Ferdinand Otto Miksche

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Ferdinand Otto Miksche (born April 11, 1905 in Teschen , † December 23, 1992 in Le Chesnay ) was a Czechoslovak and French officer and military writer.

Life

Miksche was the son of an Austrian general staff officer . From 1915 to 1918 he was an Austrian cadet student . In 1918 he became a citizen of the Czechoslovak Republic; from 1926 to 1929 he attended the local military academy. In 1936, Czechoslovakia supplied material to the republican government in the Spanish Civil War . Miksche was sent to Spain as an instructor for artillery material, where he took on tasks in the Spanish army, most recently as a major in an artillery unit.

After their defeat, he fled to France, but was unable to return to his homeland due to the destruction of the rest of the Czech Republic by National Socialist Germany. He came to Great Britain and there joined the Forces françaises libres of General Charles de Gaulle . From 1941 to 1942 he completed the eight-month general staff course of the British Army in Sandhurst . After the Allied landings in Normandy , he was transferred to the Czechoslovak Army and liaison officer of the Czechoslovak government in exile with the Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces Dwight D. Eisenhower . This was followed by assignments as a military attaché in Paris and Brussels with the rank of lieutenant colonel until the end of 1947 . Because of the impending communist takeover in his home country, he rejoined the French armed forces as a general staff officer. From 1950 to 1955 he taught at the war school in Lisbon. He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor and retired in 1968.

He has received several French, British and Portuguese awards. Miksche became known through numerous books on military science. He lived in France and died there in 1992.

Publications (selection)

  • Atomic Weapons and Armies . Praeger, 1955 ( babel.hathitrust.org ).
  • The end of the present: Europe without blocks . Herbig, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-7766-1627-X .
  • Blitzkrieg - the German method 1939–1941 . Military Library Research Service, 2006, ISBN 1-905696-14-0 (first edition: 1941).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ferdinand Otto Miksche in the Munzinger Archive , accessed on April 7, 2020 ( beginning of article freely accessible)
personal data
SURNAME Miksche, Ferdinand Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak and French officer and military writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Teschen
DATE OF DEATH December 23, 1992
Place of death Le Chesnay