Alois Schönburg-Hartenstein

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Alois Eduard Prince von Schönburg-Hartenstein as Colonel General; Drawing by Oskar Brüch

Eduard Alois Maria Alexander Konrad Prince of Schönburg-Hartenstein , from 1919 Alois Schönburg-Hartenstein (born November 21, 1858 in Karlsruhe ; † September 20, 1944 in Hartenstein ) was Austro-Hungarian Colonel General and Austrian Defense Minister .

Life

Alois came from the German noble family von Schönburg . He was the son of the Austro-Hungarian diplomat Prince Joseph Alexander von Schönburg-Hartenstein (* March 5, 1826 - October 1, 1896) and Princess Karoline von und zu Liechtenstein (* February 27, 1836 - March 28, 1885), a daughter of Prince Alois II. Prince von und zu Liechtenstein .

Schönburg-Hartenstein was President of the Austrian Red Cross from 1899 to 1913 . From November 1895 to November 1897 he was kuk military plenipotentiary in Berlin and at the same time imperial adjutant. From 1897 he was also a member of the Austrian manor house . On January 5, 1901, Schönburg was promoted to colonel , and on February 8, 1909, he became major general . During the First World War , Prince Schönburg-Hartenstein was the commander of the 6th Division, several army corps and finally the Austro-Hungarian 6th Army.

First World War

In August 1914 he was first in command of the 11th Marching Brigade in the 3rd Army in Galicia. He trained in the association of the XI. Army Corps under General Kolossvary a combined division, which from 27 to 30 August 1914 as the north wing of the III. Army Corps (Gen. the Infantry Emil Colerus von Geldern ) intervened in the Battle of Zloczow . He fought in vain for possession of the Mogilahöhe and had to go back to Lemberg . In August and September he was in command of the 88th Landesschützen Brigade and was promoted to field marshal lieutenant on October 26, 1914 . In the association of the XIV. Corps he distinguished himself in December 1914 in the battle of Limanowa-Lapanow , when his brigade south of Krakow helped to seal off the threatened intrusion of the Russian 3rd Army on Silesia.

On December 26, 1914 he took over from Field Marshal Lieutenant Karl Gelb von Siegesstern the leadership of the 6th Infantry Division, with which he was deployed on the eastern Carpathian ridge with the 3rd Army and near Nadworna on the Dniestrfront in the Army Group Planter-Baltin . At the end of April 1915 he was temporarily given the command of the Ljubicic Corps , which was then renamed the Schönburg Corps Group. In June 1915 his division was transferred to Doroubetz in Bukovina , where he formed the core of the Benigni Corps Group and met the attacks of the Russian 9th Army . In November 1915 Schönburg left the Russian front and followed the 6th Division to Italy; in the Fifth Isonzo Battle his troops were deployed at San Martino and on the Doberdo Plateau.

After the failed South Tyrol offensive , Schönburg took over the leadership of the XX. Army Corps. From January to August 1917 he was in command of the XIV Corps, with which he participated in the defense of South Tyrol. After his promotion to general of the cavalry on August 1, 1917, he took over the leadership of the IV Army Corps on the Isonzo Front on August 22, 1917 . During the eleventh battle of the Isonzo in autumn 1917, his troops played a major role in the fighting on the Bainsizza plateau. In mid-October 1917 he repulsed Italian attacks on Monte San Gabriele.

Foreign Minister Count Ottokar Czernin proposed Schönburg in February 1918 in view of the great hunger strikes in Austria as a food dictator, which Emperor Karl I was able to prevent through his appointment as "General Inspector in the hinterland". Schönburg returned to the new front on the Piave in March 1918 and took over his IV Corps for the second time. During the unsuccessful Piave offensive in June 1918, the 29th Division and the 64th and 70th Honved Divisions, which were subordinate to him, achieved some success in crossing the river, Schoenburg was wounded by shrapnel.

After a short stay in the hospital, he returned to the front and on July 16, 1918 assumed command of the Austro-Hungarian 6th Army . Its front section was roughly from Feltre to Papadopoli Island. On October 24, 1918, the Italians launched a counter-offensive in Veneto , and on October 27, the Austro-Hungarian positions were breached on both sides of Montello and Papadopoli Island.

On November 1, 1918, Schönburg was recalled from the collapsing front to Vienna to make himself available to the emperor. On November 5, he traveled by car to Villach , the new headquarters of his army high command. After he had received his promotion to Colonel General , he was discharged from the army on November 16 by the Renner I state government of the new German-Austrian state . He retired on December 1, 1918 and withdrew to his estates on Lake Achensee .

First republic

He turned down the offer of the Christian social politician Leopold Kunschak to take over the leadership of the newly founded home guard associations in Lower Austria in 1920 , but he promoted the development of comradeship associations. In 1927 he was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Maria Theresa Order for his services to the Isonzo Front .

In the First Republic he held the post of State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Army from September 21, 1933 to March 12, 1934 and of the Federal Minister of Army Affairs from March 12 to July 10, 1934 in the dictatorial government of Dollfuss II . He was thus one of the main politically responsible persons for the deployment of the Federal Army in the civil war and the February uprising in 1934 . In this function, he also ordered that only non-explosive practice ammunition was used for artillery use against the fighters entrenched in buildings, which also explains the relatively low damage to the buildings.

After the murder of Dollfuss, Schönburg was appointed to the newly formed State Council of the “corporate state” on October 31, 1934 by the dictatorial Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg .

In 1936 he was accused of dishonest financial transactions in connection with his position in the insurance company Phönix , which had to go bankrupt, and was acquitted in two proceedings, but resigned his membership in the State Council in May 1936 and withdrew from the public. (The events around Phoenix were also interpreted as a power struggle between Schuschnigg and Heimwehr leader Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg .)

family

On April 23, 1887, he married Countess Johanna von Colloredo-Mannsfeld in Vienna (* July 27, 1867, † August 27, 1938). The marriage had seven children:

  • Alexander (Prince of) Schönburg-Hartenstein (* July 28, 1888 † January 20, 1956)
  • Aglaë (Princess of) Schönburg-Hartenstein (* January 16, 1891 † February 20, 1965)
  • Hieronymus Joseph Aloys Maria Prince von Schönburg-Hartenstein (* November 1, 1889 † September 1, 1914)
  • Karoline Franziska Maria (Princess of) Schönburg-Hartenstein (* August 24, 1892 † April 24, 1986)
  • Maria Theresia (Princess of) Schönburg-Hartenstein (* February 4, 1896 † August 14, 1979)
  • Margarethe (Princess of) Schönburg-Hartenstein (* December 14, 1897 † August 30, 1980)
  • Isabella Josephine Maria (Princess of) Schönburg-Hartenstein (* August 20, 1901 † April 28, 1987)

literature

Web links

Commons : Alois Schönburg-Hartenstein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The title was made bourgeois on the basis of the "Law on the Abolition of the Nobility, Secular Knights and Ladies Orders and Certain Titles and Dignities" of the Republic of Austria (Nobility Repeal Act ) of April 3, 1919 with effect from April 10, 1919.
  2. ↑ Antonio Schmidt-Brentano: The KK or KuK Generalität 1816–1918 ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Austrian State Archives, Vienna 2007, p. 166 (PDF). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oesta.gv.at
  3. ↑ a b Schönburg-Hartenstein, (Eduard) Alois Fürst von (1858-1944), Lieutenant Field Marshal and Minister ; in: Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950 , Volume 11, Vienna 1995, p. 62. ( Online )
  4. ^ Gudula Walterskirchen: The blind spots of history: Austria 1927-1938 . Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 2017, p. 82 .
personal data
SURNAME Schönburg-Hartenstein, Alois
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schönburg-Hartenstein, Prince Alois von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Colonel General and Defense Minister
DATE OF BIRTH November 21, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Karlsruhe
DATE OF DEATH September 20, 1944
Place of death Hartenstein