Alfred Krauss

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Alfred Krauss

Alfred Krauss (* 26. April 1862 in Zara ; † 29. September 1938 in Bad Goisern ) was an imperial officer and a privy councilor , last Infantry General of the Austro-Hungarian army. From 1920 Krauss was leader of the National Association of German Officers in Vienna . In the last year of his life he was appointed a member of the Reichstag for the NSDAP and SA Brigade Leader.

family

Grave, Bad Goisern, possible cemetery

Alfred Krauss was the son of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff Doctor Dr. med. Franz Krauss (1824–1905) and Maria Rosalia Deixler (1841–85), his younger brother Rudolf Krauss (1863–1943) also achieved the rank of kuk general of the infantry during the First World War. On February 6, 1894 , Alfred Krauss married Ida Gysela Weeber (born January 26, 1868 in Raab ; † May 13, 1939 in Vienna) in the Herz Jesu Church in Graz , with whom he had two sons, one of whom was the later known Organologist Egon Krauss . Alfred and Ida Krauß are buried in a kind of high grave in the evangelical cemetery in Bad Goisern . The grave slab is adorned with a soaring eagle holding an oak wreath in its claws.

Life

After attending the elementary school in Werschetz im Banat and Ödenburg as well as the lower grammar school in Teschen , Krauss was trained at the military high school in Mährisch-Weißkirchen and at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt . On August 18, 1883 he was transferred to the kuk Infantry Regiment No. 11. He then attended the war school in Vienna from 1886 to 1888. In November 1888 he was appointed General Staff Officer of the 20th Infantry Brigade in Königgrätz . In 1891 Krauss joined the General Staff of the 5th Corps Command in Pressburg as a captain . In 1894 Krauss became a teacher of tactics at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. In 1897 he became chief of staff of the 2nd Infantry Division in Jaroslau and then the 33rd Infantry Division in Komorn .

In November 1901 Krauss came as the commander of a battalion in the Graz No. 3 Rifle Regiment and in 1904 head of Section III of the Technical Military Committee in Vienna. In October 1910 he became the commander of the Austro-Hungarian War School in Vienna. On November 1, 1910, he was promoted to major general , on November 1, 1913, he achieved the rank of Lieutenant Field Marshal , and he was also an Austro-Hungarian Privy Councilor .

From August 1914, Krauss was in command of the 29th Infantry Division in the Serbian theater of war during World War I. At the beginning of the war, this was part of the kuk 5th Army (Gen. Inf. Liborius von Frank ) in Syrmia . In September he was appointed commander of the "Combined Corps Krauss". On September 6, 1914, he prevented the Serbian Timok Division from crossing the Sava at Mitrowitza by counter-attacking at Sasinci . At the beginning of December his troops were involved in the fighting to withdraw from Belgrade . On December 23, 1914, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Balkan Forces, whose command was taken over by Archduke Eugen after Oskar Potiorek was recalled in January 1915.

On May 27, 1915, after Italy declared war, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the newly formed Southwest Front on the Isonzo. In February 1916 he changed to the Army Group of Field Marshal Archduke Eugen in Bolzano. In May 1916 he was significantly involved in the offensive in South Tyrol , but the planned breakthrough across the plateau of the seven municipalities did not succeed in full after initial successes in the Asiago area and had to be canceled in mid-June after Italian counter-attacks.

In mid-March 1917 Krauss became the commander of the kuk I. Corps, which at that time was deployed in the kuk 7th Army (Gen. Inf. Hermann Kövess ) in the Carpathians . On August 1, 1917, he was promoted to General of the Infantry. In mid-September 1917, his large formation moved to Italy and was subordinated to the newly established German 14th Army as the right wing and made available for the counter-offensive in the 12th Isonzo battle . On 24 and 25 October 1917, the kuk First Corps in could Bovec break through the Italian front and reached the mountain warfare in early November 1917 new front section in Feltre and the Monte Grappa , where the new "Korpsgruppe Belluno " established. On May 16, 1918, General Krauss took over the supreme command of the Austro-Hungarian Army and was also in command of the occupied territories in Ukraine. After the end of the war, Krauss was retired on December 1, 1918. For his services, Krauss received, among other things, the Order of the Iron Crown 1st Class, the Grand Cross of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. Leopold Order and on November 12, 1917 the Pour le Mérite .

In 1920 he became leader of the National Association of German Officers in Vienna.

From 1927 until his death in 1938 Krauss was one of the editors of the Pan-German and National Socialist magazine Deutschlands Erneuerung , which was founded in 1917 and which appeared continuously until 1944.

On April 1, 1938, Krauss was granted the right to wear the German uniform with the insignia of rank of a general in the infantry, and from this point in time until his death in the same year Krauss was a member of the National Socialist Reichstag for Austria . His mandate was then taken over by Hanns Albin Rauter . In the SA he achieved the rank of brigade leader. On June 3, 1938, Krauss and his wife Ida Krauss were personally received by Hitler in Berlin.

Fonts

  • Moltke, Benedek and Napoleon , Vienna 1901.
  • 1805 - The campaign in Ulm , LW Seidel & Sohn, Vienna 1912, online at archive.org
  • Our Germanness! , Salzburg 1920.
  • The causes of our defeat - memories and judgments from the world war , JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1920. (several editions) online at archive.org
  • The essential unity of politics and war as the starting point of a German political theory , 1921.
  • The importance of Austria for the future of the German people , Hanover 1923.
  • The "miracle of Karfreit", in particular the breakthrough at Flitsch and the conquest of the Tagliamento , Munich 1926.
  • The mistake of German royal policy , Munich 1927.
  • Leadership , Bern 1931.
  • Shaper of the world , Munich 1932.
  • Mountain War , A. Krauss, Vienna 1935.
  • Theory and Practice in the Art of War , Munich 1936.

literature

Web links

Commons : Alfred Krauss  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. digitized version
  2. digitized version
  3. ^ Cover pages of the magazine Deutschlands Renewal from 1926 to 1939.