Georg Bruchmüller

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Colonel Bruchmüller

Georg Bruchmüller (born December 11, 1863 in Berlin , † January 26, 1948 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen ), known as Durchbruchmüller , was a German artillery officer in World War I and is considered to be the founder of modern and systematic artillery shooting .

Life

Bruchmüller came from the middle class and joined the foot artillery regiment "von Linger" (East Prussian) No. 1 in Königsberg on August 8, 1883 as a flagjunker . A month later he was transferred to Metz to the Rhenish Foot Artillery Regiment No. 8 . There, he was appointed on March 13, 1884 to Ensign and promoted him in the following period 14th February 1885 to second lieutenant , and on September 14, 1893. First Lieutenant . With his transfer to the foot artillery regiment "Encke" (Magdeburgisches) No. 4 on August 18, 1896, Bruchmüller became captain and battery chief . For three years he was then until March 16, 1905 in the same position in the teaching regiment of the foot artillery shooting school in Jüterbog . He was then employed as battery chief in the Hohenzollern foot artillery regiment No. 13 until February 15, 1907 , and he then became a teacher at the Oberfeuerwerker-Schule in Berlin. As a major (since October 18, 1908), he was transferred on April 20, 1909 as an artillery officer from the place of the Upper Rhine fortifications. Shortly afterwards, on September 14th, Bruchmüller was appointed commander of the 2nd battalion of the foot artillery regiment "von Hindersin" (1st Pomeranian) No. 2 . He gave this command on September 30, 1912 and then acted as a teacher at the foot artillery shooting school. Due to health problems ( diabetes ) to put it a year later disposition .

At the beginning of the First World War he was reactivated and transferred as an artillery commander to the 86th Division on the Eastern Front . Bruchmüller quickly recognized the ineffectiveness of long-lasting artillery fire when preparing offensives. The procedure at that time provided for several days or several weeks of shelling, the so-called barrage , to destroy the defenders. The practical consequences of this procedure were the enormous consumption of ammunition, the exorbitant wear and tear on gun material, the transformation of the attack area into an impassable lunar landscape that humans and animals could only overcome with great difficulty, and not least the tactically significant loss of the element of surprise.

In his deliberations, Bruchmüller assumed that the real task of artillery fire was to hold down the enemy until the infantry had captured their positions. This could be achieved with as high a rate of fire as possible, at which a maximum of explosives is shot precisely and in a concentrated manner at the (buried) enemy and at his artillery positions in a short time. In order to increase its effectiveness, he divided the artillery according to caliber size and range into long-range artillery, infantry combat artillery and heaviest flat fire for fighting enemy artillery and reserves, heavy flat fire and light flat fire for shelling the front lines. Due to the poor communication links, these species were meticulously incorporated into an exact schedule. The combination of all types of fire resulted in the so-called fire roller , in which the gunfire was concentrated on a section of the terrain immediately ahead of the attacking infantry. According to a previously established scheme, the artillery fired at a wide strip for a few minutes, then the fire usually "jumped" approx. 100 meters in the enemy direction, while the infantry - following as closely as possible - advanced into the previously fired section.

Bruchmüller first used this tactic in April 1916 at the Battle of Lake Naratsch , with great successes being achieved. This procedure was expanded in September 1917 at the Battle of Riga . The rules of artillery combat, some of which are still valid today, were applied here for the first time. This included, first and foremost, the reconnaissance of the battlefield using aerial photography and the transfer of these results to maps in order to make the shooting in of the artillery superfluous, as well as the establishment of a complex schedule for the use of artillery, consisting of fire action, fire roller and colored shooting to hold down the enemy artillery , and the shortness of time of the fire. The resounding success, i. H. the Russian bridgehead of Riga was pushed in within a few days and the city was conquered, proved him right. Step by step, the further expansion of this tactic for use in large attack projects began. Bruchmüller combined his method with the tactics of the stormtroopers and introduced further innovations: This included the use of battlefield artillery. These were in particular the lighter mine throwers and special infantry escort guns ( assault cannons ) that could be transported by crews , which could follow the infantry in combat in order to be able to fight pockets of resistance in direct fire. The tactical concept of the stormtroopers attacking in front was modified accordingly, so that they did not conquer pockets of resistance but bypass them and leave the fighting to the following regular infantry units and thus concentrate fully on the breakthrough. In the last German offensives (see Battle of Karfreit 1917 and Spring Offensive 1918) his method was used extremely effectively and with complete success. What was new in both battles was the use of a double fire roller: the first roller, which fired volatile irritants ( blue cross ) and deadly lung warfare agents ( green cross ) during so-called colored shooting to break masks on the opposing artillery positions, had a ratio of 30% HE shells to 70% gas grenades . The second roller consisted only of HE shells.

For his services, Bruchmüller u. a. on May 1, 1917 the Pour le Mérite and on March 26, 1918 the oak leaves.

After the war, he initially remained in his post as artillery general, for example OHL and chief of heavy artillery on the Western Front. His mobilization provision was lifted on January 18, 1919, and Bruchmüller was retired on that day.

Bruchmüller received on 27 August 1939 the so-called Tannenbergtag , the character as Major General awarded.

Works

  • The German artillery in the breakthrough battles of the world war. ES Mittler & Sohn Berlin 1921, DNB 57253728X
  • The artillery attacking in trench warfare. Publishing house "Open Words" Berlin / Charlottenburg 1926, DNB 579260917
  • Kinds of my ancestors and their closer home. Berlin 1938.

literature

  • Hans Linnenkohl: From a single shot to a fire roller . The race between technology and tactics in the First World War. Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-7637-5966-2 .
  • David T. Zabecki: Steel wind: Colonel Georg Bruchmüller and the birth of modern artillery. Westport, Conn .: Praeger 1994, ISBN 0275947491
  • Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Christian Zweng: The knights of the order Pour le Mérite of the First World War. Volume 1: A-G. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1999, ISBN 3-7648-2505-7 , pp. 208-210.
  • Hanns Möller: History of the knights of the order pour le mérite in the world war. Volume I, Verlag Bernard & Graefe, Berlin 1935, pp. 159-162.
  • Ernst Demmler:  Bruchmüller, Georg Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 643 ( digitized version ).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bruchmüller, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Breakthrough miller
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German major general
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1948
Place of death Garmisch-Partenkirchen