers stormed the Partisan headquarters in Drvar (western Bosnia) and nearly succeeded in capturing Tito.

In June 1944 he was named commander of German troops stationed in Finland and Norway. After the start of the Lapland War, Rendulic ordered the Finnish city of Rovaniemi to be burned as a revenge for Finns who had completed a separate peace with the Soviet Union. He also carried out orders to operate a scorched earth policy when the Germans withdrew from northern Norway, with the result that hardly a building was left standing and the population was left without food or shelter.

Because of his alleged involvement in Wehrmacht attacks on civilians in Yugoslavia and crimes he had ordered during Lapland War, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the 1948 Hostages Trial. His sentence was later reduced to 10 years, and Rendulic was released in 1951.

After his release from prison, Lothar Rendulic worked as an author for the remaining 20 years of his life. He died in Eferding, Austria on 18 January, 1971.