Berthold Deimling

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Berthold von Deimling

Berthold Deimling , von Deimling since 1905 (born March 21, 1853 in Karlsruhe , † February 3, 1944 in Baden-Baden ), was a Prussian infantry general and later pacifist . Deimling was a controversial figure throughout his life and achieved a highly controversial assessment through spectacular behavior and arbitrariness. Until the end of the First World War he was considered one of the exponents of the "saber rattle". The turn to become a pacifist immediately afterwards seemed incomprehensible to most contemporaries.

origin

His parents were the district judge from Freiburg im Breisgau Gottfried Berthold Deimling (1823–1876) and his wife Anna von Stöcklern zu Grünholzeck , a daughter of the Oberpostdirektionsrat in Freiburg Carl Theodor von Stöcklern zu Grünholzeck (1787–1866) and Wilhelmine Schwenck . His uncle was the teacher Otto Deimling (born September 10, 1821, † March 11, 1875) and Lieutenant General Ludwig von Deimling (1833-1906).

Military career

Deimling joined the 5th Badische Infantry Regiment No. 113 in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1871 as a one-year volunteer and was promoted to secondary lieutenant in 1873 . In 1875 he moved to the Holstein Infantry Regiment No. 85 in Rendsburg . In 1879 he married. He was promoted to Prime Lieutenant in 1880 while he graduated from the War Academy in Berlin from 1879 to 1882 . Deimling then resumed service in Infantry Regiment No. 85 in Rendsburg in 1882.

In 1886 he was transferred to the Great General Staff in the railway department and promoted to captain in 1888 . From 1891 he was a General Staff Officer of the 1st Division in Königsberg . In 1893 he became major and from 1895 he was on the General Staff of the XVI. Army corps deployed. In 1898 he became battalion commander in the 4th Baden Infantry Regiment "Prince Wilhelm" No. 112 in Mulhouse ( Sundgau ). In 1900 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and transferred to the General Staff as head of Operations Division II. In 1903 Deimling became a colonel and commander of infantry regiment No. 112 in Mulhouse and in 1904 commander of the newly established 2nd field regiment for use in German South West Africa .

During the Nama uprising in 1905 he was deputy commander in chief for the southern region. Already in 1905 he returned home because of alleged "field service incapacity" and a reception at the emperor with elevation to the hereditary nobility . In 1906 he was appointed commander of the Schutztruppe in South West Africa and in 1907 he was promoted to major general. After the end of the fighting and the return of the intervention troops, he gave up command. He then became the commander of the 58th Infantry Brigade in Mulhouse. In 1910 he was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed commander of the 29th division in Freiburg im Breisgau. This was followed by a job as commanding general of the XV from March 1, 1913 . Army Corps in Strasbourg . In this position Deimling was promoted to General of the Infantry on March 22, 1914.

With the outbreak of World War I , Deimling and his corps took part in the fighting in southern Alsace , on the Aisne , off Ypres (1914) in Flanders and off Verdun (February 21 to December 20, 1916). On September 3, 1916, he was awarded the Order Pour le Mérite for taking Fort Vaux . In October 1916 Deimling was used on the Somme . On November 19, 1916 there was a transfer as section commander of Army Division B in the central Vosges . On May 22, 1917, Deimling was put up for disposition while simultaneously being appointed chief of the 1st Lower Alsatian Infantry Regiment No. 132 in Strasbourg .

Critical appraisal

Herero and Nama uprising

In the spirit of the emperor and the commander-in-chief, Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha , Deimling was characterized by unyielding toughness both towards the indigenous opponent and towards his own soldiers, which quickly led to the rejection of the "old Africans", the long-term protection troop officers also brought in the recognition “from the highest point”. He knew how to reinterpret failures and failures as successes. After the Herero campaign was over, he was charged with suppressing the Nama uprising as the deputy commander in chief . Despite frequent reports of victories, he had to recognize the hopelessness of the company and was released to Germany because of an "injured shoulder". Because of his services he was raised to the nobility by the emperor. After his recovery, he replaced von Trotha, who had fallen out of favor, as commander of the protection force in the colony of German South West Africa, with the emperor's instructions to end the war, which had become unpopular, as quickly as possible through negotiations and concessions.

Colonial template

Immediately before his departure as commander of the protection force in German South West Africa, he caused an uproar in the Reichstag when he appeared as an "expert" for the Reich government in the budget debate on the colonies and exclaimed: "As long as I have the honor of being in command outside, the South will not be given up [...] unless His Majesty the Emperor orders it, who alone has control over it and no one else. ”The parliamentarians across all parties reacted with indignation and the corresponding government proposal fell into general rejection.

The satirical magazine Kladderadatsch added the following verses to his speech:

I am the master of Deimling
and colonel for the time being.
I am not a gruel,
I am marrowed.

I wave the saber
at the Bundesrat table and chop a ragout mixture
from Spahn and Bebel
Mir

Crazy affair

Deimling's appointment as commanding general in Strasbourg in 1913, whose sphere of activity encompassed almost all of Alsace, was due to his previous public appearance as a person in charge in Mulhouse and Freiburg and the threat by the emperor to the mayor of Strasbourg to “break the two-year-old constitution to pieces “And to return to dictatorship was not seen as a pacification of the tense relationship between the military and the civilian population in Alsace-Lorraine. On the contrary, Deimling used every opportunity to emphasize the claimed primacy of the military also to the governor ( chief president ) for Alsace-Lorraine Karl von Wedel . Only in this political climate could the hubris of a twenty-year-old lieutenant grow into a serious state crisis, the Zabern affair , especially since the commanding general not only did nothing to smooth things over but, on the contrary, gave all subordinate participants the "protection of the emperor" and the regimental commander, who was already asking for his leave of absence, refused to do so and called on him to take tough action. The telegram from the Crown Prince to Deimling and Reuter, the regimental commander, in which he wrote “Bravo!” And “Always firm druff”, that “an example must be made to spoil the indulgence of the natives in such incidents” An Alsatian telegraph officer became public, shows the real responsibility in the affair.

"Butcher of Ypres"

With the relocation of his XV. Army Corps in 1914 in fiercely contested Flanders, Deimling tried several times without authorization - contrary to orders to the contrary - to attach military successes to his name. However, these arbitrary acts resulted in far-reaching disasters and also had political consequences. The multiple attempts to conquer Ypres got stuck in "mud and blood". On November 4, 1914, for no military reason and against the express instructions of his Commander-in-Chief, Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, he had the famous medieval cloth halls of Ypres laid to rubble and ashes.

On November 15 he had four regiments with a total of 12,000 men attacked with regimental music and playing the "Deutschlandlied" (see also the myth of Langemarck ); almost half survived. It was there that his reputation as the “butcher of Ypres” was born. Contrary to the advice of all his regimental commanders, he had the specially trained Pioneer Regiment No. 35 use chlorine gas on a large scale on April 22, 1915 (first day of the Second Battle of Flanders ) , for the first time on the German side. 150 tons from 6,000 bottles were blown off. The German attackers were then able to take the Allied positions without opposing resistance and advance three to four kilometers; However, they had no gas masks themselves, which inhibited further advance (see also gas war during the First World War ). In addition, there were not enough reserves to be able to exploit the gap in the front.

End of service / end of war

At the instigation of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, his former subordinate brigade commander, Deimling was relieved of his command in mid-November 1916, apparently due to unsuccessfulness and arbitrariness, and after a brief interlude in the stage in September 1917 finally retired. Despite hard efforts to the end, he was not reinstated.

At the end of the war he made himself available to the Baden Soldiers' Council and was responsible for the Baden-Baden district for the channeling of the returning troops and for the demilitarization of a 30-kilometer-wide strip along the Rhine.

Weimar Republic and National Socialism

Not least out of disappointment about his dismissal, Deimling had built a critical distance from the militarist milieu in the last years of the war. In addition, the historian Christoph Jahr also attests to a “serious learning process”. During the November Revolution Deimling made himself available to the Baden soldiers' council in order to build up the Baden people's armed forces. Before the elections for the Baden National Assembly, he joined the left-liberal German Democratic Party (DDP) and a little later the German Peace Society . At times he was a member of the Reich Party Committee and in 1924 was under discussion as a candidate for the Reichstag.

Deimling was a member and co-founder of the Reichsbanner Black-Red-Gold Republic Protection Association , was active in its Reich Committee, spoke at rallies and held parades. He was publicly involved in the German League for Human Rights , adopted positions of bourgeois pacifism , advocated general disarmament, international arbitration and Germany's accession to the League of Nations , but rejected radical pacifism. Because of his republican-pacifist engagement, he was marginalized by other former officers and defamed as the "butcher of Ypres".

After the National Socialist " seizure of power ", Deimling initially showed approval and tried to convince the National Socialists of his goals. Hardly anything can be said about his attitude towards National Socialism in view of the poor sources. Christoph Jahr considers Deimling to be politically naive. He had remained true to his pacifism of reason, but had willingly given himself up to the illusion that the Nazi leadership wanted to keep the peace. From 1933 onwards, Deimling was not wanted at the annual meeting of the “Pour le mérite” wearers. In 1940 he lost his honorary salary.

family

In 1879 Deimling married Elisabeth von Otto , a daughter of the owner of the Carlsberg estate near Mansfeld, Alexander von Otto and Wilhelmine von Sperling . The couple had four daughters:

  • Elisabeth Anna Wilhelmine (born July 17, 1880)
  • Anna Maria Margarethe Jenny (born November 11, 1882)
  • Marie Josephine Charlotte (born January 20, 1884) ∞ 1910 Wolf Eginhard von Kruse (1887–1950), owner of Neetzow Castle
  • Charlotte Pauline (born March 11, 1885)

See also

Movie

literature

Web links

Commons : Berthold Deimling  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ [Franke estate, Viktor, N 1030 (Bundesarchiv Koblenz) diary entry of August 19, 1904]
  2. ^ [Stenographic reports on negotiations of the Reichstag 217, session of May 26, 1906, p. 3538]
  3. quoted in Frankfurter Zeitung No. 932 of December 15, 1930.
  4. Christoph Jahr: "The reactionary Pesse howls against the man". General Berthold von Deimling (1853–1944) and pacifism . In: Wolfram Wette (ed.): Pacifist officers in Germany 1871–1933 . Donat, Bremen 1999, p. 141.
  5. Christoph Jahr: "The reactionary Pesse howls against the man". General Berthold von Deimling (1853–1944) and pacifism . In: Wolfram Wette (ed.): Pacifist officers in Germany 1871–1933 . Donat, Bremen 1999, p. 133.
  6. Christoph Jahr: "The reactionary Pesse howls against the man". General Berthold von Deimling (1853–1944) and pacifism . In: Wolfram Wette (ed.): Pacifist officers in Germany 1871–1933 . Donat, Bremen 1999, p. 134f., Cited above. 134.
  7. Christoph Jahr: "The reactionary Pesse howls against the man". General Berthold von Deimling (1853–1944) and pacifism . In: Wolfram Wette (ed.): Pacifist officers in Germany 1871–1933 . Donat, Bremen 1999, p. 138.
  8. Christoph Jahr: "The reactionary Pesse howls against the man". General Berthold von Deimling (1853–1944) and pacifism . In: Wolfram Wette (ed.): Pacifist officers in Germany 1871–1933 . Donat, Bremen 1999, p. 135.