He was killed on 1 February 1943 west of Kairouan in Tunisia when his staff car drove into a small Italian minefield marked by barbed wire and hit a land mine.

[1] Fischer began his career by joining the 154th (5th Lower Silesian) Infantry Regiment with the rank of Fahnenjunker on 18 March 1910.

When World War I broke out, he was transferred to the 7th Landwehr Infantry Regiment as a platoon leader.

He joined the Reichswehr in 1919 and was sent to the 3rd (Prussian) Infantry Regiment at Deutsch Eylau (now Iława, Poland) from 1920 to 1929.

He was promoted to Generalmajor on 1 August 1942 a day before he took command of the 10th Panzer Division and to Generalleutnant on 1 November 1942.