Karl Strecker (20 September 1884 – 10 April 1973) was a German general during World War II who commanded several army corps on the Eastern Front.

Strecker welcomed the rise of Hitler and found favor with the regime, earning rapid promotions in the armed forces of Nazi Germany, the Wehrmacht.

Just prior to his unit entering Bucharest in December Strecker, by then a Hauptmann, was transferred to the railway department of the German General Staff.

Additionally, the new security police forces constituted an active reserve, circumventing the restriction placed on the size of Germany's military by the Treaty of Versailles.

Strecker openly held anti-democratic and anti-socialist political positions and had a contempt of the Weimar government, which fact he blamed for his lack of advancement.

Strecker worked with the SA to suppress left-wing demonstrations and was generally held in favor by the Nazi government, being quickly promoted to Majorgeneral and given command of the newly restructured Stettin police district in April 1934.

Strecker and other senior commanders in the 6th Army supported a strategic withdrawal to protect their flanks and take up better positions, but this was refused by Hitler.

Abandoning most of his heavy equipment, Strecker led his corps in a counterattack straight into the encircling forces in order to avoid being cut off from the rest of the 6th Army.

Strecker was determined to hold on as long as possible in order to provide any assistance he could to Erich von Manstein's other forces, although he refused to continue to fight exclusively for propaganda purposes and forbade his staff from committing suicide.

[19][page needed] In the final days of the battle Strecker worked to evacuate as many wounded as he could while trying to maintain a fighting formation.

[20] As a last-ditch effort to find a point where his corps could attempt a breakout, he authorized final reconnaissance of the Volga on 29 December but the entire west bank of the river was occupied by entrenched Soviet forces.

[21] On 1 February, having confirmed that Paulus and all other combat formations had surrendered, Strecker gathered his staff and told them that the military situation was hopeless and that all troops under his command had the freedom to act as their conscience saw fit.

[23] When he and his chief of staff, Helmuth Groscurth, drafted the final transmission sent by the 6th Army at Stalingrad, telling the OKW that the XI Corps "had done its duty".

[8] Eventually, the senior officers housed at Camp 48 were allowed one 25-word postcard a month, although few ever arrived in 1943, due to Hitler's desire to maintain the fiction that all the generals had died defending their positions in Stalingrad.

Along with Carl Rodenburg, Hans-Heinrich Sixt von Armin, Walter Heitz, and the 6th Army's Chief of Staff Arthur Schmidt, he was part of the "anti-communist" faction of officers in his camp who refused to cooperate with the Soviets while confined.

In December 1944, Strecker and 50 other officers at the camp signed a BDO authored proclamation calling upon Germany to depose Hitler and end the war.

In his later years he came to reject his anti-democratic views and expressed regret and personal shame at failing to oppose Hitler's regime.