Friedrich von Wrangel

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Field Marshal General Friedrich von Wrangel. Portrait of Franz Krüger , 1856. Wrangel's signature:
Signature Friedrich von Wrangel.PNG

Friedrich Heinrich Ernst Freiherr von Wrangel , from 1864 Count von Wrangel , popularly known as "Papa Wrangel" (born  April 13, 1784 in Stettin ; † November 1, 1877 in Berlin ) was a Prussian field marshal .

Life

origin

Friedrich von Wrangel as Lieutenant General and Commanding General of the 2nd Army Corps. Lithograph by Krüger and Mittag, around 1845

Friedrich Freiherr von Wrangel came from the old German Baltic-Swedish-Pomeranian officer family Wrangel . He was the son of the Prussian major general Friedrich Ernst von Wrangel (* April 7, 1720 in Ambothen, Livonia ; † January 13, 1805 in Kolberg ) and his wife Sophie Luise Elisabeth von Below from the Reetz family (* August 26, 1752; † April 26, 1805 in Kolberg).

Military career

As early as 1796, at the age of twelve, he joined the Prussian Army as a private corporal with the “von Werther” dragoon regiment No. 6 . There he became ensign on June 8, 1797 and second lieutenant on October 5, 1798 . As such, Wrangel fought in the Napoleonic Wars with Prussian Eylau and Heilsberg . In this battle he carried out a successful attack on a French square , suffered a shot in the shoulder and was awarded the Order Pour le Mérite on July 18, 1807 for his brave behavior . Wrangel was then transferred to the cuirassier regiment No. 3 and on March 19, 1808 first promoted to prime lieutenant , then on April 18, 1809 to staff captain and finally on September 20, 1811 appointed squadron chief. He fought in the battles of Bautzen and Großgörschen in the Wars of Liberation in 1813 , became major on August 3, 1813 and distinguished himself with his cavalry as a daring troop leader in the Battle of Leipzig . Wrangel 1814 was also involved in the campaign in France and was there on May 13, 1814 to lieutenant colonel , and on October 3, 1815 Colonel promoted. In the following year, 1815, he entered France again, but was no longer used because of the early peace agreement with his cavalry.

On March 25, 1821 he became commander of the 10th Cavalry Brigade and on March 30, 1823 received the rank of major general . On November 13, 1834, he took command of the 13th Division in Münster . When there was unrest there in 1837 as a result of the turmoil in Cologne , Wrangel quickly put down this unrest and was promoted to lieutenant general on March 30, 1838 . On November 20, 1839 he was appointed commanding general of the I. Army Corps in Königsberg , on April 7, 1842, he exchanged this command and took over the leadership of the II Army Corps in Stettin . On April 20, 1848 he was promoted to general of the cavalry and, after the Berlin Revolution had calmed down, took over command of the III. Army Corps . On August 15, 1856, he finally received the rank of General Field Marshal in the Prussian Army. His main troop unit was the East Prussian Cuirassier Regiment No. 3 , which emerged from an old Prussian dragoon regiment , of which he became chief in 1845 and which was officially named in 1889.

Revolution 1848

Friedrich Count von Wrangel. Portrait of Adolph Menzel , around 1865

In the revolutionary year of 1848 , Wrangel commanded the Prussian troops in the Schleswig-Holstein War from April 21 to the Malmö armistice on August 26 .

On November 10, 1848, Wrangel, whom King Friedrich Wilhelm IV had appointed supreme commander in the Marche , marched against revolutionary Berlin . The decision between revolution and reaction should depend largely on his determination . The revolutionaries had threatened to untie his wife if Wrangel entered the capital; nevertheless, he led the troops into the city and to the passage through the Brandenburg Gate , back then, said the Berlin city border in the west to his aide: "Whether se her jetze wanted to have uffjehangen?" It came to a dispute with the commander of the civil guard , Major Otto Rimpler : Both agreed on a bloodless process, and the vigilante surrendered into the hands of the general, who immediately dissolved the assembly of the people's representatives in the theater , on November 12th the state of siege and on the 14th finally imposed martial law on the Prussian capital . The revolution was crushed, Frau von Wrangel was not bent a hair. Since then Wrangel has been one of the closest military followers of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, who later became King and Emperor Wilhelm I. From 1849 to 1864 he was governor of Berlin .

German Wars of Unification

Field Marshal Count Wrangel as "Schlachtenbummler" at the age of 86 with his honorary staff at Corny on the Moselle near Metz in the Franco-German War , September 1870

During the German-Danish War of 1864, Wrangel initially held supreme command of the Prussian-Austrian troops. However, he was quickly replaced in the course of the war, as he was no longer able to coordinate the extensive operations planned by Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke due to his advanced age . In any case, he was not considered an intellectual strategist , but a dashing front-line officer with robust Berlin humor. During the campaign there was a violent controversy with the Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck , who warned for a more cautious advance , during which Wrangel spoke in an unencrypted dispatch of "diplomats who belong on the gallows". After the peace agreement, he apologized to Bismarck, who had rightly referred the remark to himself. Wrangel was strictly conservative and loyal to the king all his life; he was popular with his soldiers because of his affable manner.

On May 18, 1864, Wrangel was raised to the rank of count . Since his promotion to General Field Marshal in 1856, he was the highest ranking officer in the Prussian Army after the King; Bogdan Graf von Hutten-Czapski reports in his memoir that it was customary for future officers to pay the old field marshal an inaugural visit as a courtesy. When the victorious troops entered Berlin after the German War in 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 , he was allowed to ride at the top on an honorary basis, ahead of Bismarck, Roon and Moltke. He died in 1877 at the old age of 93.

family

Wrangel married his cousin Lydia Caroline Emilie von Below (born June 23, 1792, † September 11, 1880 in Berlin) on December 26, 1810 at the Trakehnen main stud . His father-in-law was the local stable master Friedrich Karl Ludwig von Below . The couple had three sons, all of whom died relatively young:

  • Gustav Carl Friedrich (born August 18, 1812; † June 1, 1849 in Stettin), civil servant
  • Friedrich Carl Paul Gustav Georg (born November 15, 1816 in Riesenburg; † June 19, 1847), Prussian second lieutenant
  • Friedrich Emil Gustav (born May 22, 1821 in Posen; † March 8, 1867), Prussian Second Lieutenant, most recently adjutant to his father, the commander in chief in the Marche

Awards

At the end of his life, Wrangel was the recipient of almost all high honors that were to be awarded in the Kingdom of Prussia. He had already acquired the Iron Cross during the Wars of Liberation ; later he received the oak leaves and the crown for his Pour le Mérite acquired in the battle of Heilsberg in 1807. In 1849 Wrangel became a Knight of the Black Eagle Order and from 1859 was also Chancellor of the Order. He wore the Imperial Spaniard at court events, for example at the coronation of William I in 1861 in Königsberg .

Wrangel is an honorary citizen of Berlin, Potsdam and Rathenow .

Survival

Old Friedrich von Wrangel

Historical evaluation

Less than a military leader - Hans-Ulrich Wehler calls him “completely incompetent” in relation to the campaign of 1864 - because as a Berlin “original” with “drastic humor and quick wit”, which is surrounded by numerous, often funny anecdotes, “Papa Wrangel ”in the Prussian restoration period after 1849 into the collective memory . What is often overlooked is the fact that all his life he took a strictly military, counter-revolutionary standpoint and made a name for himself historically by suppressing the revolution of 1848. The liberal Danish writer Georg Brandes , a keen observer of the social conditions in Prussia-Germany in the early days , came to the following assessment of the old field marshal:

“When you hear that Kaiser Wilhelm held back when the Goethe monument was unveiled, but when the Wrangel monument turned up - Wrangel, that old puss in boots who always ran around with candy in his pockets and pulled the Berlin street kids behind him and who was only strange with his ninety years of age and his incredibly naive and ungrammatical German - then that is generally shocking, from the standpoint of the German military monarchy it is logical [...] This old Wrangel, who was a warrior and not a military leader, lived the spirit who made Prussia great. When his son, as a young officer, went into debt in his carelessness and finally put his father's name under a bill , he went to him in desperation and asked for help. The old man answered: 'You have behaved dishonorably; I no longer consider you my son. ' When the son asked what he had left, the answer was, 'You have your pistols.' The son went and shot himself. How the German monarchy is organized, in fact the spirit of old Wrangel did more than Goethe's to put it together and give it this peculiar atmosphere. "

The no less sensitive Philipp zu Eulenburg , whose father, Philipp Konrad Graf zu Eulenburg (1820–1889), was the general's personal adjutant from 1853 to 1860, came to a milder, but not undifferentiated, judgment :

“I have no doubt that the very clever gentleman had consciously and deliberately assumed the pose of an original many years ago, also deliberately confusing 'me' and 'me' at first. But the role he played with mastery was at the same time a convenient way of being able to say more to people than with a serious face and well-composed speech. Ultimately, however, the pose became undoubtedly nature, and its authenticity became striking and convincing. But it was certainly not his intention that he had such an essential effect on his memory. "

Anecdotal

In a study of Eulenburg's father, Theodor Fontane narrates some anecdotal traits of Wrangel that may shed some light on the reasons for his popularity:

“Wrangel inspected troops in Ruppin (other cities are also mentioned) and the Ruppiners had put up their maiden tufts in three sections. The prettiest of course in the front. Wrangel kissed the whole front row and then said, pointing to the rest: 'Owl [meaning the adjutant Eulenburg], keep kissing'.

As a rule, however, the adjutant was only an eye and ear witness of what was happening. So on the following occasion. One battalion was not enough, at which point the old man remarked mockingly and ambiguously: 'Next year, Herr Major, I won't see you again.' 'But your Excellencies are still so vigorous,' replied the latter. And Wrangel, who loved presence of mind, just threatened with a smile with his finger and this time left it with the mere Avis [warning]. "

Hans Ostwald writes:

“When Wrangel was supposed to return the troops who had had to leave Berlin as a result of March 18, 1848, the people had threatened the general that his wife would be hanged if he dared to enter Berlin. Of course, the general did not respond to this threat. But when he rode through the Brandenburg Gate at the head of his troops, he suddenly turned to his adjutant with the question: 'Do you want to hang out now?' "


“Friedrich von Wrangel wanted to go to the king and, because he possessed the immediate right and was convinced of the importance of his concern, he did not register. But Friedrich Wilhelm IV was in conversation with Peter Joseph Lenné , who won the king over to himself. So the Field Marshal General was put off until a later date. Wrangel found it hard to believe that the king gave priority to this "minor matter". Nevertheless, he obediently said goodbye to the king and to Lenné with the words: "Goodbye, Mr. gardener!"

“Old Wrangel was invited to a royal table. His table lady, a princess, said that suede gloves were best for delicate skin. “That surprises me, princess! I've been wearing suede riding breeches for fifty years and have a bottom like a grater. ""

“Friedrich von Wrangel put down the March Revolution in Berlin in 1848 without bloodshed. Otto Rimpler was in command of the vigilante group that was supposed to protect the second chamber in the theater . Wrangel had the building rearranged and sat in an armchair and waited. Otto Rimpler threatened him: Your Excellency, we will only give way to violence. "Thereupon Wrangel:" Yes, my son. The Jewalt is here now. I am the Jewalt. ""

Monuments

The Wrangelstraße in Berlin's Kreuzberg district was named in 1849 after Wrangel, also inhabited by him as commandant Wrangelpalais . In Berlin-Steglitz a street that  runs alongside his summer residence - the Wrangelschlösschen - has been named after him since around 1880. In the Hamburg district of Hoheluft-West , in the middle of the Generalsviertel , there is a Wrangelstrasse , also in Kiel . In Elmshorn there is a Wrangel promenade in his memory . His monument, created by Karl Keil , stood on Leipziger Platz in Berlin from 1880 to 1945 . The Wrangel Fountain, created by Hugo Hagen , was donated by the namesake from his private fortune.

In the 1940 film Bismarck by Wolfgang Liebeneiner , Wrangel is portrayed by Hans Junkermann .

In the eight-part Danish television series 1864 , the character Wrangels is played by Hans-Michael Rehberg .

See also

literature

Monographs

  • Kurt von Priesdorff : Soldier leadership . Volume 6, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1938], DNB 367632810 , pp. 263-277, no. 1890.
  • Biography of General-Field Marshal Count von Wrangel. Processed according to official materials . u. ed. by B. Brunckow, Berlin 1866.
  • Franz Ludwig August von Meerheimb: Count von Wrangel, Royal Prussian General Field Marshal . Mittler, Berlin 1877.
  • Henry von Baensch: History of the von Wrangel Family. S. 717. Berlin and Dresden 1887 (reprinted Boston 2005). Digitized
  • E. von Maltiz: Life story of the Royal Prussian General Field Marshal Count Friedrich Heinrich Ernst von Wrangel. To commemorate his centenary birthday on April 13, 1884. Edited from family papers and authentic sources. 1884 (parts of an unpublished autobiography of Wrangel in this and at Baensch).
  • Harald Müller: Friedrich Heinrich Ernst von Wrangel. General of the counter-revolution . In: Helmut Bleiber u. a. (Ed.): Men of the Revolution of 1848. Volume 2, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-05-000285-9 , pp. 513-536.
  • Bernhard von Poten :  Wrangel, Friedrich Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 44, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, pp. 226-232.
  • Volker Schäfer: Friedrich Graf von Wrangel. In: Gerhard Taddey (Hrsg.): Lexicon of German history . Events, institutions, people. From the beginning to the surrender in 1945. 3rd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-81303-3 , p. 1385.
  • Gustav von Glasenapp : Military Biographies of the Officer Corps of the Prussian Army. Berlin 1868, p. 6, Textarchiv - Internet Archive

memoirs

Popular

Selection:

  • W. Pätzold: Blücher and Wrangel anecdotes . Leipzig 1889
  • Arthur Bach: Papa Wrangel. From the life of Field Marshal Count Friedrich Heinrich Ernst von Wrangel. 1784-1877 . Woltersdorf-Verlag, Woltersdorf b. Erkner 1937
  • August Straub : Papa Wrangel: Anecdotes about a Prussian equestrian life . Munich 1942.
  • Siegfried Fischer-Fabian : "You should be eighty ..." - Friedrich Graf von Wrangel. In: Berlin Evergreen. Images of a city in sixteen portraits . Ullstein, Frankfurt / Main 1975, pp. 49-59.
  • Kurt Wernicke: Governor and Field Marshal General. The honorary citizen Friedrich von Wrangel (1784–1877) . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 7, 1998, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 63-65 ( luise-berlin.de ).

Web links

Commons : Friedrich von Wrangel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kurt von Priesdorff: Soldatisches Führertum. Volume 2. Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1937], p. 253, no. 746, DNB 367632772 .
  2. ↑ Harald Müller: Friedrich Heinrich Ernst von Wrangel.
  3. ↑ Bismarck: Thoughts and Memories . Stuttgart 1959, p. 263 f.
  4. ^ Hutten-Czapski: Sixty years of politics and society . Volume 1. Berlin 1936, p. 54.
  5. ^ Franz Herre : Empress Friedrich. Victoria, an Englishwoman in Germany . Stuttgart 2006, p. 185.
  6. ^ Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the baronial houses for the year 1858 , p. 882 ( online ).
  7. ^ A list of Potsdam honorary citizens . In: Märkische Allgemeine , November 24, 2012.
  8. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler : German history of society . Volume 3. Munich 1995, p. 285.
  9. ^ Volker Schäfer: Friedrich Graf von Wrangel . In: Gerhard Taddey (Hrsg.): Lexicon of German history. Events, institutions, people. From the beginning to the surrender in 1945. 3rd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-81303-3 , p. 1385.
  10. ^ Brandes: Militarism (June 27, 1881). In: From the German capital (German by Peter Urban-Halle ). Berlin 1989, p. 444 f. NB Eulenburg, p. 13, contradicts this description of the background to the suicide of Wrangel's second oldest son.
  11. ↑ Eulenburg, p. 14.
  12. ^ Theodor Fontane : Count Philipp zu Eulenburg, Lieutenant Colonel a. D., governor of Zehdenick. In: Walks through the Mark Brandenburg , Volume 5 ( Five castles: Liebenberg ) "Liebenberg under the Eulenburgs from 1867 until now".
  13. ^ Hans Ostwald: Berlinerisch . Publishing house Piper & Co
  14. ↑ also: Kurt Tucholsky : Happy expectation . In: Poems and Songs , 1916–1918.
  15. ↑ Alverdes and Rinn: Deutsches Anekdotenbuch, A collection of short stories from four centuries, 1927, p. 132
  16. ↑ Dieter Lattmann, Das Anekdotenbuch: Around 4000 anecdotes from Adenauer to Zatopek, p. 241
  17. ^ The TAZ from November 1, 2002
  18. ^ Wrangelstrasse (Kreuzberg). In: Street names lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert ) Two more Wrangel streets , which have since been renamed, existed in the suburbs of Berlin at the time: Niederschönhausen . In: Luise. (1899), Lichtenrade . In: Luise. (before 1922)
  19. ^ Wrangelstrasse (Steglitz). In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
personal data
SURNAME Wrangel, Friedrich von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wrangel, Friedrich Heinrich Ernst Count of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian Field Marshal General
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1784
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1877
Place of death Berlin