Eugen von Hirschfeld

Karl Dietrich Eugen von Hirschfeld (born March 14, 1784 in Halberstadt , † January 16, 1811 in Pla de Cabra , Catalonia ) was a Prussian officer who became known in Germany and Spain during the Napoleonic Wars .

Life

Eugen von Hirschfeld was the eldest son of the Prussian general Karl Friedrich von Hirschfeld from his first marriage to Karoline Friederike Philippine von Faggyas (1761–1795). He grew up in Gatersleben . In October 1794, Hirschfeld served as an ensign in Infantry Regiment No. 21 Duke of Brunswick . Promoted to lieutenant in January 1799 , he joined the 1st Leibgarde Battalion in Potsdam in January 1803 , where he attended courses by Gerhard von Scharnhorst at the Academy for Young Infantry and Cavalry Officers . In July 1804 he was transferred to the Köhler Hussar Regiment [H 7] in Kutno .

The Westphalian fortress of Magdeburg with the river bridge in 1810

Freikorps in the war of 1806/07

In the Franco-Prussian War of 1806/07 , Hirschfeld took part in the lost battle of Auerstedt and the retreat under Blücher, where he was wounded in the head in the battle at Werben . When Ratekau surrendered in November 1806, Hirschfeld escaped captivity. Recovering, he reached the Kolberg fortress . His younger brother, the infantry lieutenant Alexander Adolf von Hirschfeld , had also got there. Both joined the Schill Freikorps . For her father, who was initially released from French captivity, this meant that she was imprisoned in the now French fortress of Magdeburg until the peace agreement in June 1807.

In December 1806 the brothers left Kolberg to set up their own free corps in Stargard under Eugen's command, which was to carry the Little War from Pomerania to Neumark and on to Silesia . The Freikorps consisted of 200 ranciers , three quarters of whom were horsemen. In January 1807 it attacked French transports that were frozen on the way to Thorn in the rivers Oder , Warthe and Netze . In Alt-Küstrinchen Hirschfeld fell a great weapon and ammunition transport victim, followed at Landsberg the destruction of 15,600 guns for Polish insurgents were determined. In Crossen Hirschfeld four sunken ships loaded with cannonballs and bombs.

The train caused the French high command to move entire regiments to the detriment of the main theater of war in East Prussia . After the Freikorps had nailed cannons intended for the siege of Wroclaw in the captured Sagan 57 on February 15, 1807 , it was blown up at Christianstadt am Bober at the end of February . After a short imprisonment, Eugen von Hirschfeld escaped to the besieged Glatz fortress , where he placed himself under the command of Count Götzen .

At the beginning of April 1807 Hirschfeld went with the express permission of King Friedrich Wilhelm III. to Halberstadt to explore the possibility of an uprising by disarmed Prussian officers and soldiers behind the French. The result was a plan by Hirschfeld to recapture Magdeburg fortress. The action had to be postponed because the French began to transport the weapons supplies from Magdeburg. When they noticed Hirschfeld, he returned to Glatz to join his restored volunteer corps. In June 1807 it captured Liegnitz just before the armistice and was surrounded. Against the promise to lay down his arms on the spot, Hirschfeld managed to withdraw freely to the main army in East Prussia. After the Peace of Tilsit he was decorated with the order Pour le Mérite and in March 1808 promoted to the rank of staff commander of the army , but received no post.

The fictional literature and vernacular of the 19th century handed down that Eugen von Hirschfeld and Heinrich von Wedel (1784–1861) tried to murder Napoleon with pistol shots in the Rautal on the edge of the battlefield of Jena during the Erfurt Prince Congress in October 1808 refrained from doing so because he was sitting too closely with Tsar Alexander I in the car . The attempted assassination, which was also attributed to others, has not been proven and probably belongs to the realm of legend.

The battle at Ölper , contemporary illustration

In the Dörnberg revolt

As a result of the Peace of Tilsit , the seat of the Hirschfeld family was in the Kingdom of Westphalia . From Prussia, Eugene used his home connections to conspire against the French occupiers there. His younger brother Moritz von Hirschfeld joined him. In constant contact with active Prussian officers, they prepared an uprising. The activities were coordinated by a secret committee in Berlin headed by the city commander Ludwig von Chasôt . Behind him, mediated by Friedrich Schleiermacher , were influential members of the reform party around the royal couple residing in Königsberg , including Gneisenau , Scharnhorst, Grolman and Schill. The widespread plans for the people's war to be waged throughout Germany envisaged a coup-like occupation of the Magdeburg fortress by free troops under Friedrich von Katte and the Hirschfeld brothers as part of the Dörnberg uprising .

When Austria started the expected war of liberation against France in April 1809 , the uprising was to break out. On March 30, 1809, on the eve of the war, Hirschfeld received the requested farewell from the Prussian army.

Even in the immediate preparation phase, the element of surprise was probably lost due to the failure of some initiates and the project had to be abandoned at the last hour. While Katte struck on April 2nd, Eugen was ordered to Berlin by Anton Wilhelm von L'Estocq , the successor to the deposed Chasôt. He returned with orders to disband his formation , which had already been assembled at Burg , but could not prevent the French, who had meanwhile been alarmed, from driving them apart and taking a few prisoners. 14 of them were shot. The Hirschfeld brothers escaped. They hid at Eichenbarleben Castle , from where they were able to flee to Prussian territory with the help of their relatives Minettchen von Alvensleben (1777–1852).

In the black crowd

A little later, Eugen and Moritz von Hirschfeld went to Bohemia with Katte to join the black crowd under Duke Friedrich Wilhelm von Braunschweig . The Duke gave Eugen von Hirschfeld command of the rearguard cavalry. After the battle at Ölper , Braunschweig turned to Celle . In Elsfleth and Brake he succeeded in embarking for England . He had sent Hirschfeld to Hamburg as leader of a detachment to divert the pursuers . From there the brothers reached London . Eugen joined the British Army as a major on the recommendation of Braunschweig .

A monument by Mariano Benlliure (1862–1947) in front of the Academia de Caballería in Valladolid is dedicated to the Alcantara cuirassier regiment; the rider on the right is wearing the uniform from 1811 (photo from 2014)

In Spain

In June 1810 Eugen von Hirschfeld received permission to continue the fight against Napoleon in the ranks of the Spanish army on the Iberian theater of war with half his salary . He went to Cádiz , the "bulwark of freedom", seat of the Junta Suprema Central and the meeting place of the Constituent Cortes . The besieged capital of Spain was the meeting point of those Germans who wanted to continue fighting after the unsuccessful uprisings of 1809, such as Karl von Grolman and Leopold von Lützow .

Moritz von Hirschfeld, from whom the Duke of Braunschweig had taken the officer examination in London, followed his brother to Cádiz. The Hirschfeld brothers received officer positions in the "Alcántara" cavalry regiment in Catalonia , which they reached in October 1810 by sea through the Mediterranean.

The regiment was tasked with fending off attempts by the French to repel relief attempts in the wider area of ​​the French-occupied Barcelona, which was enclosed by the Spanish . Eugen von Hirschfeld benefited from his experience in the Little War. After a success against the French advance at Tàrrega on January 3, 1811, he was praised as teniente colonel and Moritz as capitano in the governmental Gazeta de la Regencia de España e Indias . On January 14, 1811, Eugene, now a colonel, at the head of General Pedro Sarsfield's (1779-1837) avant-garde successfully attacked the French Palombini division near Pla de Cabra . This decided the battle in which the French general Francesco Orsatelli , called Eugène (1768-1811), fell. Eugen von Hirschfeld was wounded by two stitches in the left side of the body. He died the next day in Pla de Cabra in his brother's arms.

He was buried in the church of Sant Ramon . Eugen von Hirschfeld's swords, spurs and gloves were ceremoniously given a place in the Cathedral de Santa María in Tarragona . When the Prussian Major Urban von Hirschfeld traveled to Spain in 1860, the high reputation of the Hirschfeld brothers was evident. Queen Isabella II had the Alcantara regiment paraded in front of him, in which his father and uncle had served.

Eugen von Hirschfeld's anonymous diary had been taken by his brother Moritz and continued with his own, also anonymous one. After the Battle of Sagunto on October 25, 1811, it was taken from the supposedly dead Moritz von Hirschfeld and passed into the possession of Palombini (1774–1850), who was victorious this time. In 1843, Palombini lived as a retired field marshal lieutenant in the Austrian army in the province of Saxony on Grochwitz estate , which his wife had inherited. Adjacent was Gut Wiederau , from which Moritz von Hirschfeld's wife Ida von Kamptz came. In conversation with her, Palombini was able to identify the authors and sent the diary to Moritz von Hirschfeld. After his death, his friend Heinrich von Holleben published it .

literature

• ( Heinrich von Holleben ): Memories of Eugen and Moritz von Hirschfeld from Germany and Spain. Compiled by an 80 year old veteran of the York Corps of the Leib Regiment . Mittler, Berlin 1863, digitized
• Veit Veltzke : Between King and Fatherland. Schill and his troops in the network of conspiracy . In: Veit Veltzke (ed.): For freedom - against Napoleon. Ferdinand von Schill, Prussia and the German Nation. Böhlau, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20340-5 , pp. 107-154.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ For Hirschfeld's career, see: Großer Generalstab, Kriegsgeschichtlicheteilung II (Ed.): Kolberg 1806/07 (= documentary contributions and research on the history of the Prussian Army. Issue 16-19 [Vol. 4]), Berlin 1912, p. 281 .
2. ^ Kurt von Priesdorff : Soldatisches Führertum . Volume 3, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1937], DNB 367632780 , p. 106, no. 1018.
3. ↑ On the Hirschfeld Freikorps see: Großer Generalstab, Kriegsgeschichtlicheteilung II (Ed.): Kolberg 1806/07 (= documented articles and research on the history of the Prussian Army. Issue 16-19 [Vol. 4]), Berlin 1912, p. 36 , Footnote 1, on ammunition transport p. 44, footnote 2.
4. ↑ See Curt Jany : History of the Prussian Army from the 15th Century and the German Imperial Army. Volume III. 1763 to 1807 . Biblio, Osnabrück 1967², ISBN 3-7648-1474-8 , p. 623.
5. ↑ On the Freikorps Hirschfeld and the events in Neumark and Silesia see Eduard von Höpfner : The War of 1806 and 1807. Second part. The campaign of 1807. Fourth volume , Berlin 1855, Simon Schropp, pp. 218–223.
6. ↑ Hirschfeld's plan was published in the military weekly paper No. 25, year 1843.
7. ↑ To this Kurt von Priesdorff: Soldatisches Führertum. Volume 5, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1938], DNB 367632802 , p. 356, no. 1593.
8. ↑ Veit Veltzke (lit.), p. 126 f., There also on the following
9. ↑ On the failure of the coup d'état on Magdeburg see Helmut Bock : Schill. Rebel platoon 1809 . Military publishing house of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-327-00648-2 , pp. 68–85.
10. ↑ See the website of the family v. Alvensleben eV: XI 8. Wilhelmine Karoline Amalie Friederike (Minettchen)
11. ↑ In his diary, Holleben (lit.), p. 38
12. ↑ Today Regimiento de Caballería Acorazado “Alcántara” nº 10
13. ↑ Quoted in Holleben (Lit.), p. 88.