Bernard Gordon Lennox

Bernard Charles Gordon Lennox CB MBE (born September 19, 1932 - † December 27, 2017 in Eversley, Hampshire , England ) was a British officer and Major General of the Army . From 1983 to 1985 he was the 19th commander of the British sector of Berlin and thus one of the Allied city ​​commanders .

Beginning of the military career

Bernard Gordon Lennox was a great-grandson of Charles Gordon-Lennox, 7th Duke of Richmond . As a graduate of Eton College in Windsor ( Berkshire ), he then went to the Sandhurst Military Academy . In 1953 he formally joined the Grenadier Guards , in which almost all ancestors already served.

In 1968 he was named a member of the Order of the British Empire .

As a commanding officer , he was in command of the 1st Battalion of the Grenadier Guards from 1974 and two years later moved to the Royal Air Force Staff College as a general staff officer before becoming commander of the 20th Armored Division in 1978 .

In 1981 Gordon Lennox assumed the post of Chief of Staff of the South East District

City Commander in Berlin

As the successor to David Mostyn , he took over the post of Commander of the British Sector of Berlin in October 1983, meanwhile promoted to Major General, and was next to the Americans James Boatner and John Mitchel (from June 1984) and the French Jean Liron, Oliver des Gabory (from 1984) and Paul Cavarrot (from 1985) one of the three western city commanders who formed the Allied Command and thus the highest authority in West Berlin . At this point the Soviet Union had already withdrawn from the body .

As city commander, he assumed one of the most important and outstanding posts that the British military had to fill outside of Great Britain. As such, he was on the one hand the military, but above all the "political leader" of his country and exercised a kind of representative status for Queen Elizabeth II . because Berlin was formally outside the scope of the Federal Republic of Germany and Great Britain's ambassador residing in Bonn was not responsible.

Like his predecessors, Gordon Lennox, as city commander, concentrated mainly on the political and diplomatic representation of his country and his duties as a member of the Allied Command, while the respective brigade commander took over the purely military command of the British armed forces in the four-sector city .

With the move to Berlin Gordon Lennox moved with his family in the Berlin district Gatow located Villa Lemm . Members of the British royal family also resided on the property, which was guarded by members of the 248 German Security Unit , a German company and guard police unit of the British Military Police (RMP) , during their stays in Berlin. The function of the host towards the royal family was fulfilled by a British city commander at least once a year when the Royal Birthday Parade ("Queens Birthday Parade") was to be accepted on the Berlin Maifeld at the Olympic Stadium .

In his function as British city commander, he also took on the honorary office of President of the Berlin branch of the Royal British Legion .

His term of office in Berlin ended in December 1985 . His successor in office was Patrick Brooking .

Last commands

His last assignment as an active officer was from 1986 as director of the Royal College of Defense Studies , the college of the armed forces of the United Kingdom . In the same year he was named Companion of the Order of the Bath for his services . A year later, in 1987, Gordon Lennox finally retired .

Following a tradition of former officers in the rank of general, Gordon Lennox took over the position of Honorary Colonel of the Grenadier Guards from 1989 to 1995 .

Private

Bernard Gordon Lennox was born the eldest son of Lieutenant General Sir George Gordon-Lennox and his wife Nacy Brenda Darell. He comes from the Gordon clan , whose historical roots go back to the 13th century and who have already produced many politicians and officers.

Lord Bernard Gordon-Lennox (1878-1914), a major in the English Army, was the grandfather of Bernard Gordon Lennox. His uncle was Rear Admiral Sir Alexander Gordon-Lennox.

Bernard Gordon Lennox had been married to his wife Sally-Rose since November 20, 1958. The sons Edward (* 1961), Angus (* 1964) and Charles (* 1970) emerged from the marriage. He was also a grandfather of eight.

After finishing his active career, he was the first in his family to drop the hyphen between his two surnames and no longer use it.

Bernard Gordon Lennox suffered from Alzheimer's disease in the last few years of his life and died in December 2017 at the age of 85 at his Hill House estate in Eversley in the Hart District , Hampshire. He was honored with a large funeral service in London on March 23, 2018 .

literature

• Robert JS Corbett: Berlin and the British Ally. 1945–1990 . Berlin 1991.

Web links

• The British city commanders on the GSU History website
• Maj. Gen. Bernard Charles Gordon Lennox on thepeerage.com

Individual evidence

1. ^ Major-General Bernard C. Gordon Lennox. In: THE PEERAGE website. Retrieved February 20, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Carsten Schanz: The elite protagonist . In: GUARD REPORT . Edition 72, 7th year. Kameradschaft 248 German Security Unit e. V., September 2017, p. 1-3 .
3. ↑ Mourning City Commander Gordon Lennox. In: website of the Kameradschaft 248 German Security Unit e. V. January 4, 2018, accessed February 20, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Jörg Zindler: Former British city commander Gordon Lennox has died. Berliner Woche, January 7, 2018, accessed on February 20, 2018 .