In the tenth Countdown to D-Day officer bio, Peter Margaritis presents a brief look at Generalmajor Wilhelm Meise, the chief engineer for the Atlantic Wall under Rommel.
Wilhelm Meise was born in Munich on August 16, 1891. In the summer of 1910, he joined the army as a cadet and was assigned to the 3rd Bavarian Engineer Battalion. For his entire army career, he served in engineering units. Just after the Polish campaign, Meise was appointed chief engineer for the 12th Army and participated in the 1940 invasion of France, and the April 1941 Balkans campaign. A few months after Barbarossa began in June 1941, Meise became the chief engineering officer for Heeresgruppe Mitte (Army Group Centre) and served as such until 1943. He was later assigned to Rommel’s Heeresgruppe B, now a Generalmajor, and oversaw the strengthening of the Atlantic Wall. As such, even though he was an engineer, he was constantly amazed at the technical knowledge that Rommel displayed about setting up defensive structures.
At the beginning of 1945, Meise was promoted as Generalleutnant to chief engineering inspector for the army’s engineering corps. In early June, his home near Berchtesgaden was ransacked by American GIs. After the war, he earned a doctorate in law, before retiring to Otterberg in 1958.
He later moved to Gräfelfing, near Munich, and died on August 11, 1974, just five days before his 83rd birthday.
Wilhelm Meise and his role in the defence of the Atlantic Wall is explored in the new book, Countdown to D-Day, due to be released June 2019.
Follow