Georg von Thaer

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Georg von Thaer, governor of the provinces of Silesia and Lower Silesia i. R., around 1942

Georg Friedrich Wilhelm von Thaer (born September 23, 1872 in Baldensruh near Panten (today Pątnów Legnicki), Silesia ; †  November 15, 1946 in Hanover ) was a senior civil servant in Silesia. From 1916 to 1924 he was governor of the province of Silesia, from 1924 to 1933 governor of the province of Lower Silesia .

Youth and education

Georg von Thaer was born as the fourth of six children on Gut Baldensruh near Panten (since 1945 Pątnów) in the district of Liegnitz (since 1945 Legnica) in Lower Silesia. His father was Georg Ernst von Thaer (1834–1898), who had been ennobled in 1867 for his services in the field of agriculture and cattle breeding. His mother was Franziska, geb. von Dresler and Scharfenstein (1843–1918), daughter of the Magdeburg and Wiesbaden senior government councilors Otto von Dresler and Scharfenstein, one of her brothers was the future general of the infantry and Pour le Mérite carrier Hermann von Dresler and Scharfenstein (1857–1942). Georg von Thaer's great-grandfather was Albrecht Daniel Thaer , the founder of modern agriculture.

Thaer was initially trained by private tutors and then attended the Knight Academy in Liegnitz . He then studied law in Breslau (since 1945 Wrocław) and passed his exam with honors at the age of 21. He received his doctorate (Dr. jur.) Under the renowned Professor Felix Dahn summa cum laude ( The actionability of difference transactions ). During his studies he became a member of the Association of German Students in Berlin . Thaer did his military service with the 2nd Guards Field Artillery Regiment, he was captain of the Landwehr.

The governor of Lower Silesia, Georg von Thaer, accompanied Reich President Paul von Hindenburg on his trip through German Upper Silesia in 1928

Civil servant

After an assessor activity in 1899/1900 with the upper president in Breslau, Thaer worked from 1901 in the upper presidium of the province under the local upper president Prince Hermann von Hatzfeldt and later with the count Robert von Zedlitz-Trützschler . From 1905 to 1914 he was the royal Prussian district administrator in his home district of Lublinitz (since 1945 Lubliniec). In his role as district administrator, he introduced, among other things, agricultural evening schools in the winter months, during which the district's farmers were trained in modern cattle breeding and agriculture.

From the beginning of 1915 he was then seconded to the General Government of Warsaw as a senior administrative officer (at the command of the Army Administration) . There he worked closely with Bogdan Graf von Hutten-Czapski , who, as the emperor appointed mediator between Polish and Prussian interests, advocated the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Poland. Thereafter Thaer was employed as district chief of Czestochowa (since 1945 Częstochowa) and later as department conductor II (head of the department for school and cultural affairs). In this function he took part in 1916 as commissioner in the negotiations between Austria and Germany on the further development of the Polish universities.

In 1916 he was elected governor for the province of Silesia. As a result of the referendum and partition of Upper Silesia (1922) and the decision of the Upper Silesian Provincial Parliament in May 1924 to separate from Silesia, Thaer was governor of Lower Silesia from June 6, 1924. In 1933 he was relieved of his office before the end of his term in office (1934) because he refused to exchange established district administrators for representatives of the NSDAP .

Manor house in Pawonkau, built around 1800. The size of the property in 1870 was around 1,000 hectares
Silesian red cattle bull. 4 years old, from the red cattle herd of the Pawonkau manor, around 1910

Farmer in Pawonkau

Until the expulsion in January 1945, Thaer managed his own manor Pawonkau (since 1945 Pawonków ) in the Lublinitz district, which his father had acquired in 1866 from the family of Count Blumenthal (Suckow) . There he built a registered herd of cattle (Silesian red cattle) as well as a horse breeding with horse studbook (noble warmblood with Hanoverian stallions). In his function as landowner in Pawonkau he was, among other things, chairman of the supervisory board of the district dairy and chairman of the district horse breeding association.

Thaer was a legal knight of the Order of St. John , Honorary Senator of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-University and the Technical University in Breslau , Dr. Ing.hc (1925) of the technical university, from 1931 to 1933 senator of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and honorary citizen of the cities of Lublinitz and Guttentag (since 1945: Dobrodzień). Although he was a Protestant himself, he took over the position of patron saint of the Catholic Church in Pawonkau, which was associated with the possession of the manor. Together with his wife - presumably in 1932 - he made it possible for the Catholic women's order of the Sisters of St. Elisabeth to establish one of the first kindergartens in Upper Silesia in Pawonkau.

Thaer was also owner of the Süsswinkel manor (since 1945 Kątna) at Oels (since 1945 Oleśnica), a gift from their childhood friend Hans Merensky (1871-1952), together with his older brother, Major General Albrecht von Thaer (1868–1957), since 1938 .

One day before the Red Army marched into Pawonkau in January 1945, Thaer and part of the Pawonkau population first fled to today's Czech Republic , from there via Halberstadt to Rössing (Lower Saxony) near Hildesheim . For a few months he still coordinated relief measures for refugees from Silesia from there and represented the deceased Silesian commander of the Order of St. John .

In the winter of 1946 Georg von Thaer died in a hospital in Hanover. He was buried in the cemetery in Rössing, and his wife was later buried in his grave.

family

Georg von Thaer was with Margarethe Helene, geb. Walther-Weisbeck (1882–1961), daughter of the royal councilor on the Wegeleben manor , married August Walther-Weisbeck (1845–1925). The couple had four children (Jutta, Ingeborg, Hans, Jürgen). Two children died young, the son Jürgen von Thaer fell as a lieutenant and platoon leader on June 29, 1944 during fighting as part of the Russian summer offensive Operation Bagration in Bobruisk an der Beresina (today Belarus). The daughter Ingeborg (* 1913) married Eckard Ferdinand Flechtner, son of Major General Arthur Flechtner , in 1936 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Josef Dornhof: Governor a. D. Dr. von Thaer, Herr auf Pawonkau - a highly deserved German public servant . In: Loben-Guttentager Kreisblatt . March 22, 1973, No. 4, Volume 18
  2. ↑ Article: Governor von Thaer - 60 years . In: Schlesische Zeitung . September 1932
  3. ↑ Louis Lange (Ed.): Kyffhäuser Association of German Student Associations. Address book 1931. Berlin 1931, p. 225.
  4. ↑ Georg Stoklossa: For the 70th birthday ... p. 35, see literature
  5. ↑ Exercise in the office of the district administrator until the beginning of 1915, according to Jan Fikus: Lubliniec - z dziejów miasta na górnym śląsku . Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna im. Józefa Lompy w Lublińcu, Lubliniec, 2003, p. 162
  6. ↑ Josef Dornhof: retired governor and retired district administrator Dr. Georg von Thaer , abridged report, p. 261
  7. ↑ Hutten-Czapski wrote in his autobiography: “At a farewell dinner that I gave him (meaning Georg von Thaer) , Rector Brudzinski thanked him for the university , beginning with the words: 'Highly deserved, I would like to say ours Governor '. The parting of this man, with whom I had worked trustingly, was a great loss for me. In my address I emphasized Thaer's outstanding contribution to the establishment and further development of universities and expressed my conviction that the traces of his activity would live on for many generations. ” (P. 258) and elsewhere “ I am happy to remember me Work with this unusual man who has remained my friend to this day and whose memory still lives on in the learned circles of Warsaw ... ” (p. 246), Bogdan Graf von Hutten-Czapski: Sixty Years of Politics and Society ... , see literature
  8. ^ Bogdan Graf von Hutten-Czapski: Sixty Years of Politics and Society ... p. 286, see literature
  9. ↑ His refusal to become a member of the NSDAP was confirmed on October 19, 1945 by the Oberpräsident (Upper Silesia) i. R. Hans Lukaschek
  10. ↑ Painted by H. Sprengholz, printed by the Paul Parey publishing house, Berlin SW, Hedemannstr. 10 and 11
  11. ↑ Certificate from Ferdinand Freiherr von Reitzenstein, Plenipotentiary General of Prince Hohenlohe auf Koschentin ( Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen ) and head of the agricultural department at the Hanover government, September 9, 1946
  12. ↑ according to Obituary
  13. ↑ Kronika SS Elżbietanek w Pawonkowie pow. Lubliniec , fragment of a diary, entry from August 16, 1932
  14. ↑ Ingeborg Flechtner: Notes on the life of my father, Georg von Thaer . o. V., Wennigsen o. J.

Publications

  • The actionability of the difference deals . Dissertation at the Silesian Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau, VV. 7, No. 14, Schletter, Breslau 1895
  • The provinces of Upper and Lower Silesia , Grass, Barth & Comp. W. Friedrich, Breslau 1924
  • The need and the importance of the endangered Ostmark: Lower Silesia . In: Hannoversche Hochschulblätter , monthly for academic life and national student work , Ostmark special edition: Der Deutschen Osten , No. 4, January 1931, Verlag Hannover O., editor: Hans Backe, pp. 58–60

literature

  • Robert Volz: Reich manual of the German society . The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. Volume 2: L-Z. German business publisher, Berlin 1931, DNB 453960294 .
  • Bogdan Graf von Hutten-Czapski: Sixty Years of Politics and Society . Volume II, published by ES Mittler und Sohn, Berlin 1936
  • MA Koza: Potomek słynnego agronoma . Ziemia Lublinicka, Kwartalnik Społeczno Kulturalny, No. 2/2008 (55), ISSN  1641-1935 , p. 14
  • Jerzy Paris: Pawonków - zarys dziejów . Urząd Gminy Pawonków, Pawonków, 2005, ISBN 83-922621-0-7
  • Andrzej Siwiński: Wzorcowy majątek ziemski w Pawonkowie . Gazeta Częstochowska - Tygodnik Regionalny, Przedsiębiorstwo Wydawnicze Produkcyjne Usługowe Sp. Z oo Częstochowa, Częstochowa, No. 450–479
  • Georg Stoklossa: On the 70th birthday of the former district administrator of the Lublinitz district, retired governor Dr. from Thaer . In: Home calendar praise . Ed .: The district administrator of the district of Loben, Schlesien-Verlag, Breslau 1942, p. 35 ff.
  • Eberhard Willich: Descendant table by Martin Willich (1583–1633) . As of December 2004, Heidelberg 2004, p. 51, 267–269
  • Governor of Thaer. 60 years . Schlesische Zeitung of September 23, 1932, anthology 1932, p. 422
  • Franciszek Hawranek, Encyklopedia powstań śląskich , Instytut Śląski w Opolu, Wydaw. Inst. Śląskiego w Opolu, 1982, p. 91

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Thaer, Georg von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thaer, Georg Friedrich Wilhelm von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German civil servant
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Baldensruh near Panten , Province of Silesia , Kingdom of Prussia , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH November 15, 1946
Place of death Hanover