Johann Fiedler was a Oberscharführer

Oberscharführer

Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...

 in the Waffen SS during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 who was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was a grade of the 1939 version of the 1813 created Iron Cross . The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was the highest award of Germany to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership during World War II...

. Which was awarded to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership by Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 during World War II.

Johann Fiedler was born in the Sudetenland

Sudetenland

Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...

 at Stangendorf

Vendolí

Vendolí is a village and municipality in Svitavy District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. The municipality covers an area of , and has a population of 878 ....

.
He volunteered to join the SS and was posted to the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf.

He participated in the fighting for the Demyansk Pocket

Demyansk Pocket

The Demyansk Pocket was the name given for the encirclement of German troops by the Red Army around Demyansk , south of Leningrad, during World War II on the Eastern Front. The pocket existed mainly from 8 February-21 April 1942. A much smaller pocket was simultaneously surrounded in Kholm, about ...

 in February to April 1942 and in June was awarded the Iron Cross

Iron Cross

The Iron Cross is a cross symbol typically in black with a white or silver outline that originated after 1219 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem granted the Teutonic Order the right to combine the Teutonic Black Cross placed above a silver Cross of Jerusalem....

 2nd class being awarded the Iron Cross 1st class in October 1943.

In 1944, he was made a platoon commander in the 5th Company, 6th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment Theodor Eick, he was also awarded the Wound Badge

Wound Badge

Wound Badge was a German military award for wounded or frost-bitten soldiers of Imperial German Army in World War I, the Reichswehr between the wars, and the Wehrmacht, SS and the auxiliary service organizations during the Second World War. After March 1943, due to the increasing number of Allied...

 in Gold, which was awarded after being wounded five or more times.

Johann Fiedler now a Unterscharführer

Unterscharführer

Unterscharführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party used by the Schutzstaffel between 1934 and 1945. The SS rank was created after the Night of the Long Knives...

 was awarded the Knight's Cross on 16 June 1944, for actions during the Battle of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket.

He was then posted to the Totenkopf Division replacement battalion, near the end of the war.

Johann Fielder survived the war and died on the 23 September 1999.

Further reading