David Scott-Barrett

Sir David William Scott-Barrett KBE MC (born December 16, 1922 in Cologne , † January 1, 2004 in Inverness , Scotland ) was a British officer and Lieutenant General of the Army . From 1973 to 1975 he was in command of the British Sector of Berlin and thus one of the Allied city ​​commanders .

Between 1976 and 1979 he was Commanding General in Scotland and Governor of Edinburgh Castle .

Beginning of the military career

David Scott-Barrett graduated, while his father as Advocate General in Germany , China , Egypt and Palestine was used, the Westminster School , one of the largest boarding schools of London and enjoyed a strict and classic basic training . He was also active sporty and entered 1941 with teammates as rowers against a selection of Royal Berkshire Regimens on.

In 1942 he joined the British Armed Forces and first attended the Sandhurst Military Academy , which he left prematurely. He then signed up for the Scots Guards , a regiment of the Guard Division .

After the outbreak of World War II , Scott-Barrett served as a squad leader and later as deputy company commander in the 3rd Panzer Division . As a tank commander , he came under fire near Kraneburg in February 1945. When his tank was finally blown up by a mine and unable to drive , Scott-Barrett jumped out of the tracked vehicle , ran through the minefield , took over the tank from a sergeant and continued the advance.

Scott-Barrett took part in the heavy fighting in Normandy and finally experienced the legendary crossing of the Rhine . After he had held the position against German counterattacks with his unit in Lüneburg , he was awarded the Military Cross in April 1945 .

He was then deployed with his battalion in France and the Netherlands . One of his comrades in the war was Robert Runcie , later Archbishop of Canterbury , who received the Military Cross with Scott-Barrett.

After the Second World War Scott-Barrett was a general staff officer in the headquarters of the Division and 1948 regimental adjutant and equerry of the Duke of Gloucester .

In 1951 he became company commander in the 2nd Battalion and was involved in military operations against rebellious communist Chinese in Malaya . He then moved to the 1st Battalion as a company commander and was finally transferred to the Middle East before moving to Staff College Camberley as an instructor in 1961 .

In 1965 Scott-Barrett became Lieutenant Colonel Chief of Staff in the 4th Division in the Army of the Rhine , in 1967 commander of the 6th Infantry Brigade and finally, in the meantime promoted to Major General, Commanding General of the Eastern District .

City Commander in Berlin

As the successor to Alan Cathcart, 6th Earl Cathcart , he was appointed 15th Commander of the British Sector of Berlin in August 1973. He was thus one of the allied city commanders and, together with the Americans William Cobb, Sam Walker (from 1974) and Joseph McDonough (from 1975) and the French Camilie Metzler and Jaques Mangin (from 1975), formed the highest authority of the western allies in Berlin . He was thus a member of the Allied Command , which was subordinate to the Allied Control Council .

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, Scott-Barrett, 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 Scott-Barrett and his family moved in the Berlin district Gatow located Villa Lemm who are still at the beginning of his tenure by the Berlin police was protected. After several incidents affecting the security of the Villa Lemm, the German Service Unit (Berlin) , a German company and guard police unit of the British armed forces, took over the protection of the property while Scott-Barrett was still in office .

The residence of the Commandant was at the same time to disposition . Representatives of the British Ministry of Defense had the economy and proportionality of the property examined as the seat of a major general. After Scott-Barrett was warned that ministerial officials wanted to fly over the Villa Lemm by helicopter , he agreed with his French colleague, who was housed very modestly. Both city commanders had their respective national flags raised in order to set a visible signal. The exams were then discontinued.

The members of the British royal family also resided in the Villa Lemm 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 .

Scott-Barrett's tenure also saw the global effects of the oil price crisis and the signing of the Helsinki Final Act by representatives of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe on August 1, 1975. As outgoing city commander, he declared that the treaty made things difficult for the Soviet Union would not be able to accept Berlin as part of Europe .

In November 1975 David Scott-Barrett was withdrawn from Berlin and taken off at the Villa Lemm by a formation from the German Service Unit (Berlin). He was succeeded in the same month by Major General Roy Redgrave as city commander.

Governor of Edinburgh Castle

In 1976 he was by Queen Elizabeth II. As a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire to beat Knight and led from then the name suffix "Sir".

In the same year Scott-Barrett took over the post of Commanding General in Scotland and the Governor of Edinburgh Castle , while being promoted to Lieutenant General . As such, he was even lovers of Scottish music , hosted the under the patronage of Princess Anne standing Edinburgh Military Tattoo , the year before since 1950 castle is performed Edinburgh.

In 1979 David Scott-Barrett finally retired .

social commitment

ACFA official

Already retired, he took over the post of chairman of the Army Cadet Force Association from 1982 to 1996 and campaigned for the rights of young soldiers. He was also an advocate of free and independent elections .

Supporters of Robert Runcie

In 1982 Scott-Barrett was one of the supporters of Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury, with whom he received the Military Cross in 1945. He was an open advocate and promoter of a thanksgiving service on the occasion of the Falklands War , which was held in the St. Pauls Congregation and was expressly dedicated to all victims of the parties involved.

Use for soldiers

In 1995 David Scott-Barrett campaigned passionately for the two imprisoned British soldiers Jim Fisher and Mark Wright, who shot and killed 18-year-old Peter McBride while on patrol in Belfast in 1992 . The soldiers were members of the Scots Guards and have already been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of McBride .

Scott-Barrett is credited with reopening the case and ultimately acquitting the two convicts .

Private

Scott Barrett's grave site

David Scott-Barrett was the son of Brigadier Hugh Scott-Barrett (1887-1958), of the General Staff of the Army of the Rhine , and later as General Attorney and as a judge in the British military judicial authorities served before he quit the service and the priests consecrate let .

His first marriage was to Marie Elise Morris, who died in 1985. From this marriage three sons were born. In 1992 Scott-Barrett married his second wife, Judith Waring.

David Scott-Barrett was strong in faith and active member of the church of Greyfriars Kirk . He died on January 1, 2004 at the age of 81 in Inverness, Scotland. He found his final resting place at the Dean Cemertry in Edinburgh .

Awards

• 1945: Military Cross (MC)
• 1956: Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)
• 1976: Knight Commander des Order of the British Empire (KBE)

literature

• Robert Corbett: Berlin and the British Ally 1945-1990 . 1991.
• Jeremy Noakes, Peter Wende, Jonathan Wright: Britain and Germany in Europe 1949-1990 . Ed .: The German Historical Institute London. Oxford University Press, London 2002, ISBN 0-19-924841-9 .
• Volker Koop: Occupied - British occupation policy in Germany . be-bra-Verlag, 2007.

Web links

The British city commanders on the GSU History website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Lt-Gen Sir David Scott-Barrett. THE SCOTSMAN, January 12, 2004, accessed February 20, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Tam Dalyell: Lt-Gen Sir David Scott-Barrett. In: INDEPENDENT. January 3, 2004, accessed February 20, 2018 . 
3. ^ Matthias Peter: The Federal Republic in the CSCE Process 1975-1983 . De Gruyter, Oldenbourgh 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-034547-6 , pp. 118 .