Georg von Waldersee (officer, 1860)

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Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Graf von Waldersee (born September 1, 1860 in Brandenburg an der Havel , † September 7, 1932 in Ivenack ) was a Prussian lieutenant general .

Life

origin

He was the son of Georg Graf von Waldersee (1824-1870) and his wife Laura, née von Knoblauch (1836-1904) and a nephew of the Prussian Field Marshal and Chief of Staff Alfred Graf von Waldersee .

Military career

During his military career, on April 22, 1905, Waldersee was Moritz von Bissing's chief of staff at the VII Army Corps in Münster . At the end of January 1907 he was transferred to the 1st Grand Ducal Mecklenburg Dragoon Regiment No. 17 in Ludwigslust . From 1909 Waldersee acted as regimental commander. On April 1, 1911, he was appointed commander of the 3rd Cavalry Brigade and on March 22, 1912, he was promoted to major general .

Waldersee was made senior quartermaster in the General Staff in Berlin in 1913 . He was also a member of the Cavalry Commission. He repeatedly urged the Reich government for a preventive war against Russia and France, for example in a memorandum from May 1914. According to Annika Mombauer , he was in constant contact with the German Foreign Ministry during the July crisis , although he had denied this during his lifetime.

When the First World War broke out, Waldersee, to his great disappointment , was transferred to the east as Chief of Staff in the 8th Army . After the war, he said that his expertise, as someone who helped develop the deployment plans in the West, was missing there. Presumably Waldersee was also significantly involved in Moltke's decision to defend the East from the start, which was not actually provided for in the original Schlieffen Plan . After the lost battle at Gumbinnen , Waldersee was released on August 22, 1914 together with his boss Maximilian von Prittwitz and Gaffron . He later became governor of Sevastopol and ended the war as lieutenant general.

Waldersee was a legal knight of the Order of St. John .

family

Waldersee was with Elisabeth Bertha Marie Karoline Adolfine Auguste Freiin von Maltzahn (1864-1941), daughter of the Reichstag deputy Adolf von Plessen , Count von Plessen , majorate on Ivenack , and his wife Elisabeth, née von Meyerinck.

The marriage resulted in two daughters:

  • Edelgard Laura Elisabeth (born July 16, 1891 - † October 16, 1981)
⚭ 1920 Gustav, Prince von Schönaich-Carolath , a son of the writer Emil von Schoenaich-Carolath .
  • Magdalene Asta Pauline (February 9, 1893 - May 6, 1945)
⚭ 1913 Albrecht Freiherr von Maltzahn, Count von Plessen, their direct cousin, shared suicide on May 6, 1945 in Ivenack

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Annika Mombauer: Helmuth Von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War. Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-521-79101-4 , p. 177.
  2. ↑ Annika Mombauer: Helmuth Von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War. Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-521-79101-4 , p. 196.
  3. ↑ Annika Mombauer: Helmuth Von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War. Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-521-79101-4 , p. 244.
  4. ↑ Annika Mombauer: Helmuth Von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War. Cambridge University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-521-79101-4 , p. 245.
  5. ^ Ranking list of the Royal Prussian Army and the XIII. (Royal Württemberg) Army Corps for 1914. Ed .: War Ministry . Ernst Siegfried Mittler & Son . Berlin 1914. p. 16.
  6. ↑ Portrait of Emil von Schoenaich-Carolath at haseldorfer-marsch.de
personal data
SURNAME Waldersee, Georg von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian Lieutenant General in the First World War
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Brandenburg on the Havel
DATE OF DEATH September 7, 1932
Place of death Ivenack