Albert Schnez

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Albert Schnez" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (October 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Albert Schnez]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Albert Schnez}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Albert Schnez
Albert Schnez in 1967
Born	(1911-08-30)30 August 1911 Abtsgmünd, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire
Died	26 April 2007(2007-04-26) (aged 95) Bonn, Germany
Allegiance	Weimar Republic  Nazi Germany  West Germany
Service / branch	Reichsheer  German Army  German Army
Years of service	1930–1945 1957–1971
Rank	Generalleutnant
Unit	25th Panzergrenadier Division
Commands	CS Armed Forces Staff (1960) 5th Panzer Division (1962) III Corps (1965) Inspector of the Army (1968)
Awards	German Cross in Gold (1944) Federal Cross of Merit (1971)

Albert Schnez (30 August 1911 – 26 April 2007) was an officer in three successive German armies: the Reichswehr, the Wehrmacht, and finally the Bundeswehr, the armed forces of the modern Federal Republic of Germany. He was involved in the debate on the internal leadership of the newly formed Bundeswehr and was close to the German defense minister, Franz Josef Strauss. Schnez served from 1968 to 1971 with the rank of lieutenant-general (Generalleutnant) as the Inspector of the Army.

From 1949, Schnez, together with other veterans of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, built a clandestine shadow army, the "Schnez-Truppe", that intended to fight against the Soviet Union in the event of an invasion, or German communists during a civil war.^[1] By 1951, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had learned of the existence of this secret army and its head Schnez, but evidently declined to act against them.^[1]