Schmidt-Salzmann, Walter (Kav.Reg. 'Mitte')

Date of birth:: May 18th, 1915 (Stuttgart/Württemberg, Germany)
Nationality:: German

Biography

Promotions:
November 1st, 1935: Reiter;
October 1st, 1936: Fahnenjunker-Gefreiter;
December 1st, 1936: Unteroffizier;
June 17th, 1937: Fähnrich;
September 15th, 1937: Oberfähnrich;
January 1st, 1938: Leutnant (1645);
June 1st, 1940: Oberleutnant (1001);
December 1st, 1942: Rittmeister (142);
February 1st, 1944: Major (36m).

Career:
August 26th, 1939: Adj. A.A. 260;
September 1st, 1940: Zugfhr. A.A. / 5. Inf.Div.;
November 13th, 1940: Adj. A.A. 112;
May 21st, 1941: Schwdr.Chef A.A. 102;
August 23rd, 1941: Lazarett;
February 2nd, 1942: Reitlehrer Reit-u.Fahrschule;
July 1st, 1942: Schwdr.Chef A.A. 102;
August 1st, 1942: Schwdr.Chef 1./Schn.Abt. 102;
January 26th, 1943: Schwdr.Chef 4./Reiterverb. Boeselager;
April 7th, 1943: Abt.Fhr. Kav.Rgt. Mitte;
June 1st, 1943: Abt.Kdr. III./Kav.Rgt. Mitte;
July, 1944: Kdr. Stab I./Reiter-Rgt. 32.

Cavalry Captain Walter Schmidt-Salzmann, one of only five awarded the Honor Roll Document of the Army to Heer Cavalry Troops and was from April 1943 promoted to Major.
In 1943 he was prepared to lead a ten man Officer team which was to covertly assassinate the Fuhrer with his bodyguards during a visit to the Eastern Front.
"The plan was that Hitler should be shot by a whole group of officers in the Army Group headquarters mess during a visit to the front which it was hoped to persuade him to make in view of the desperate situation.
Captain Schmidt-Salzmann and Colonel von Kleist declared themselves ready to do it together with ten officers from the 3rd Battalion of the "Boeselager" unit which was still in the process of formation.
Shortly before Hitler’s visit, however, the project had to be abandoned because Field Marshal von Kluge, who would inevitably been present at the time, could not bring himself to accept the idea. He had to be informed so that he might keep himself out of the line of fire. Kluge said that it was not seemly to shoot a man at lunch and there would also be a risk to a number of senior officers who would have to be there and could not be spared if the front was to be held."
In 1945 he was an instructor at the army riding school Krampnitz, near Potsdam. At the conclusion of the Second World War Walter Schmidt-Salzmann rode his Shagya Arabian stallion, Lapis, to safety across war-torn Russia and Eastern Europe.
The intrepid Long Rider and his horse journeyed more than 6,000 kilometers through extreme winter conditions during which time Lapis was often reduced to eating straw from the roofs of thatched cottages in order to survive.