Alexander Adolf von Hirschfeld

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Karl Alexander Adolf von Hirschfeld (born September 17, 1787 in Halberstadt , † May 11, 1858 in Gotha ) was a Prussian general of the cavalry .

Life

Queen Luise in 1799, when Hirschfeld became her personal page for two years; Portrait of Nikolaus Lauer

Alexander Adolf von Hirschfeld was the second eldest son of the Prussian general Karl Friedrich von Hirschfeld from his marriage to Karoline Friederike Philippine von Faggyas (1761–1795). On March 5, 1799, he became Queen Luise's personal page for two years . From 1801 he attended the Academie Militaire in Berlin . In March 1803 he resigned as Junker in the I. Battalion Guard in Potsdam , where he in September 1804 Ensign and in October 1805 second lieutenant was promoted.

Consecration of the flag of the Guard Regiment in the courtyard of Königsberg Castle in February 1808; Depiction by Richard Knötel , around 1890

War of 1806/07

In the Franco-Prussian War of 1806/07, Hirschfeld took part in the lost battle of Auerstedt and the retreat under Friedrich Ludwig zu Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen , which ended on October 28 with the surrender of Prenzlau . He went to Pomerania in the unoccupied Kolberg , where his older brother, the hussar lieutenant Eugen von Hirschfeld , had also come. Both joined the Schill Freikorps . Her father was imprisoned in the now French fortress of Magdeburg until the peace agreement in June 1807.

In December 1806 the brothers left Kolberg to set up their own mounted volunteer corps in Stargard under Eugen's command. The Freikorps, consisting of 200 ranciers , carried the “ Little War ” from Pomerania to Neumark and on to Silesia . In January 1807, inland waterway transports of the French who were frozen in the Oder , Warthe and Netze were attacked. The train caused the French high command to move entire regiments to the detriment of the main theater of war in East Prussia . After the Freikorps was blown up at Christianstadt am Bober at the end of February , Eugen von Hirschfeld was able to restore it in the beleaguered Glatz fortress in May . In June 1807 the Freikorps conquered Liegnitz just before the armistice and was surrounded. It negotiated a free march to the main army in East Prussia in order to lay down its arms. After the Peace of Tilsit, Alexander Adolf von Hirschfeld received the order Pour le Mérite .

Wars of Liberation 1813/14

Prussian Guards and Line Uhlans in the Wars of Liberation. From the uniform customer of Richard Knötel , 1890
Ludwik Mierosławski was Hirschfeld's opponent at Wreschen

On January 21, 1808 he married Sophie Luise Goldbeck at Stolp in Wobesde . In November 1808 he came to the newly established Guard Regiment . On the eve of the expected war of liberation between Austria and France , Alexander Adolf von Hirschfeld took his leave of the Prussian army on March 23, 1809 . Eugen had also received the requested farewell on March 30, 1809. It is not known whether Alexander Adolf's step was related to the plans for the uprising by his brothers Eugen and Moritz von Hirschfeld . Alexander Adolf leased the Dünnow estate near Wobesde and became a farmer.

In September 1812, when the Prussian army was forced to take part in Napoleon's Russian campaign, he rejoined the Guard Regiment. With the start of the Wars of Liberation , Hirschfeld fought in the newly established Guard Cossack Squadron from February 1813 , where he was promoted to Prime Lieutenant in May . He earned the Iron Cross 2nd class in the battle near Haynau , and fought in the battles of Großgörschen , Bautzen , Kulm and Laon , for which he received the Russian Order of St. Anne and St. Vladimir in April 1814 . In February 1815, Hirschfeld was staff rider in the Guard Uhlan Regiment and in June 1815 Rittmeister .

Years of peace

In the period of peace that followed, Hirschfeld served as a major in the 3rd Uhlan Regiment from May 1818 and in 1831 became the commander of the 1st Uhlan Regiment in Berlin. On the occasion of the Kalisch revue he received the Red Eagle Order IV class and a higher level of the Order of Anne. In eleven years, Hirschfeld had made his cavalry regiment one of the best in the Prussian army. Colonel since 1838 , from 1841 he commanded the 4th Cavalry Brigade in Stargard, which belonged to the II Army Corps , the "Pomeranian". On April 7, 1842, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV appointed him major general . His superiors rated Hirschfeld as one of the “best cavalry generals in the army” and recommended his “preferential promotion”.

Poznan 1848

In May 1848, Hirschfeld led a mixed association of parts of the 4th Division in the province of Posen during the suppression of the Wielkopolska Uprising . On May 2, 1848, a force under Hirschfeld moved to Wreschen . It was there to induce thousands of insurgents, often armed only with war scythes , to disarm and to part. However, under the leadership of Ludwik Mierosławski, they undertook an attack in which they suffered heavy losses in Prussian artillery and rifle fire. The numerically inferior Prussians left the field after losing nine dead and 34 wounded. Hirschfeld had to forego carrying out his order. Mieroslawski left the next day. The Sokołowo Monument commemorates the 300 dead insurgents . On May 9th, Hirschfeld occupied Bydgoszcz and caused the insurgents a heavy defeat in their last battle near Exin on May 13th. His approach earned him the name Shrapnel General in the radical democratic Neue Rheinische Zeitung and Mieroslawski now saw him as his “mortal enemy”. In June 1849 he wanted to take revenge on Alexander Adolf Hirschfeld during the uprising in Baden in the battle near Waghäusel , but had mistaken him for his brother Moritz, whose troops he was actually facing. The mix-up can also be found in recent literature.

Immediately after the end of the uprising, Hirschfeld took command of the 7th Division in Magdeburg in May 1848 .

The Sokołowo Monument

Schleswig-Holstein 1849

In the war with Denmark , after the Malmö armistice expired in April 1849 , Hirschfeld was given command of the III. Division within the German Armed Forces , whose Commander in Chief was the Prussian Lieutenant General Karl von Prittwitz . Hirschfeld was appointed lieutenant general on May 8, 1849 . The division was made up entirely of Prussian troops. A particular success was the appearance of their Posen Landwehr battalions in the battle near Gudsö, which led to the conquest of Vejle the following day . In the last weeks of the war up to the armistice of June 10, 1849, Hirschfeld's division operated together with the Bavarian Brigade of the 1st Division in the vicinity of Fredericia .

On July 28, 1849, Hirschfeld received the swords for the Order of the Red Eagle First Class and took over the leadership of the 7th Division again. He had them held until March 1854 when he and the character retired as a general of cavalry from the service. Four years later, Hirschfeld died in Gotha and was buried in Gottesacker IV.

family

The marriage on January 21, 1808 with Sophie Luise von Goldbeck (* October 27, 1789 - May 13, 1827) resulted in ten children. Of the sons, the first (1810–1812) died as an infant, the second (1815–1897) as a retired lieutenant colonel, and the third (1825–1870) died as a major from his wounds received at Loigny . One daughter died in childhood, four lived in the Keppel Monastery , which was under the protectorate of the Prussian royal family, and one in the Cappel Monastery . Only the daughter Marie (born November 14, 1818) was married. In 1839 she married the Prussian Uhlan lieutenant Freiherr Hermann von Stosch . Alexander von Hirschfeld's second marriage, which he entered into in 1828 with Sophie Wilhelmine Charlotte von Renouard (* December 17, 1798 - September 25, 1828), remained childless, as did the third one he had with Amalie on October 21, 1829 in Steinhöfel von Hagen (May 5, 1794 - August 7, 1866) had closed.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kurt von Priesdorff: Soldatisches Führertum. Volume 3, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1937], DNB 367632780 , p. 106, no. 1018.
  2. ↑ On the Hirschfeld Freikorps see: Großer Generalstab, Kriegsgeschichtlicheteilung II (Ed.): Kolberg 1806/07 (= documented articles and research on the history of the Prussian Army. Issue 16-19 [Vol. 4]), Berlin 1912, p. 36 , Footnote 1, p. 44, footnote 2
  3. ↑ On the Freikorps Hirschfeld and the events in Neumark and Silesia see Eduard von Höpfner : The War of 1806 and 1807. Second part. The campaign of 1807. Fourth volume , Berlin 1855, Simon Schropp, pp. 218–223.
  4. ↑ Illustration of Prussian Guard Cossacks in Richard Knötel's uniform work , from the DHM collection
  5. ↑ Quotations from Priesdorff (Lit.), p. 56.
  6. ↑ On the events in Posen see Friedrich Wilhelm von Varchmin: Twenty years ago. Self-published by the author, Eisenach 1868, pp. 25–57, on Wreschen, p. 50, on Exin, p. 56.
  7. ↑ Representation of the battle at L. v. J .: The Polish insurrection in Posen in the spring of 1848. Hugo Wagner, Glogau 1849, p. 130. , original in the property of the Bavarian State Library
  8. ↑ Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 64 of August 3, 1848, in: Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED (ed.): Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . Works, Volume 5 (March to November 1848) . Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1975, p. 299.
  9. ↑ See Joh. Phil. Becker , and Chr. Essellen : History of the South German May Revolution of 1849 . Verlag von Gottfried Becker, Geneva 1849, p. (Reprint of the original from 1849 by Salzwasser-Verlag, 2012, ISBN 9783846010884 )
  10. ↑ So with Krzysztof Makowski: The Grand Duchy of Posen in the revolutionary year of 1848 . In: Rudolf Jaworski, Robert Luft (Ed.): 1848/49 Revolutions in East Central Europe. Lectures at the conference of the Collegium Carolinum in Bad Wiessee from November 30th to December 1st 1990 (= Bad Wiesseer Tagungen des Collegium Carolinum. Volume 18). Oldenbourg, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-486-56012-3 , p. 160.
  11. ^ Friedrich Wilhelm von Varchmin: Twenty years ago. Self-published by the author, Eisenach 1868, p. 102.
  12. ^ Friedrich Wilhelm von Varchmin: Twenty years ago. Self-published by the author, Eisenach 1868, p. 108 f., On the merger with the Bavarians p. 112 f.
  13. ↑ The cemetery no longer exists since 1892. Information from the Gotha city administration
  14. ↑ Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the baronial houses for the year 1869 , p. 875.
personal data
SURNAME Hirschfeld, Alexander Adolf von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hirschfeld, Karl Alexander Adolf von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian general
DATE OF BIRTH September 17, 1787
PLACE OF BIRTH Halberstadt
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 1858
Place of death Gotha