Bruno from Mudra

Bruno from Mudra

Karl Bruno Julius Mudra , von Mudra since 1913 , (born April 1, 1851 in Muskau , † November 21, 1931 in Schwerin-Zippendorf ) was a Prussian infantry general .

Life

Mudra was the son of a carpenter, but was able to enjoy higher education due to aptitude and encouragement. He passed his Abitur in 1870 and then joined the Prussian Army pioneer group as a volunteer . He went through the usual career of Prussian general staff officers. In 1899 he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Engineer and Pioneer Corps under Lieutenant General Colmar von der Goltz . In 1903 he was transferred to the Mainz fortress as inspector of the 2nd pioneer inspection . In 1907 he was promoted to lieutenant general and on July 27th he was appointed commander of the 39th division in Colmar . In 1910 he became governor of Metz and in the following year head of the engineer and pioneer corps. In 1911 he was promoted to general of the infantry . On March 1, 1913 he was appointed General Command of the XVI. Army Corps appointed in Metz . On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the reign , Kaiser Wilhelm II raised him to the hereditary Prussian nobility on June 16, 1913 . The nobility diploma was awarded on February 18, 1914.

First World War

Mudra commanded the XVI. Corps until October 28, 1916. During the advance in France in autumn 1914, he made a name for himself as "Argonne General" because he still had some partial successes there after the Battle of the Marne in September 1914, although he also opposed his several times Point of view uttered senseless attack orders. On January 13, 1915 he was awarded the order Pour le Mérite for his services during the Argonne battles . His birthplace Bad Muskau made him an honorary citizen shortly afterwards. On October 17, 1916, Mudra received the oak leaves for the Pour le Mérite.

From December 20, 1916, he commanded the 8th Army on the Eastern Front for two weeks , but returned to the Western Front on January 2, 1917 , where he was in command of Army Division A ( Strasbourg headquarters ) until June 18, 1918 . Then he took over the 1st Army and from October 12, 1918 the 17th Army . At the end of October 1918, at the meeting of the State Secretaries in Berlin, he spoke out in favor of continuing the war. On August 3, 1918, Wilhelm II presented Mudra in recognition of his services à la suite of the King Infantry Regiment (6th Lothringisches) No. 145 .

Post-war years

After the war, Mudra first lived in Wiesbaden . There he was taken into politically motivated pre-trial detention by the French occupation authorities from March 21 to 24, 1923 and then expelled. He moved to Schwerin , joined the German National People's Party , was an advocate of the stab-in- the-back legend and advocated a new "armed conflict" against the "West for final settlement with the hereditary enemy". Mudra died on November 21, 1931 and was buried under a large boulder ( mudra stone ) in a forest in Raben Steinfeld near Schwerin. On August 28, 1932, a memorial plaque for him was unveiled there. In May 2001, the Schwerin pioneers were able to successfully complete the restoration of the monument.

Marriage and offspring

Mudra married Paula Schött on October 12, 1886 in Rheydt (born June 26, 1860 in Rheydt, † November 22, 1937 in Schwerin), daughter of the printer's owner Hermann Schött and Sofie Wilhelmine Jansen. The marriage had two children:

• Herbert Emil Bruno (1887–1945), Colonel and military district commander
• Edith (1892-1942).

Herbert's son Herbert Bruno Maximilian Alexander von Mudra (born April 5, 1924 in Frankfurt am Main, † May 2, 1945 near Bremervörde ) fell as a lieutenant in the 115th Panzer Grenadier Regiment . With him, the noble family of the von Mudra family died out.

Posthumous honors

Mudra had a considerable influence on the development and position of the engineer force in the army. He recognized early on the special value of joint exercises between the pioneers and other branches of the army and the importance of the effects of the rapidly advancing technology. This knowledge shaped the later warfare of the German army to a large extent. The Association of German Pioneers , the successor to the "Waffenring Deutscher Pioniere" founded on July 25, 1925 in Berlin, of which Mudra was the honorary patron and first honorary chairman, has been awarding the General-von-Mudra Prize since 1983 for the best officer in the class at the pioneer school / FSH BauT .

The Wehrmacht named several barracks after him:

• Mudra barracks in Elbing ;
• Mudra barracks in Karlsruhe - Knielingen ;
• Mudra barracks in Cologne-Westhoven , which today houses parts of the Federal Office for Personnel Management of the Bundeswehr ;
• Mudra barracks in Magdeburg , where the 4th Pioneer Battalion was stationed; the building now houses the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of Saxony-Anhalt ;
• Mudra barracks in Mainz-Kastel , since 1951 accommodation for the Hessian riot police ;
• Mudra barracks in Minden , designated and used by the British Rhine Army as Clifton Barracks after the Second World War , since demolished;
• Mudra barracks at Ziegelkamp in Nienburg / Weser , garrison of Pioneer Battalion 22;
• Mudra barracks in Riesa , garrison of the Pioneer Battalion 24;
• the Mudra barracks in Pardubice , renamed after the German " smashing the rest of the Czech Republic " , which was the accommodation of the Pioneer Replacement Battalion 5 from October 1939.

In addition, there is still a Mudra Street in Berlin-Lankwitz and a General Mudra Street in Mainz-Kastel.

literature

• Karl-Heinz Lutz:  Mudra, Bruno von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-428-00199-0 , p. 260 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• General von Mudra Prize (Association of German Pioneers)
• The mudra height in the Argonne

Notes and individual references

1. ^ Military weekly paper . No. 81 of June 19, 1913, p. 1863.
2. ↑ http://www.pioniere-schwerin.de/
3. ↑ Schött operated one of the oldest large printing houses in Europe; it specialized in the printing of cigar bands, cigar box labels, chocolate packaging, praline packs, posters, wine and liqueur labels as well as folding boxes of all kinds.
4. ↑ http://www.bdpi.org/
5. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ Association of German Pioneers: Pionierkasernen ( Memento of the original from May 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Association of German Pioneers: Pionierkasernen ( Memento of the original from May 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ Association of German Pioneers: Pionierkasernen ( Memento of the original from May 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ Aerial photo  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ http://www.historic.de/Militar/22.%20ID/PionierBtl22/PionierBtl22Main.htm
11. ↑ picture postcard
12. ↑ Postcard view