Ernst von Raben

Ernst von Raben with the rank of major

Ernst Klaus Iwan Christian Friedrich Alfred von Raben (born September 22, 1877 in Gmünd , † June 7, 1924 in Gütersloh ) was a Württemberg officer who had also served in the protection force of the Cameroon colony .

Origin and education

Ernst von Raven's father was the major of the Landwehr district of Eßlingen , Karl von Raben, his mother his wife Babette, née. Spot. He received an education in his parents' house, attended pre-school in Gmünd and Schlettstadt and then entered the cadet house in Oranienstein , later in Karlsruhe . He then visited the main cadet institute in Groß-Lichterfelde .

Military career and service in the Cameroon Defense Force

Raben joined the infantry regiment "Kaiser Wilhelm, King of Prussia" (2nd Württembergisches) No. 120 on March 13, 1897 . On the same day he was promoted to lieutenant . He resigned from the Württemberg Army on April 5, 1901 and joined the Cameroon Protection Force the following day. He was first stationed in the so-called grassland and took part in the Ngolo expedition from August to October 1901 . In June 1905 he was involved in battles against the Falli in North Cameroon .

In February 1906 he resigned in the Württemberg service and was still used in his regular regiment. On February 25, 1907, the promotion to first lieutenant was provisionally without a patent , in March a six-month vacation in London . On August 6, 1907, he resigned from the Württemberg service and rejoined the Cameroon Guard. In November 1907 he became post leader in Dikwa , and in 1910/11 he was deputy resident of the German Tschadseeländer . On January 27, 1913, he was promoted to captain , and on May 30, 1914, he took over command of the 3rd Company in Mora in the far north of Cameroon.

Captain Ernst von Raben of the Cameroon Protection Force. Location and date of photo unknown, before 1916

At the beginning of the First World War , the 3rd Company in Mora was first enclosed by French colonial troops, which were later reinforced by British contingents. The troops were cut off from any connection with the leadership of the Schutztruppe under Lieutenant Colonel Carl Zimmermann and therefore had neither information about the course of the war nor any logistical or tactical support from headquarters. For a more practical defense , the company had withdrawn to a natural mountain range a good five kilometers south of the village. This position was temporarily expanded into a fortress. Despite numerous attacks, including with artillery and a nine-fold superiority in some cases , the Allies did not succeed in taking the position. The strategic importance of the position was that the 3rd Company tied up disproportionately large opposing forces that would otherwise have been deployed against the protection force on the main theater of war in the south of the colony.

On September 30, 1915, Raben was seriously wounded by a shot in the head while inspecting a front position and recovered only slowly due to the extremely poor catering situation and the extreme lack of medication, so that Lieutenant Siegfried Kallmeyer (1885-1956) had to take command from time to time.

On February 15, 1916, the siege forces made contact with Raben and informed him that the protection force had completely transferred to neutral territory in the Spanish colony of Rio Muni ( Mbini ) for internment . He then negotiated favorable surrender conditions in the face of a hopeless situation. This also included the payment of the outstanding wages to the African soldiers since November 1914. Raben surrendered on February 18, 1916.

Raben was a British prisoner of war until December 1916, but was then interned in Arosa / Switzerland and finally brought to Germany as an exchange prisoner on August 3, 1917. Here he was promoted to major on January 27, 1918 and at the same time transferred to the command of the protection troops at the Reich Colonial Office in Berlin . In September 1918 he took part in a machine gun course in Döberitz . He got on 19 September 1919 his farewell to the statutory pension and the permission to wear the existing uniform due to a decree of the Imperial War Minister Gustav Noske .

Nothing is known about the last years of his life, but he does not seem to have been politically active. He died at the age of only 46; possibly as a long-term consequence of his war injury. So far nothing is known of an estate ; his personal file is in the main state archive in Stuttgart .

Others

The French filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud owes the idea for his first feature film, Sehnsucht nach Afrika , to a section in the manuscript “L'Histoire Gènérale du Cameroun” about “ a major von Rabben [sic!] , Who is distinguished by his heroic Resistance to Allied forces immortalized in the glorious Battle of Mora during World War I ” .

literature

• v. Raben, Ernst Klaus Iwan Christian Friedrich Alfred . In: Florian Hoffmann: Occupation and military administration in Cameroon. Establishment and institutionalization of the colonial monopoly of force. Part II: The Imperial Protection Force and its Officer Corps. Göttingen 2007 (Phil. Diss.), ISBN 978-3-86727-473-9 . P. 156f.
• Walter Nuhn: Cameroon under the imperial eagle. History of the acquisition and development of the former German protected area of ​​Cameroon. A contribution to German colonial history. 2nd revised edition Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-923925-65-4 .

Web links

• Fritz Damis: On the Moraberge. Memories of the battles of the 3rd company of the former Imperial Protection Force for Cameroon. Published by the Association of Former Members of the Imperial Protection Force , Berlin 1929 (Contains a portrait of Rabens and a map of Cameroon) mandaras.info (PDF; 1.2 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Film information ( Memento of the original from April 17, 2012 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. on the homepage of Jean-Jacques Annaud