2nd Westphalian Hussar Regiment No. 11

"Tanzhusaren": Postcard on the occasion of the relocation of the hussar regiment to Krefeld (1906)

The second Westphalian Hussars. 11 was a cavalry joined the Prussian army .

history

The association was founded on December 8, 1813 in Düsseldorf in the just formed Generalgouvernement Berg as “1. Hussar Regiment ”from the remains of the Napoleonic cavalry of the Grand Duchy of Berg . In 1860 the regiment was renamed in the course of a far-reaching renaming of Prussian regiments in "2. Westphalian Hussar Regiment (No. 11) ”. From 1906, the regiment was nicknamed "Krefeld Tanzhusaren" as a joke after it had been moved from Düsseldorf to Krefeld . The regiment was stationed in Düsseldorf in the Neustadt an der Neusser Strasse ; For a squadron, a separate barracks was built in 1893 west of Roßstrasse on the property of today's State Office for Information and Technology in North Rhine-Westphalia . In Krefeld the whole regiment was stationed in the newly built barracks on today's Westparkstrasse .

Move to Krefeld

On April 2, 1906, Kaiser Wilhelm II led the regiment to Krefeld.

During a visit that Kaiser Wilhelm II paid to the city of Krefeld to celebrate the 200th anniversary of its membership in Prussia in 1902, the latter apparently spontaneously promised to make Krefeld a garrison town . At a banquet, the maids of honor from the Krefeld upper class had previously said that there were no dancers available in Krefeld. The emperor then promised to send suitable dancers. What was initially thought to be a joke was confirmed the same evening by the commanding general of the VII Army Corps , Moritz von Bissing . The generals announced by telegram that Krefeld would get a cavalry unit and that suggestions for accommodation were being requested.

This commitment turned into a tangible scandal in the Reichstag . It was assumed that this promise was probably the result of a whim of the emperor, and that a great deal of money would now have to be spent just to do some ladies a favor. In addition to the lack of countersignature by the Chancellor or the Minister of War , the decision also contradicted the principle of not relocating garrisons to large industrial cities. In addition, a decision had been made six months earlier to renovate the Düsseldorf barracks .

The speed with which the military administration soon expressed concrete ideas, however, did not indicate a merely spontaneous decision, but rather that the military administration had already thought about moving the garrison to Krefeld. The emperor had taken the visit to Krefeld only as an opportunity to announce the already established decision in a somewhat unusual way.

For Krefeld, the relocation meant a revival of the domestic economy in view of a renewed crisis in the textile industry , so that the decision was made to cover the costs of four million marks for the construction of the barracks , which then also convinced the last critics. The foundation stone was finally laid in 1904, and on April 2, 1906, Kaiser Wilhelm personally led the regiment into the city at the head. On Bissing-Platz (today Konrad Adenauer-Platz) he handed over the regiment with the words: I brought their garrison to the city and their dancers to the young women.

18,000 former soldiers and 100,000 visitors attended the event. The population gave the soldiers the name dance hussars, under which they were finally known throughout the empire.

Regiment chief

Rank	Surname	date
	King Wilhelm III. the Netherlands	0June 7, 1855 to November 23, 1890
	Archduke Otto of Austria	April 15, 1896 to October 1, 1906
	Charles of Austria	0December 2, 1914 until dissolution

Commanders

Uniform and standard of Hussar Regiment No. 11 (2nd Westphalian) around 1906

Rank	Surname	date
major	Alexander von Romberg	March 29, 1815 to May 10, 1816
Major / Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Karl Heinrich von Czettritz and Neuhaus	May 11, 1816 to November 30, 1823
major	Anton von Glaser	0December 1, 1823 to September 7, 1824 (in charge of the tour)
Major / Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Anton von Glaser	0September 8, 1824 to November 12, 1834
Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Friedrich Karl von Forstner	November 13, 1834 to July 17, 1839
Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Heinrich von Heydebrand and the Lasa	July 18, 1839 to March 29, 1844
Major / Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Karl von Lebbin	March 30, 1844 to April 17, 1850
Major / Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Wilhelm von Schlichten	April 18, 1850 to June 9, 1856
Major / Lieutenant Colonel	Wilhelm Alexander von Salisch	June 10, 1856 to April 3, 1857
Major / Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Wolf of Pfuel	April 30, 1857 to July 1, 1862
Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Gustav Waldemar von Rauch	0July 2, 1862 to September 14, 1866
Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Karl von Witzendorff	September 17, 1866 to November 30, 1869
Major / Lieutenant Colonel	Karl von Eller-Eberstein	December 11, 1869 to March 9, 1870 (in charge of the tour)
Major / Lieutenant Colonel	Karl von Eller-Eberstein	March 10, 1870 to November 10, 1871
Major / Lieutenant Colonel	Gustav von Griesheim	December 12, 1871 to March 13, 1875
Colonel	Hugo von Saldern-Ahlimb	March 16, 1875 to August 4, 1876
Major / Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Günther von der Groeben	0August 5, 1876 to March 25, 1885
Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Adolf von Michaelis	March 26, 1885 to December 13, 1889
Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Bernhard von Britzke	December 14, 1889 to May 25, 1893
Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Hugo von Itzenplitz	May 26, 1893 to July 19, 1897
Colonel	Franz Miketta	July 20, 1897 to February 15, 1901
Colonel	Friedrich Schimmelpfennig from Oye	February 16, 1901 to October 18, 1905
Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Adolf von Storch	October 19, 1905 to April 20, 1911
Colonel	Egmont from Websky	April 21, 1911 to April 1, 1912
Lieutenant Colonel / Colonel	Bruno von Gillhaußen	0April 2, 1912 to January 23, 1917
major	Friedrich zu Waldeck-Pyrmont	January 24, 1917 to December 31, 1918

Known members of the regiment

Memorial for the fallen dancing hussars in Krefeld, Walther Wolff (1929)
51 ° 20 ′ 53 ″  N , 6 ° 34 ′ 31 ″  E

• Benno von Achenbach (1861–1936), son of the landscape painter Oswald Achenbach , painter, driving art teacher and head of the Wilhelms II driving stable .
• Maximilian Achenbach (1851–1898), son of the landscape painter Andreas Achenbach , architect and opera singer
• Armand Léon von Ardenne (1848–1919), prototype of the fictional character “Baron von Innstetten” in Fontane's Effi Briest , grandfather of Manfred von Ardenne
• August Wilhelm Julius Graf von Bismarck (1849–1920), 3rd cousin of Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck , officer and horse breeder
• Peter Greeff (1865–1939), landscape painter
• Georg Oeder (1846–1931), painter, art collector and honorary citizen of the city of Düsseldorf
• Hans Piekenbrock (1893–1959), Lieutenant General
• Felix zu Salm-Salm (1828–1870), prince's son and adventurer
• Johann Josef Scotti (1787–1866), chief hunter, later royal Prussian government secretary in Düsseldorf
• Werner Voss (1897–1917), fighter pilot

literature

• Joachim Lilla : Highlights of the Krefeld “Tanzhusaren” and their perception in public. In: Elisabeth Hackspiel-Mikosch: According to rank and status. German civil uniforms in the 19th century. German Textile Museum, Krefeld 2002, ISBN 3-00-009193-9 .
• The history of the city of Krefeld. Volume 3, ISBN 3-9808235-2-0 .
• War history 1914-1918 of the 2nd Westphalian Hussar Regiment No. 11 and its war formations Reserve Hussar Regiment No. 8, 2nd mobile Landwehr squadron of VII. A.-K., 4th mobile Landsturm squadron of VII. A.-K. as well as the post-war history up to the founding of the tradition squadron (=  memorial sheets of German regiments. Troops of the former Prussian contingent . Volume 269 ). Stalling, Oldenburg iO / Berlin 1929 ( digitized version of the Württemberg State Library ).
• Liberal newspaper of June 27, 1902
• Hans von Eck: History of the 2nd Westphalian Hussar Regiment No. 11 and its regular troops from 1807-1913. Military Publishing House, Mainz 1893, digitized
• Friedrich Kayser, Ferdinand Becker: The consecration of the flags and standards of the 2nd Westphalian Hussar Regiment No. 11, the Westphalian Uhlan Regiment No. 5, the Lower Rhine Fusilier Regiment No. 39, the 3rd Battalion, decorated with the iron cross 2nd Guard Grenadier Landwehr Regiment, 2nd Battalion, 4th Westphalian Landwehr Regiment No. 17: in the field service on the Trinitatisfeste (May 26, 1872); along with an appendix on the history of the regiments and battalions mentioned above . Düsseldorf 1872.

Web links

Commons : 2nd Westphalian Hussar Regiment No. 11  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ministry of the Interior (ed.): Ministerial-Blatt for the entire internal administration in the Royal Prussian States. 21st year, Berlin, 1860, p. 161
2. ^ Günter Wegmann (Ed.), Günter Wegner: Formation history and staffing of the German armed forces 1815-1990. Part 1: Occupation of the German armies 1815–1939. Volume 3: The occupation of the active regiments, battalions and departments from the foundation or list up to August 26, 1939. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1993, ISBN 3-7648-2413-1 , p. 123.
3. ^ Günter Wegmann (Ed.), Günter Wegner: Formation history and staffing of the German armed forces 1815-1990. Part 1: Occupation of the German armies 1815–1939. Volume 3: The occupation of the active regiments, battalions and departments from the foundation or list until August 26, 1939. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1993, ISBN 3-7648-2413-1 , pp. 123-124.