Bruno von Natzmer

Bruno Karl Louis von Natzmer (born January 24, 1831 in Siedkow , † June 9, 1867 in Houston ) was a Prussian mercenary leader and from 1853 to 1857 inspector general of the Nicaraguan army.

Life

Despite its role in the history of Central America in the 19th century, Natzmer's biography has so far been little researched, which is why the knowledge about his life is very sketchy.

Its origin is already unclear. Natzmer was probably born as the son of the Pomeranian manor Ludwig Karl von Natzmer (also: Carl Louis von Natzmer ) and his wife Emilie Auguste nee. of stamp. The family was related to the noble Kleist family .

As a young man, Natzmer initially served as an ensign of the hussars in the Prussian army , before he went to Costa Rica with other Germans in 1851 and there entered the trading house of Count Hermann zur Lippe . There he earned a reputation for unreliability and moral depravity, got into debt and committed theft.

Because of the threatening consequences, Natzmer fled from Costa Rica to Nicaragua , where he met the American mercenary leader William Walker in 1855 , who wanted to conquer the country. Walker was impressed by Natzmer's skills, as the Prussian had an officer training , proved educated, and spoke several languages. He also proved to be an extremely capable commander in practice. After Walker had seized power in Nicaragua itself, he appointed Natzmer 1853 with the rank of colonel to the Inspector General of the Nicaraguan Army. At the same time, Natzmer was the military commander of Léon with unlimited powers of civil administration and was able to exercise his power at will.

In the Second Battle of Rivas on April 11, 1856, Natzmer led the Second Rifles of Walker's mercenary army against the Costa Rican troops. The defeat in that battle marked the collapse of Walker's rule over Nicaragua.

When Walker's remaining troops were trapped in Granada by the combined armies of Honduras , Guatemala and San Salvador at the end of April 1857 , he escaped the besieged city with a small number of selected officers on May 1st on board the US warship St. Mary’s ; Natzmer was one of his companions.

On November 14, 1857, Walker von Mobile embarked on another expedition by ship to regain control of Nicaragua. Natzmer accompanied him as one of six officers who were to lead the two hundred volunteers. He landed on November 25th in San Juan de Nicaragua and took the city as a base of operations, but this time the Home Squadron of the US Navy intervened under Hiram Paulding . Walker and his followers, including Natzmer, were arrested for violating American neutrality and brought back to the United States.

In February 1859, Natzmer went to San Francisco with Walker to recruit volunteers for another expedition to Nicaragua. In mid-1859, Walker sent Natzmer to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec , where the Prussian was to set up a base of operations and make preparations. He could not do this job, however, because Walker did not provide him with the necessary funds.

Natzmer was no longer involved in Walker's landing in Honduras in 1860. His further fate cannot be clearly determined; he married - presumably in Nicaragua - Trinidad Torres de la Torre and settled with her in Houston , where he died in 1867.

Representation in the film

In the 1987 film Walker , which is a surreal satirical depiction of William Walker's mercenary war in Nicaragua, Natzmer is shown as a cold, calculating figure with no moral scruples worth mentioning, always clad in a light blue hussar uniform. Contrary to historical reality - which in this film is constantly being broken as a stylistic device - Natzmer dies here during the collapse of mercenary rule at the hands of Walker's lover.

literature

• Götz von Houwald : German life in Nicaragua: Emigrant fates , ISBN 3-925290-60-5 . Nicaragua Society, 1986
• Werner F. Leopold: The German in Costa Rica . Hanseatic Mercury, 1966
• Hendrik Dane: The economic relations of Germany do Mexico and Central America in the 19th century , ISBN 3-412-92372-9 . Böhlau, 1971
• Christine Boving: German Studies on Language and Cultural History , Volume 7: German Personal Names in Costa Rica . ISBN 3-8204-9107-4 , Bern 1986
• Robert E. May: Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America . ISBN 0-8078-5581-2 , University of North Carolina Press, 2004
• Patrick Boman, Luigi Balzan: Boulevard de la flibuste: Nicaragua 1850–1860 . ISBN 2-84679-045-0 , Ginkgo Editeur, 2007
• William Walker: The War in Nicaragua . SH Goetzel & Co., New York 1860