Gerhard Tappen  
(3.7.1866 - 28.5.1953)
place of birth:  Hannover, Niedersachsen  (Lower Saxony)


Lieutenant colonel who headed the German Supreme Command's Operations Bureau at war's outbreak. Tappen was a quick decision-maker and had good nerves, but most of his subordinates hated him because of his strong will. Ludendorff, who had preceded Tappen in his post at OHL, considered him "an unimaginative man of mediocre intelligence." Tappen also served for a couple weeks as Heeringen's Seventh Army Chief of Staff (Mar 1915) and then spent the last two years of the war as a divisional commander, retiring at the end of the war as a major general.