Who was the highest decorated German soldier of ww2?

Question

it can be Wehrmacht,Kreigsmarine, SS or Luftwaffe.

Answer 1

very hard but i think michael withmann

Answer 2

Erwin Rommel. He is known to be a pure militarist and an excellent general.

Answer 3

Wittman had the Swords for his Knight Cross with Oak Leaves but was the top tanker ace of the war. 150 of these were awarded during the war.

27 servicemen received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. Among them were Rommel. U-boat captains zur See Wolfgang Luth and Fregattenkapitan Albrecht Brandi.

Only one Golden Oakleaves, Swords and Diamonds was given, and that was to an aviator, Hans Ulrich Rudel of the Luftwaffe, a Stuka dive bomber pilot

Answer 4

was it Hitler?

Answer 5

The 'highest decorated' (highest award) may be different from the 'most highly decorated' (highest number of awards).  Here is a stab at the answer:

Knights Cross with golden oak leaves swords and diamonds

The highest medal of all, it was supposed to be awarded after the end of World War 2 to Germany's 12 greatest war heroes, but Adolf Hitler felt that the continuous outstanding achievements and heroism of Germany's greatest war hero, dive bomber ace Hans Ulrich Rudel, were such that he deserved to receive this award sooner, so in January 1945 Rudel became the only recipient of this highest medal.

Rudel's war record is simply amazing in any scale. Like some other great war heroes, he had a very late start. He began the war as a reconnaissance pilot and was training to convert to a dive bomber pilot during the invasion of France. His warrior career finally began with the invasion of Russia in June 1941, and he served in the Russian front until the end of the war, except for short periods in Germany as instructor and test pilot.

In the next four years he flew a total of 2530 combat sorties in which he destroyed 519 Russian tanks, 150 artillery guns, 1000 vehicles, a battleship, two cruisers, a destroyer, 70 landing craft, and also shot down 11 aircraft. He was shot down 30 times, lost a leg, which didn't stop him at all, and performed numerous acts of sacrifice and heroism. Rudel had the rare combination of great warrior skills and tons of luck, and years of intense daily fighting to fully exploit them, which is how he reached such an amazing record for which he became the highest decorated German war hero.

http://www.2worldwar2.com/knights-cross....

Update: Here is a discussion of your question http://boards.historychannel.com/thread....