Draft:Franz Eccard von Bentivegni

Bentivegni joined the 2nd Guards Field Artillery Regiment as an officer cadet on July 22, 1915, and was promoted to lieutenant there on May 11, 1916. His unit was part of the 2nd Guards Field Artillery Brigade^[1]. At the same time, Eberhard Graf von Kalckreuth (de) and the later Wehrmacht generals Georg von Prondzynski (1881–1964) and Georg-Thilo von Werthern (1892–1961) were among those serving as captains. The later Colonel Otto von Rohr also served in the regiment. From July 5 to August 31, 1916, he was seconded to the Field Artillery School in Jüterbog. Following this, Bentivegni and his regiment were deployed to the Western Front . He was wounded on 6 April 1918 during the Ludendorff offensive and spent the following period until 30 April 1918 in a military hospital in Namur. After his recovery, he was assigned to the replacement battalion. For his service, he received both classes of the Iron Cross and the Wound Badge in Black.^[2]

After the end of the war, from May 16, 1919, Bentivegni initially served as adjutant of the III Battalion of his parent regiment. He was then transferred to the Reichswehr and briefly served in the 26th Reichswehr Artillery Regiment. Following this, he was assigned to a machine gun course at the Infantry School in Wünsdorf, and from September 24, 1920, he served as an orderly and court officer on the staff of the 15th Reichswehr Artillery Regiment. On January 1, 1921, Bentivegni was transferred to the staff of the III Battalion of the 3rd (Prussian) Artillery Regiment in Jüterbog. There, he served as adjutant from April 1, 1925, and was promoted to first lieutenant on July 31, 1925. Two and a half years later, he was assigned to the 8th Battery of the regiment. Bentivegni completed his officer training with the staff of the 2nd Division in Stettin on October 1, 1928. On October 1, 1930, he was seconded to the Berlin Commandant's Office, a year later to the Reichswehr Ministry , and on November 15, 1932, back to the Commandant's Office. There, he was promoted to captain on December 1, 1932 , and the following day, by order, was required to wear the uniform of senior officers. From September 1, 1933, he served on the staff of the 2nd Division , was transferred to the Frankfurt/Oder Artillery Regiment on July 1, 1935, and from October 15, 1935, served as a battery commander in the 23rd Artillery Regiment. As a major (since April 1, 1936), he was seconded to the General Staff of the IX Army Corps on July 1, 1936. Army Corps and transferred him there on October 6, 1936. On April 1, 1938, he became First General Staff Officer of the 26th Infantry Division.

Bentivegni transferred to the High Command of the Wehrmacht on March 1, 1939, as a department head, where he was entrusted with the affairs of Department III (Counterintelligence and Counter-Espionage) within the Foreign/Counterintelligence Group. One month later, he was appointed head of the department and simultaneously promoted to lieutenant colonel.

On November 4, 1939, Bentivegni chaired a conference at the Hacketäuer Barracks in Cologne-Mülheim , where the deployment of the Secret Field Police (GFP) during the invasion of Poland was analyzed. In his opening address, he clarified the GFP's mission to secretly monitor the field army.

Colonel Bentivegni (promoted on June 1, 1941) was transferred to the Führerreserve (Officer Reserve ) from September 15, 1943, to May 17, 1944. During this time, he temporarily served as the deputy commander of his former department and completed a division commander's course. From May 18, 1944, he represented Major General Siegfried Haß as commander of the 170th Infantry Division and assumed command of the 81st Infantry Division on July 10.^[3] He was promoted to Major General on August 1, 1944, and his troops were subordinated to the 16th Army during this period. Promoted to Lieutenant General on January 30, 1945, he was taken prisoner of war by the Soviets during the Courland Pocket in March 1945.^[4]

Bentivegni was sentenced in the USSR to 25 years in a labor camp as a war criminal and released to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955 as a so-called non-amnesty recipient.^[5]

Bentivegni came from an old military family.^[6] His father, Armand von Bentivegni (1868–1916), was killed as a lieutenant colonel in the middle of the First World War,^[7] and his mother, Else Goltz, died in Potsdam in 1952 and came from a middle-class landowning family from East Brandenburg.

Franz Eccard von Bentivegni married Hella von Köller on September 3, 1929, at the Pomeranian manor of Hoff. The couple had two daughters and two sons, one of whom was Klaus-Jürgen von Bentivegni. His father-in-law was a retired district administrator and managed the estate, which had been in the family since 1873.^[8] Franz Eccard and Hella von Bentivegni were members of the relatively insignificant German Nobility Association, specifically the Rhineland regional branch, section 2, in 1940 (their genealogical research was still ongoing).^[9] His eldest daughter, Leoni, is the wife of Walter von Hueck, the genealogist and long-time chief editor of the Genealogical Handbooks of the Nobility.

• Order of the Star of Romania in 1941^[5]
• Order of the Crown of Italy in 1941^[5]
• Finnish Order of the Cross of Liberty, 2nd Class, in 1942^[5]
• Order of St. Alexander, 3rd Class with Swords, awarded in 1942^[5]