Erich Otto Volkmann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Erich Otto Volkmann (born November 23, 1879 in Freistadt ; † December 1938 in Potsdam ) was a German professional officer , archivist and author of militaristic writings in the Weimar Republic and during the National Socialist era .

Life

Volkmann began his military career in 1898. In 1900 he became an officer and from 1914 took part in the First World War as a general staff officer. After the end of the war, he was deployed in the border service with the East Prussian Volunteer Corps in East Prussia . He resigned as a major and in 1920 went to the Reichsarchiv in Potsdam as an archivist . There he was promoted to the senior archivist (Oberregierungsrat) in 1935.

Volkmann worked on the investigation commissioned by the parliamentary "Committee of Inquiry into the Guilt Issues of the World War" of the German National Assembly and the German Reichstag into the "Causes of the German Collapse in 1918 - The Stab in the Back Question" and published two articles on the issues of annexation of the World War and social maladministration as a contributory cause of the German collapse of 1918 . The studies on the question of war guilt , the stab in the back, and shirking were published between 1926 and 1928. According to Volkmann's calculations, in the spring of 1918 around 800,000 to a million soldiers refused to follow the orders to attack from their military superiors. The military bureaucracy covered this mass phenomenon with the derogatory term "shirking".

The book about his wartime experiences during the Ösel occupation during World War I, The Red Stripes , had a print run of 100,000 copies in 1942.

The written by Volkmann writings The Sudeten Germans , Strategic Atlas World War , the immortal landscape , The Great War 1914-1918 , Strategy of the World War and at the gate of the new age , and that from him with Bernhard Schwertfeger published the German soldiers customer were in the Soviet occupation zone on the list of literature to be discarded is set. In the German Democratic Republic , this list was followed by Marxism and the German Army in the World War , Enterprise Ösel and The Red Stripes .

One of Volkmann's sons was the journalist and author Claus Peter Volkmann , who adopted the pseudonym Peter Grubbe after 1945 , supposedly to differentiate himself from his father, possibly also to cover up his own involvement in the Holocaust .

Works

  • Marxism and the German army in the world war. Using official sources. With an appendix to a certificate , Berlin: Reimar Hobbing 1925.
  • Hall of Fame of Our Old Army , published by Senior Councilor Major a. D. Erich Otto Volkmann, Publishing House for Military History and German Literature. Military publishing house 1927 (Reichsarchiv / Potsdam (Hrsg.)).
  • The Sudeten Germans , Langensalza: H. Beyer & Sons, 1929.
  • The causes of the German collapse in 1918 Vol. 2: Social abuses in the army as a contributory cause of the German collapse of 1918. Berlin Dt. Verlagsges. for politics and history 1929.
  • The causes of the German collapse in 1918 1. Halbbd, Expert opinion of the expert Volkmann: The questions of annexation of the world war. , Berlin Dt. Verlagsges. for politics and history 1929.
  • The causes of the German collapse in 1918 Vol. 6: The position of the opposition social-democratic party groups in the world war to the national state and the question of national defense. , Berlin Dt. Verlagsges. for politics and history 1929.
  • Revolution over Germany , Oldenburg OK: Gerhard Stalling, 1930.
  • At the gate of the new time , Oldenburg: Stalling 1933.
  • Bernhard Schwertfeger, Erich Otto Volkmann and Otto Großmann: The German Soldier Studies - Second Volume. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig., 1937 (1946 to be eliminated: 11213).
  • The Great War 1914–1918. Brief presentation based on the official sources of the Reich Archives . Berlin 1922 (1938). ( online )
  • World War Strategy , 1936.
  • Strategic Atlas on World War I , Bibliographical Institute: Leipzig 1937.
  • The red stripes. Novel by a general staff officer , Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt 1942.
    • Extract from "The Red Stripes": Ösel Hamburg company: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt 1940.
  • What we do not know about the attrition of the civilian population through anti-war propaganda , in: Walter Jost , Friedrich Felger (Ed.): What we do not know from World War II H. Fikentscher Verlag: Leipzig 1936.
  • Albrecht Philipp : Causes of the German collapse in 1918. Expert opinion from the experts von Kuhl, Schwertfeger, Delbrück, Katzenstein, Herz, Volkmann on the 'stab in the back' question.

literature

  • Kürschner's German Literature Calendar. Nekrolog 1936-1970. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1973, p. 701.
  • Markus Pöhlmann : War history and history politics. The First World War. The official German military historiography 1914–1956. Schöningh, Paderborn / Vienna 2002, ISBN 350674481X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A study by the Freiburg historian Wilhelm Deist , on the other hand, refers to the political dimension of the massive no-longer-participation and speaks more precisely of a "covert military strike". Wolfram Wette , Die Slackers , in: Die Zeit, May 31, 1991
  2. ^ German administration for popular education in the Soviet occupation zone, list of literature to be sorted out
  3. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-s.html
  4. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1953-nslit-v.html
personal data
SURNAME Volkmann, Erich Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION author
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Free City
DATE OF DEATH December 1938
Place of death Potsdam