Alfred von Waldstätten

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alfred Georg Freiherr von Waldstätten

Alfred Georg Heinrich Maria (Baron) Waldstätten (* 9. November 1872 in Vienna , † 12 January 1952 in Mauerbach ) was an Austro-Hungarian and Austrian officer (highest rank: Field Marshal Lieutenant ), instructor at the Imperial and Royal Military Academy and an important military adviser by Archduke heir to the throne Karl Franz Joseph , since 1916 Emperor Karl I.

biography

The son of Feldzeugmeister Georg von Waldstätten graduated from the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt in the 1892 class as by far the best of the class, and the only one with the grade excellent considered. On August 18, 1892 he joined the kuk infantry regiment No. 81 of his uncle Johann Baptist von Waldstätten as a lieutenant , attended the war school from 1895–1897 and was promoted to captain on May 1, 1895. He left the war school again in 1897 as the best in his year and the only one with the grade excellent.

Archduke heir to the throne Karl Franz Joseph and Alfred von Waldstätten, 1916

This was followed by military service and general staff assignments, so 1899-1901 as captain in Infantry Regiment No. 1 Kaiser, 1901 as captain in the General Staff Corps, 1908-1910 as major (May 1, 1909) and chief of staff of the 28th Infantry Division in Ljubljana . He was promoted to lieutenant colonel on November 1, 1912 and served as a teacher at the war school. His appointment as colonel took place after the start of the war on November 1, 1914.

When the world war broke out, Waldstätten was appointed head of the operations department of the Dankl Army Group and as such was involved in the Battle of Kraśnik on August 25, 1914, in which the 9th German and Dankl's 1st Austro-Hungarian Army defeated the Russian troops for the first time. Later, when the advance of the Russians made this inevitable, he had to plan the withdrawal of his army on the Tanev and San rivers in Austrian Galicia . In 1915 he was transferred to the Tyrol National Defense Command in the same position when Italy joined the war against Austria-Hungary on the side of the Triple Entente . In 1915 he received the Iron Cross 1st class.

At the special request of Archduke heir to the throne Karl Franz Joseph, Waldstätten, since March 1916 Chief of Staff of the XX. Corps in the 7th Army ( Kövess ), added as a personal advisor. As a result, Waldstätten was Chief of Staff of the 7th Army from the end of September 1916. On November 21, 1916, the archduke heir to the throne succeeded the late Franz Joseph I as emperor. In 1916 Waldstätten was awarded the Order of the Iron Crown, 2nd class.

After the new Emperor Karl I appointed General Arthur Arz von Straussenburg as successor to Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf as the new Chief of Staff in 1917, Waldstätten became head of the Operations Department of the Army High Command on March 2, 1917 at the Emperor's request . Waldstätten, who was promoted to kuk major general on August 12, 1917 (rank of September 10, 1917) , was awarded the Prussian Order Pour le Mérite on November 3, 1917 and in the same year received the Commander's Cross of the Austrian Leopold Order and the Military Merit Cross II. Class.

In January 1918 Waldstätten became deputy head of the General Staff. In this position he was responsible for planning operations for the army on the Eastern Front.

At the end of the war, Waldstätten telephoned in detail on November 2, 1918, with the Hungarian War Minister Béla Linder, who had been appointed after the dissolution of Hungary's real union with Austria on October 31, 1918 . He asked when his order to the Hungarian regiments to stop fighting immediately and return to Hungary would be passed on to these regiments by the AOK. The answer had to do with when the Villa Giusti armistice , which had been negotiated, would be concluded. This happened after a few delays in Vienna (the Kaiser wanted to involve the German-Austrian Council of State, but the latter refused to accept any responsibility) on November 3, 1918 and led to the immediate cessation of the fighting by the remaining war-weary troops. The Italian army, however, adhered to November 4th, which was stated in the armistice agreement as the date on which it came into force, and by then had taken hundreds of thousands of prisoners. As far as this was possible from Baden near Vienna, Waldstätten supervised the retreat of the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian army from the southern front.

Waldstätten is said to have been designated for the post of Minister of War after the war by optimists who believed in the continued existence of Imperial Austria after 1918. However, at the beginning of November 1918, these considerations turned out to be unreal (see, among others: Ministry of Lammasch , German Austria ). He was retired from the German-Austrian State Office for the Army on January 1, 1919. In April 1919, with the Nobility Repeal Act, nobility titles such as Freiherr von were abolished.

Waldstätten were later awarded honors: With the resolution of the Austrian (dictatorial) Federal President Wilhelm Miklas on July 31, 1937, he received the title of Lieutenant Field Marshal . The Nazi regime gave Waldstätten on 27 August 1939 the so-called Tannenbergtag , the character as General of Infantry .

His father-in-law, Karl Borromäus Ferdinand Putz von Rolsberg , who died in 1921, had entrusted him with the management of his property including Leitersdorf Castle in Moravia , which belonged to the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia during the war , as his only son and all other adult male family members had already died. During this time he was also the last German mayor of Leitersdorf. He was arrested in the course of the expulsion and expropriation of the family by the re-established Czech state and sentenced to seven years in prison in a show trial, but pardoned after two years. Marked by the prison conditions, he spent the last years of his life in the Austrian Mauerbach near Vienna.

Old and New Leitersdorf Palace

family

Alfred was the son of Georg and nephew of Johann Baptist Freiherrn von Waldstätten . He married Bertha Malwine Antonie Freiin Putz von Rolsberg , known as Hertha (* October 10, 1881, † December 9, 1972), a daughter of the lord of the castle, on October 20, 1900 at Schloss Leitersdorf , and had four children with her:

  • Dr. jur. Georg Johann Alfred (August 15, 1901 - July xx, 1989)
  • Graduate engineer Karl Georg Maximilian Hans (1903–1945)
  • Dr. Maria Eva Bianca Charlotte (1908–1999)
  • Johann Baptist Karl (January 13, 1921– September 30, 1998)

  • Wedding of Alfred Freiherr von Waldstätten and Hertha Freiin Putz von Rolsberg on October 20, 1900

  • Wedding of Alfred von Waldstätten and Bertha Malvine Putz von Rolsberg

  • Alfred von Waldstätten with his wife and children in Leitersdorf in 1904

  • Family photo in Leitersdorf, 1906

  • Georg and Karl von Waldstätten 1906

  • Hertha von Waldstätten with children, Vienna 1914

literature

  • Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the baronial houses S – Z , FB, 1905, 1941.
  • Johann Svoboda: The Theresian Military Academy in Wiener-Neustadt 1838–1893 , Volume 2, Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1897.
  • August v. Doerr: The Hayek von Waldstätten. Separate print from the yearbook of the kais. Heraldic Society "Adler", Carl Gerold's Sohn printing works, Vienna 1914.
  • Maximilian Mayerhoffer: Family tree and proof of nobility of the Putz von Rolsberg family. Tannheim 1951
  • Troppauer Heimatchronik. Episode 303, St. Otto-Verlag, Bamberg 1975.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Classification lists, in KA, Militärschulen, Karton 566: K. uk Militär-Academie zu Wr. Neustadt 1892
  2. ↑ Mechtild Dubbi: “From Captain to Kommerzienrat Karl Bittner. (1871–1951) ”, p. 74
  3. ^ Oskar Regele: Court of Habsburgs Wehrmacht , Herold Verlag, Vienna - Munich 1968, p. 232
  4. ^ Johann Swoboda: The Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt and its pupils: 1838–1893 , Volume 2, KK Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1897, p. 139
  5. ^ Gerhard Artl: The Austro-Hungarian South Tyrol Offensive 1916 , Volume 2 of the Military History Dissertations of Austrian Universities, Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1983, p. 64
  6. ^ Elisabeth Kovács: Political documents on Emperor and King Karl I (IV.), Political documents from international archives , Böhlau Verlag, Vienna - Cologne - Weimar 2004, p. 132
  7. ↑ Pour le mérite - Condecorados ( Memento from January 16, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  8. ^ Spencer Tucker: The Encyclopedia of World War I , A – D: Volume 1, ABC-Clio Inc., Santa Barbara, California, 2005, p. 1231
  9. ↑ Ernst Schraepler: Causes and consequences: From the German collapse in 1918 and 1945 to the state reorganization of Germany in the present - a collection of documents and documents on contemporary history , Biographisches Register, Volume 2, Dokument-Verlag, Berlin 1979, p. 765
  10. ↑ Record of the conversation printed in Rudolf Neck (ed.): Austria in the year 1918. Reports and documents , R. Oldenbourg, Munich 1968, p. 104 ff.
  11. ↑ Troppauer Heimatchronik. Episode 303, St. Otto-Verlag, Bamberg, 1975, p. 81 ff
  12. ^ The kk or kuk generals 1816-1918 ( Memento of October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ↑ Troppauer Heimatchronik. Episode 303, St. Otto-Verlag, Bamberg, 1975, p. 81 ff
  14. ^ Maria, Dolly, Olga Razumovsky: Our farewell to the Czech homeland , Verlag Böhlau, Vienna 2000, p. 357
  15. ^ Maximilian Mayerhoffer: Family tree and evidence of nobility of the Putz von Rolsberg family / in Leitersdorf. Tannheim 1951 p. 246 ff
  16. ↑ August v. Doerr: The Hayek von Waldstätten , separate print from the yearbook of the kais. Heraldic Society "Adler", Carl Gerold's Sohn printing works, Vienna 1914, p. 24
  17. ↑ Alexander Wassilko von Serecki: family tree of the Rolsberg family
personal data
SURNAME Waldstätten, Alfred von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Waldstätten, Alfred Georg Heinrich Maria Freiherr von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian officer
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH January 12, 1952
Place of death Vienna