Bernhard Schwertfeger

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Bernhard Schwertfeger (Germany)
Aurich
Aurich
Goettingen
Goettingen
Bad Pyrmont
Bad Pyrmont
Hanover
Hanover
Bernhard Schwertfeger lived and taught mainly in Lower Saxony

Bernhard Heinrich Schwertfeger or Schwerdtfeger (born September 23, 1868 in Aurich , North German Confederation ; † January 13, 1953 in Neckargemünd , Federal Republic of Germany ) was a German military and historian .

officer

Schwertfeger, who first served in the Saxon military in 1888 and then studied at the Hanover War School , was accepted into the Prussian army as an artillery officer in 1908 and, after graduating from the Prussian War Academy , at which he also taught as a teacher from 1910 to 1914, joined the Great General Staff appointed. There he also served during the First World War before he retired from active service in 1916 as a colonel or major general . He then worked until 1917 as head of Section VI (Archives Department) in the Political Department of the General Government in Belgium , and from 1918 in the Foreign Office of the German Reich.

War guilt researcher

On behalf of the Foreign Office and the Central Office for Research into the Causes of War , Schwertfeger published and commented after the war with revisionist and apologetic intent and a. Official files on the history of European politics , including The Belgian Documents on the Prehistory of the World War . During the occupation of Belgium, Brussels and the Belgian Foreign Ministry, these were files and circulars that had fallen into German hands and excerpts of which had already been published during the war for propaganda purposes. As in many of his other works, Schwertfeger endeavored to use the assessments of Belgian diplomats such as Jules Greindl and Eugène Beyens to show that it was primarily French revanchism, Russian Pan-Slavism and British policy of encirclement that led to the outbreak of war, i.e. the German Reich was at least not solely responsible for the war have worn. The later Federal President Theodor Heuss , who was asked by Schwertfeger to assess his work, did not see the overestimation of political assessments of individual Belgian diplomats as being of central importance and therefore did not consider Schwertfeger's essays to be politically expedient . Irrespective of this assessment, Schwertfeger's works have documentary and contemporary historical significance.

From 1920 to 1928, Schwertfeger was also an expert on the inquiry committee of the Reichstag to research the causes of the German collapse in the World War and in the stab in the back process . After the German Publishing Society for Politics and History, which was subsidized by the German Reichstag, became insolvent in the wake of the global economic crisis , Schwertfeger tried in vain in 1930/31 to sue for outstanding fees from publications as an expert.

historian

Schwertfeger lived in Bad Pyrmont in the early 1920s . From 1925 and 1926, Schwertfeger lectured as a lecturer in war history, initially at the Technical University of Hanover , then on the occasion of his 60th birthday in 1928, he received an honorary doctorate (from the Philosophical Faculty) of the University of Göttingen, and from 1929 and 1930, he also lectured there as a lecturer in military science Lectures (at the Institute for Medieval and Modern History). First for the People's Conservative Association , then in the Reichstag elections in March 1933 for the German People's Party , Schwertfeger ran unsuccessfully in the Göttingen constituency. In the Third Reich he ended his teaching activities in 1937, but continued to publish and received the silver Leibniz Medal from the Nazi regime and the Prussian Academy of Sciences during the Second World War in 1940 and the Goethe Medal for Art on the occasion of his 75th birthday in 1943 and science .

After the war Schwertfeger was in the Soviet occupation zone as a Nazi military leaders classified or as one of those authors whose complete works from the collection are to remove , and several of his books were there in 1946 and 1947 to the list of auszusondernden literature set. In the US zone he was still allowed to publish.

The journalist Walter Schwerdtfeger was Bernhard Schwertfeger's nephew.

Publications (selection)

The Belgian documents (1925)
  • The Royal Hanoverian Lieutenant General August Friedrich Freiherr vd Bus (s) che-Ippenburg - A soldier's life from an eventful time (1904), digitized
  • History of the Royal German Legion 1803-1816 (1907), Volume 1 , Volume 2
  • Germany's acquittal from guilty of the war (1914)
  • On European Politics 1887-1914 (1919)
  • Official files on the history of European politics 1871-1914 - The intellectual struggle to violate Belgian neutrality (1919)
  • Belgian national defense and civic guard (garde civique) 1914 (1920)
  • The Basics of the Belgian Franktireur War 1914 - The German Official Material (1920)
  • Poincaré and the Guilt for World Wars (1921)
  • Germany's Guilt for the World War - Answer to Lloyd George (1921)
  • The Misconception of Versailles - Germany's acquittal from Belgian documents 1871-1914 - Final examination of the Brussels files (1921)
  • Causes of the Collapse: Origin, Implementation, and Collapse of the 1918 Offensive (1922)
  • The Diplomatic Files of the Federal Foreign Office 1871-1914 - A Guide to the Large Files of the German Government (1924)
  • Official files on the history of European politics, 1885-1914 (The Belgian documents on the prehistory of the World War) (1925)
  • Political and Military Responsibilities in the Course of the 1918 Offensive (1925)
  • The Causes and Responsibilities of the Great War - Evidence and Testimony (1926)
  • Bismarck era 1871-1890 (1927)
  • World Political Complications 1908-1914 (1927)
  • Documentary on the prehistory of the World War 1871-1914 (1928)
  • The World War of Documents - 10 Years of War Guilt Research and its Results (1929)
  • The Truth About Dreyfus (1930)
  • Rudolf Valentini - Emperor and Head of Cabinet (1931)
  • The New Franco-Russian Dual Alliance in the Light of French Pre-War Acts (1936)
  • The Great Educators of the German Army - From the History of the War Academy (1936)
  • Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst, Prussian General (1936)
  • The German People - Its Nature, Its Classes / German Soldiers' Studies (1937)
  • The End of the World War - Thoughts on German Warfare in 1918 (1937)
  • War History and Defense Policy - Lectures and Essays from Three Decades (1938)
  • Germany and Russia in the Change of the European Alliances (1939)
  • England and the Dictation of Versailles (1940)
  • In the struggle for living space 1870-1940 (1940)
  • Count Wilhelm zu Schaumburg-Lippe (1941)
  • Mysteries of Germany from 1933 to 1945 (1947)
  • Riddles about Germany - Facts and Backgrounds of German History 1918-1945 (1948)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Federal Archives : "Files of the Reich Chancellery, Weimar Republic" online
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Bernhard Schwerdtfeger , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 24/1953 from June 1, 1953 (lm), in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)
  3. ↑ Apparently he was given the rank of general a. D. was not awarded until 1939.
  4. ↑ a b Federal Archives : Digitized documents from bequests - N 1015 Nachlass Bernhard Schwertfeger
  5. ↑ a b Federal Archives - Estate database: Schwertfeger, Bernhard (1868-1953)
  6. ↑ Michael Dreyer, Oliver Lembcke: The German discussion about the war guilt question 1918/19 , pages 107f and 214. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1993
  7. ↑ Werner Röhr: One Hundred Years of German War Debt Debate - From White Paper 1914 to Today's Historical Revisionism , pages 38, 42, 44 and 296. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2015
  8. ↑ a b Michael Dorrmann: Theodor Heuss, Citizen of the Weimar Republic , page 175f. K. G. Saur, Munich 2008
  9. ↑ a b dtv-Lexikon , Volume 16, Page 269. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1971
  10. ^ Historical archive of the city of Cologne: The economic difficulties of the publisher Hans Moeller because of the large number of files published
  11. ↑ Dieter E. Kilian - Politics and the military in Germany: the Federal Presidents and Federal Chancellors and their relationship to the military and the Bundeswehr , page 39. Miles-Verlag, Berlin 2011
  12. ↑ a b Niederdeutsche Zeitung (Hamburg) of September 23, 1948, page 1: Bernhard Schwertfeger 80 years
  13. ↑ a b Der Neue Brockhaus , fourth volume, page 166.Brockhaus, Leipzig 1938
  14. ↑ Lena Elisa Friday: Academic honors at the University of Göttingen , In: Johannes Koll, Alexander Pinwinkler: Too much of honor? Interdisciplinary perspectives on academic honors in Germany and Austria , page 154f. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2019
  15. ↑ Heinrich Becker, Hans-Joachim Dahms, Cornelia Wegeler: The University of Göttingen under National Socialism , pages 34 and 436-453. G. K. Saur, Munich 1998
  16. ↑ Codula Tollmien: National Socialism in Göttingen (1933-1945) , In: Rudolf von Thadden (Hrsg.): Göttingen - From the Prussian Middle Town to the South Lower Saxony Big City 1866-1989 , page 138f. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987
  17. ^ Department for popular education in the city of Berlin's magistrate: Directory of the literature to be sorted out , page 71. Magistratsdruckerei, Berlin 1946
  18. ^ German administration for popular education in the Soviet zone of occupation: List of the literature to be sorted out, pages 347-414. Zentralverlag, Berlin 1946
  19. ^ German administration for popular education in the Soviet zone of occupation: List of the literature to be sorted out, pages 127-148. Zentralverlag, Berlin 1947
  20. ^ Gustav Radbruch: State and Constitution , Volume 14, Pages 153f and 237ff. CF Müller GmbH, Heidelberg 2002
  21. ↑ Das Neue Tage-Buch , Volume 4, Issues 27–52, Page 726. Nederlandsche Uitgeverij, Paris / Amsterdam 1936
personal data
SURNAME Schwertfeger, Bernhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schwertfeger, Bernhard Heinrich (full name); Schwerdtfeger, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German military historian and revisionist
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Aurich , Prussia , North German Confederation
DATE OF DEATH January 13, 1953
Place of death Neckargemünd , Federal Republic of Germany