Fedor von Bock

Moritz Albrecht Franz Friedrich Fedor von Bock was born 3 December 1880 and rose through the Imperial German Army as a staff officer in the First World War, continuing his climb through the interwar Reichswehr. Given his first command in 1935, he orchestrated the Anschluss and the seizure of the Sudetenland, then commanded Army Group North in Poland in 1939 and Army Group B in France in 1940, earning his field marshal's baton. In 1941 he led Army Group Center into the Soviet Union and directed Operation Typhoon, the attempt to take Moscow, which stalled in the mud of rasputitsa and broke against Soviet defenses at Mozhaisk. A monarchist with no love for the Nazi regime but no appetite for plots against Hitler, Bock was nonetheless blunt about strategic disagreements on the Eastern Front - a frankness tolerated only because he had won. After Typhoon failed and the Red Army pushed back, Hitler relieved him in July 1942. He spent the remainder of the war in retirement and was killed on 4 May 1945 when a Royal New Zealand Air Force plane strafed his car on the road to Hamburg.