Armand Léon of Ardenne

Armand Léon Baron of Ardenne

Armand Léon Baron von Ardenne (born August 26, 1848 in Leipzig , † May 20, 1919 in Groß-Lichterfelde ) was a Prussian lieutenant general and military historian . He wrote under the pseudonym Bernays . Von Ardenne is the archetype of the fictional character Baron Geert von Innstetten in Fontane's Effi Briest .

origin

His parents were the Royal Belgian Consul General for the Kingdom of Saxony Louis Célestin Prosper von Ardenne (* November 29, 1811 - January 16, 1889) and his wife Wilhelmine nee Brockhaus (* December 29, 1817 - March 23, 1897), daughter by Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus , the founder of the Leipzig publishing house FA Brockhaus , and his second wife Jeanette von Zschock .

Life

He was considered musically (piano) gifted and attended the humanistic St. Thomas School in Leipzig until 1866 . Militarily interested, he took part in the German war against Austria in 1866 . In the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 he suffered a gunshot wound and was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd class. From 1871 to 1875 he attended the War Academy in Berlin. On October 9, 1873, he was raised to the nobility as a baron by the highest cabinet order. Ardenne served as a cavalry officer from 1866 to 1875 with the Hussar Regiment "von Zieten" (Brandenburgisches) No. 3 in Rathenow . In 1871 he became engaged in Stechow and married on January 1, 1873 in Zerben Elizabeth Noble and Baroness von Plotho-Zerben , daughter of Squire Felix Noble and Baron Plotho-Zerben and his wife Marie, born Welling, for which he since their first meeting eagerly advertised. Then they lived on the Lützowufer near the Berlin Zoological Garden , where Ardenne was a captain in the General Staff from 1875 .

In 1879 he was transferred to Metz as adjutant to the commander of the then 30th Cavalry Brigade and in 1881 as Rittmeister and squadron chief to the 2nd Westphalian Hussar Regiment No. 11 in Düsseldorf . There he and his wife lived in Benrath Castle . From October 1, 1884, Ardenne worked as an adjutant to War Minister Paul Bronsart von Schellendorff and an advisor at the War Ministry in Berlin. In November 1886 he discovered an affair between his wife Elisabeth and the magistrate Emil Hartwich , who initially painted her and with whom she later corresponded. He challenged him to a pistol duel and shot him on the Hasenheide near Berlin. After his arrest and penance of eighteen days in fortress detention in the citadel of Magdeburg , he was released and promoted by Kaiser Wilhelm I to major in the Leib-Dragoon Regiment (2nd Grand Ducal Hessian) No. 24 . In March of the same year he divorced his wife and retained custody of their children. He paid her a severance payment of 32,000 Reichsmarks. In 1888 he married the soubrette Julie Peters. The Ardenne affair was of Theodor Fontane 's novel Effi Briest taken.

In 1893 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. From April 18, 1897 to May 18, 1901 he was regimental commander in Darmstadt . In 1895 he was appointed colonel . In 1897 he became commander of the 9th Cavalry Brigade and major general in Glogau . On May 30, 1901, Ardenne was commissioned to take on the business as the inspector of the 3rd cavalry inspection in Münster . At the same time he had to take over the leadership of the 13th division until November 13, 1901 . On April 3, 1902, he was promoted to lieutenant general and as such Ardenne was commander of the 7th Division in Magdeburg from April 1, 1902 to April 14, 1904 . Subsequently, Ardenne was put up for disposition with the statutory pension in approval of his resignation request.

In 1906, Ardenne was commissioned by Kaiser Wilhelm II to draw up an expertise on the recoil of cannons. Unlike Wilhelm II, who preferred the Krupp company , Ardenne considered the device created by Heinrich Ehrhardt of the Rheinische Metallwarenfabrik to be more suitable. During the First World War he was a commentator for the Berliner Tageblatt . He wrote numerous works on military history (including with Hans Ferdinand Helmolt , Wilhelm von Voss and Rudolf von Caemmerer ) and taught at the Prussian War Academy .

Ardenne was u. a. friends with the industrialist Friedrich Alfred Krupp and the painter Max Liebermann . He was the grandfather of the physicist Manfred von Ardenne and Lieutenant Ekkehard von Ardenne, who fell in 1941 and was the military superior of the later Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker in the 9th Potsdam Infantry Regiment . He found his final resting place in Berlin at the Lichterfelde park cemetery .

family

He married Elisabeth Edle and Baron von Plotho on January 1, 1873 , a daughter of the landlord Felix Edler and Baron von Plotho. The marriage ended in divorce in 1887. The couple had two children:

• Margot (born November 5, 1873; † 1938) ⚭ 1897 Eduard Langsdorf († August 28, 1925), banker
• Egmont Armand (born January 4, 1877 - † October 5, 1947), Lieutenant Colonel in the General Staff and Councilor ⚭ Adela Mutzenbecher (born April 21, 1885 - † February 21, 1978), parents of Manfred von Ardenne

After the divorce he married Julia Hermine Peters on May 4, 1888 (* December 13, 1860 - May 20, 1919), divorced Drimborn . the couple had a daughter:

• Ellen Dorothea (* May 16, 1894; † September 30, 1945) ⚭ Dietrich Hans Georg Leo von Tiedemann (* March 19, 1881; † February 6, 1964)

Awards

• Order of the Red Eagle II class with star and oak leaves
• Order of the Crown, 1st class
• Knight 1st class of the Bavarian Order of Military Merit
• Commander II class of the Order of Philip
• Knight 1st class of the Order of Albrecht
• Commander II class of the Duke of Saxony-Ernestine House Order
• Knight's Cross of the Order of the Württemberg Crown with Lions
• Knight of the Belgian Order of Leopold
• Officer of the Order of the Rising Sun
• Officer of the Knightly Order of St. Mauritius and Lazarus
• Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown of Italy
• Knight of the Order of the Oak Crown
• Order of the Iron Crown III. class
• Commander of the Franz Joseph Order
• Officer of the Order of the Crown of Romania
• Russian Order of Saint Anne II Class
• Russian Order of Saint Stanislaus II class
• Spanish Military Order of Merit 1st Class

Fonts (selection)

• History of the Zieten Hussar Regiment. Berlin 1874.
• Bergische Lanziers, Westphalian Hussars No. 11. Berlin 1877, digitized
• Our machine industries, their development and regulation. Leipzig 1915.
• Our train. Its meaning and its tasks. Leipzig 1915.
• The Franco-German War 1870/71. Berlin 1916.
• Fight on the Masurian Lakes after the winter battle. German armies in Western Galicia and the Carpathians. Berlin 1916.
• The German Eastern Front in 1917 until the attack on Riga. Berlin 1919.
• The fighting in the west. The winter battle in Champagne. The French-English summer offensive of 1915. Berlin 1919.
• The army and the officers. Berlin 1919.

literature

• Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the baronial houses, 1905, p.14ff

Web links

• Literature by and about Armand Léon von Ardenne in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ardenne, Armand Leon Baron v. in the German Biographical Nobility Repertory 1200–1999 of the Institute for German Aristocracy Research .
2. ↑ Richard Sachse, Karl Ramshorn, Reinhart Herz: The teachers of the Thomasschule in Leipzig 1832-1912. The high school graduates of the Thomas School in Leipzig 1845–1912. BG Teubner Verlag, Leipzig 1912, p. 43.
3. ↑ The real Effi - Elisabeth von Plotho . In: Der Tagesspiegel . February 8, 2009.
4. ^ Military weekly paper . No. 49 of June 5, 1901, p. 1305.
5. ^ Military weekly paper. No. 48 of April 23, 1904, p. 1169.
6. ^ Rudolf Augstein : Heros and Heulhuber . In: Der Spiegel . No.  28 , 1998 ( online ).
7. ↑ Armand Leon Baron von Ardenne. Friedparks.de, accessed on December 3, 2012.
8. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p} Prussian War Ministry (ed.): Ranking list of the Royal Prussian Army and the XIII. (Royal Württemberg) Army Corps for 1903. ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1903, p. 57.