Eric Nares

City commanders Ray Barker , Eric Nares, Charles Lançon and Alexander Kotikow (from left to right) during the Allied parade on May 8, 1946

Eric Paytherus Nares CBE MC & Bar (born July 9, 1892 in Windsor / Berkshire , England ; † June 18, 1947 in London ) was a British officer and Major General of the Army .

From August 1945 to June 1947 he was the second in command of the British Sector of Berlin and thus one of the Allied city ​​commanders .

Military career

Eric Nares was a graduate of the English county of Wiltshire located Marlborough College and attended the debate, along with his brother Llewelyn, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst . Among his fellow students were the future General Sir Montagu Stopford and the future Lieutenant General Sir Kenneth Anderson .

On September 20, 1911, Nares was called to the Cheshire Regiment in India .

During the First World War it was used mainly in France and Belgium . Nares was wounded several times during combat operations and was awarded the Military Cross , among other things .

After the end of the war he was transferred to West Africa and served until 1924 with the West African Frontier Force , a multi- unit that was deployed in the British colonies at the time .

From 1927 he graduated from Staff College Camberley and in 1931 took over the post of Chief of Staff of the British Forces in China . During the Arab uprising in 1936 he was briefly appointed commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion of the Chestershire Regiment and finally adjutant to the Quartermaster General of the 8th Division in Palestine .

After the outbreak of World War II Nares served in the Middle and Near East and in North Africa . From January to November 1944 he served as a commander in Italy . This use earned him not only British awards , but also the award of the American Legion of Merit by US President Harry Truman .

City Commander in Berlin

As the successor to Lewis Lyne , Eric Nares, meanwhile promoted to major general, was the new and second in command of the British Sector of Berlin in August 1945 and thus one of the four allied city commanders.

He trained with the Americans Floyd Parks, James Gavin (from September 1945), Ray Barker (from October 1945), Frank Keating (from May 1946) and Cornelius Ryan (from May 1947), the Soviets Alexander Gorbatow, Dimitri Smirnow ( from November 1945) and Alexander Kotikow (from April 1946) as well as the French Geoffrey de Beauchêsne, Charles Lançon (from March 1946) and Jean Ganeval (from October 1946) as Allied Commanders the highest authority in the four-sector city.

The opening of the Technical University of Berlin , which the British city commandant personally undertook on April 9, 1946 , also fell during his term of office .

Nares was the first British city commandant to move into the Villa Lemm in the Gatow district of Berlin .

After the Soviet Union forced the unification of the KPD and SPD in their zone, Nares and the French city commander Lancon campaigned for free elections in the western sectors during the meeting of the Allied command on April 26, 1946 . Nares then initially suggested August 1, 1946 as the day of the election for the city council of Greater Berlin , which actually took place on October 20, 1946.

On May 8, 1946, the first anniversary of the German surrender , Nares, as the representative of the British occupying forces, took the Allied parade to inaugurate the Soviet memorial .

Eric Nares became ill during his tenure of lung cancer and settled on 13 June 1947 for health reasons relieved from his duties. In August, Sir Otway Herbert succeeded him in the office of city commandant .

Only a few days later, on June 18, 1947, Eric Nares died at the age of 54 in Queen Alexandra's Military Hospital in London as a result of his illness.

He is the first city ​​commander of the four allies to die , and years the youngest .

Private

Eric Nares was the youngest son of Ramsey Nares and his wife Marie Jeanette. His brother was the British officer Llewelyn Nares.

Eric Nares was married to Jeanne Hubertine from the Netherlands . She fell seriously ill during her husband's assignment abroad in Palestine and died a short time later. Nares no longer married and remained childless.

He was a heavy smoker , which is said to have ultimately led to his cancer.

After his death he was honored with a large memorial service in the church of St. Thomas-on-the-Bourne in Farnham , England , and then cremated . His comrades dedicated a plaque to the major general in Chester Cathedral, which was used as a regimental chapel .

Awards

• Commander of the Order of the British Empire
• Military Cross & Bar
• Mentioned in dispatches (multiple)
• Commander of the Legion of Merit
• Plaque in Chester Cathedral

literature

• Robert Corbett: Berlin and the British Ally 1945-1990 . 1991.
• Volker Koop: Occupied - British occupation policy in Germany . be-bra-Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-89809-076-6 .

Web links

• The British city commanders on the GSU History website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Patricia Pätzold: Destruction and a new beginning - TU Berlin is turning 70. In: Internet site of the Technical University of Berlin. February 18, 2016, accessed February 19, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Dr. Werner Breunig: Constitution of Berlin 1945-1950. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, 1990, accessed on February 19, 2018 . 
3. ^ Eric Nares 1892. In: private website. Retrieved February 18, 2018 .