Ferdinand Schorner

Ferdinand Schorner was a German general during World War II, known for his extreme ruthlessness and devotion to Nazism. He was in command of Army Group North as it retreated from the Leningrad area into the Baltics, only to be cut off in the Courland Peninsula. At the end of the war he was in Czechoslovakia.

Throughout the war he was cruel to his own men. He ordered Germans found behind the lines to be hung as deserters. He was one of Hitler's favorite generals, and was appointed commander in chief of the army upon Hitler's death.

At the end of the war, near Prague, Schorner ordered his men to keep fighting, then he fled to Austria, becoming a deserter himself. He was captured and put on trial, but served only a few years in prison. He lived until the 1970s.