Gustav von Rauch (General)

Minister and General of the Infantry Gustav von Rauch, honorary citizen of Berlin, lithograph after a drawing by Franz Krüger (around 1830)

Berlin honorary grave of the Minister and General of the Infantry Gustav von Rauch in the Berlin Invalidenfriedhof - in the background left the grave monument of his predecessor Job von Witzleben

Johann Justus Georg Gustav von Rauch (born April 1, 1774 in Braunschweig , † April 2, 1841 in Berlin ) was a Prussian infantry general and minister of war . He became the 16th honorary citizen of Berlin . As a close associate of General von Scharnhorst , he belonged to the circle of Prussian army reformers . Associated with it are the reform of the military education system, the further development of the Prussian fortifications and the reorganization of engineering and pioneering. Rauch advanced the development of the Prussian Navy and had the first medical companies set up in the Prussian army.

Life

Origin and family

Gustav von Rauch was the son of the Prussian major general and engineer officer Bonaventura von Rauch , director of the royal engineering academy in Potsdam , and his wife Johanna, née Bandel.

Mathematical and technical talent, pedagogical talent and princely recommendations had made King Friedrich II of Prussia aware of Rauch's father, an orphan and, according to the baptismal register, probably the son of a teacher from the Bavarian Chiemgau : the basis for the advancement to general since his transfer to the Prussian army in Year 1777. The case of Bonaventura von Rauch was all the deeper in 1806 when he, as Vice-Commander of the fortress Stettin, agreed to hand it over to the French troops without a fight. Rauch's father was released from the army without saying goodbye and sentenced to life imprisonment in the fortress or city ​​of Spandau . Gustav von Rauch's mother came from a domain tenant and farmer family based in Anhalt and Braunschweig.

Rauch was the oldest of the twelve children of the married couple Bonaventura and Johanna von Rauch. Among his brothers were the generals Leopold von Rauch , director of the Prussian War Academy in Berlin, and Friedrich Wilhelm von Rauch , close confidante and adjutant general of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia . His sisters were u. a. Charlotte (first wife of Levin Friedrich von Bismarck , Prussian district president and honorary citizen of Magdeburg ), Friederike (married to Major General Heinrich von Knobelsdorff , Inspector of the Prussian Guard cavalry ) and Cecilie of smoke (wife of Gustav Freiherr von Maltzahn Earl of Plessen , Heir to Ivenack in Mecklenburg and Lieutenant Colonel in the Regiment of the Gardes du Corps ).

Career up to the Prussian defeat (1788 to 1807)

In no way did the dramatic end of his father's military career in 1806 stand in the way of Gustav von Rauch's steep rise in the Prussian army at the same time. Gustav von Rauch came in 1788, following the example of his father, following in the Corps of Engineers , and attended as an apprentice for two years, the Engineering Academy ( Ecole de génie ) in Potsdam. He was carefully trained there by his father Bonaventura. As a talented young engineer officer, he quickly had the personal skills that made him part of the Prussian army reform and the associated reorganization efforts. Right from the start, Rauch worked in the immediate vicinity of the reformists in the Prussian army, such as Lieutenant General Levin von Geusau , the later Field Marshal Friedrich Graf Kleist von Nollendorf and Lieutenant General Ernst von Rüchel . His most important sponsor was Lieutenant General Gerhard von Scharnhorst as the head of the army reform. He became a member of the Military Society early on .

During the wars of liberation he also worked closely with and under Field Marshals Ludwig Graf Yorck von Wartenburg , Gebhard Leberecht Fürst Blücher , August Graf Neidhardt von Gneisenau and Hermann von Boyen as well as the Infantry General and War Minister Karl von Hake .

At the age of 16, Rauch was promoted to lieutenant in the engineer corps on April 6, 1790 . And even in his first years of service, Rauch was deployed on the Silesian-Austrian border and in the New Prussian parts of the country until late autumn 1796, with assignments to be carried out independently. He also took part in the war of 1794 caused by the third partition of Poland .

He then became adjutant to the then very influential Quartermaster General and chief of the engineering corps , Lieutenant General Levin von Geusau in Berlin. This took a turn in his military career that made him familiar with the work of senior staff at a young age. On January 14, 1802, he was appointed quartermaster lieutenant in the newly formed General Staff , became captain on December 12, 1803 and, in 1805, became the "lecturing adjutant general " of King Friedrich Wilhelm III. , Colonel Friedrich von Kleist , who later became Field Marshal General. In the General Staff, in which he was promoted to Major and Quartermaster General on October 22, 1805, he participated in the unsuccessful mobilization of 1805 and in the wake of the Prussian King in the war of 1806/07 . On June 1, 1807 he was awarded the order Pour le Mérite . In Memel Rauch brought the news of the defeat of the Russian-Prussian coalition army in the battle of Friedland to the king who had fled there .

Even then it became apparent that Rauch's views on warfare were more attached to the methodical-abstract views of the influences of the terrain and the application of mathematical theorems to military measures than to the new principles, according to which tactical victory over the enemy army should be the general's most important goal . He was one of those who in 1806 did not tend towards the idea of ​​a decidedly offensive action against the Napoleonic army , but recommended the measures that led to the division of their own forces into the army parts that were defeated separately on October 14 at Jena and Auerstedt .

Rauch then returned to Prussia under fortunate circumstances and in the spring of 1807 became Chief of Staff of Russian General Kamenski II. He was supposed to bring relief to the beleaguered Danzig with a Russian-Prussian army embarked in Pillau and landed in Neufahrwasser . After this attempt failed, Rauch became Chief of Staff at General Ernst von Rüchel, the Governor General of Koenigsberg .

Work during the army reform in the War Ministry and in the Wars of Liberation (1807 to 1814)

With the peace treaty in 1807 Rauch returned to the royal entourage. In 1808 he was assigned to General von Scharnhorst , the head of the first department, that is, the General War Department in the newly created War Ministry , which at that time was still without a ministerial officer. This resulted in a close and benevolent collaboration. Rauch rendered Scharnhorst essential services in the work to reorganize the Prussian army . Scharnhorst proposed him as a member of a commission for the reorganization of the engineer corps to be set up under his chairmanship and wrote: “Rauch was previously recommended by Colonel von Massenbach as a skilful, extremely useful officer, and in the last war he had many special assignments with the king's satisfaction executed, conducts his business with rare zeal, and was promoted without suggestion from Sr. Majesty ”. In 1810 Rauch was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

After Scharnhorst had to retire from his previous positions in the War Ministry due to French pressure, Gustav von Rauch took over large parts of his duties on March 8, 1812. In addition, the Prussian King Rauch announced: "Since I put General Major von Scharnhorst today at his request out of all contact with the General Staff, I will, on the other hand, entrust you with the management of all business of the General Staff." Furthermore: "At the presentation of the General Major von Scharnhorst today I have determined that you should conduct all those business of the General Staff and the Engineer Corps which the Chief does not want to conduct himself under your own authority and responsibility, and I appoint you to the end as interim commander of the engineer corps. General von Scharnhorst has also been left to entrust you with the day-to-day management of the military schools under his direction. " Within his new area of ​​responsibility, Rauch put a special emphasis on the establishment of war schools for officer candidates of all branches of service. Scharnhorst commented appreciatively on Rauch's work: "Without your love of order, activity, knowledge of human nature and insight, the sphere of activity determined for me would be poorly administered."

Since August 14, 1812, a colonel, Rauch took on a special task at the beginning of the War of Liberation. On March 1, 1813, he became chief of staff in the corps of General von Yorck , which was reorganized near Berlin. Yorck was considered a difficult superior. Trust and appreciation had to be won from him. Neither Rauch's personality nor his more learned than practical manner suited Yorck, who initially found him “boring” and therefore “left him aside”. Later, however, Yorck was able to expressly state about Rauch in a report on the battle at Königswartha -Weißig on May 19, 1813: “On this occasion, too, I particularly mention the chief of my general staff, Colonel von Rauch, with whom I set the order, with which night Withdrawal through the defiléen was going on, must be especially attributed. ”On the same day Rauch was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd class .

During the temporary armistice, Rauch was reassigned a new role. Since July 7, 1813, major general, after Scharnhorst's death on July 21, 1813, he became chief of the engineering corps and at the same time, in Gneisenau's place, interim chief of staff of General von Blücher and his corps. In addition, he worked as an agent of the War Ministry for the expansion and rearmament of the army. When, when the hostilities restarted, Gneisenau had resumed his post as Blucher’s chief of staff, Rauch remained on Blücher’s general staff at Blcher’s request and took part in the other events of the liberation war with the pioneer troops under his command; it was mainly used in the construction of fortifications and construction work (entrenchments near Wartenburg, bridging near Halle / Saale ). On the other hand, he proved that his methodical spirit hardly matched the authoritative views of warfare in Blücher's staff, in a memorandum that advised against the momentous Elbe crossing carried out at the beginning of October, “because the state of the Silesian fortresses is not good enough to cope with failure to provide sufficient security for the army ”. In September 1813 Rauch received both the Iron Cross 1st Class and the Russian Order of Anne 1st Class.

When the army arrived on the Rhine, the Prussian king on December 13, 1813 as the temporary successor to the first Prussian Minister of War, General Karl von Hake, - in addition to his position on the General Staff and at the head of the engineering corps - assumed the duties of chief of the General War and Military Departments in the War Ministry, de facto the function of War Minister ad interim. During this time the king Rauch u. a. also instructed to take up the proposal of Prince August of Prussia and to set up medical companies for the first time. The full range of duties as interim Minister of War also included maintaining contact with the headquarters of Field Marshal Karl Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg , the commander in chief of the allied forces against Napoleon. Later he took part as the Prussian plenipotentiary in the unsuccessful armistice negotiations in Chaumont and Lusigny-sur-Barse .

In the War Ministry: expansion of the Prussian fortresses - reorganization of engineering and pioneering (1814 to 1837)

After the Treaty of Paris was concluded, King Friedrich Wilhelm III gave birth. Rauch resigned from the management of the two departments in the War Ministry with effect from June 3, 1814 and appointed General Hermann von Boyen as the new War Minister. Rauch remained chief of the engineering corps and also became inspector general of all fortresses , which meant that the two previously separate but related branches of service were in one hand for the first time. At the same time he was awarded the oak leaves for the order Pour le Mérite.

After accompanying the Prussian king to England, he initially returned to Berlin in his new dual position. From there, because of the growing danger of war, he made his way to the French border to manage the fortress construction on the Rhine. The king wrote to him on April 15, 1815 that he considered this task so important that he could only entrust it to Rauch's own hands. However, this was temporarily restricted by the fact that Field Marshal Blücher requested numerous pioneers for the field army, which Rauch urgently needed to expand the fortress. The rapid course of the war with the victory over Napoleon made these differences of opinion obsolete and Rauch was able to return to Berlin.

For more than two decades, Gustav von Rauch, in his dual position as head of the engineering corps and general inspector of the fortresses, was in charge of the overall development and construction of the Prussian fortifications. Rauch's work was primarily concerned with three Prussian fortification lines: in the west of the kingdom on the Rhine and Saar , in the middle along the Elbe and in the east on the Oder and Vistula . Under Rauch's overall management, the fortresses Wesel , Jülich , Cologne , Koblenz with the Ehrenbreitstein and Saarlouis were expanded and modernized or built as new buildings: along the Rhine and Saar , the fortresses Wittenberg and Torgau and in the east the fortresses Posen and Thorn . The fortresses of Minden , Erfurt and Stralsund were also among the fortifications to be renewed . When Gustav von Rauch was in Cologne in 1814 to expand the Rhenish fortresses, he met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe there . Goethe later praised Gustav von Rauch in his diary from a journey on the Rhine, Main and Neckar as an "excellent warrior". During his months in Cologne, Rauch had also taken special care of the archaeological finds that were made during the work on the fortress and put the recovered objects in the museum.

Rauch managed to gain the trust and respect of his subordinates through great benevolence, a pronounced sense of justice and impartiality. And he knew how to form and qualify a group of close employees who, in turn, would later become top positions in the engineering corps and the fortifications and whose activities have also left their mark on the image of the former fortified towns to this day. They included the fortress builders and later generals Ernst Ludwig von Aster , Leopold von Brese-Winiary and Moritz von Prittwitz and Gaffron .

The reorganization of the engineer corps had also been commissioned by the Prussian king. It included u. a. their reclassification into three engineering brigades. Three engineer battalions were also set up at each brigade. A special initiative by Rauch in 1816 was the United Artillery and Engineering School in Berlin and its establishment. Its best-known graduate was Werner von Siemens . Rauch had recommended to him in 1835 to attend the Berlin School because of its excellent education in the natural sciences and to secure the school attendance by joining the artillery; Due to the excellent number of applicants, access to the coveted engineering corps was as good as blocked. On January 18, 1820, Rauch was awarded the Order of the Red Eagle First Class with Oak Leaves.

The Russian rulers also made use of Rauch's expertise: at the request of Emperor Alexander I , he visited the fortresses of the tsarist empire in 1822, accompanied by the engineer officer Ludwig Urban Blesson, and in the meantime became an honorary member of the Russian scientific military committee. Together with the later Emperor Nicholas I , whose coronation he attended in 1826 as a Prussian envoy, Rauch also carried out a tour of the Polish fortresses in 1825. This professional exchange was honored on May 30, 1829 with the Grand Cross of the Russian Alexander Nevsky Order , and on November 29, 1834 supplemented by the diamonds for the Grand Cross.

Gustav von Rauch was promoted to General of the Infantry on March 30, 1830, appointed a member of the Prussian State Council on November 21, 1831 and awarded the Order of the Black Eagle on January 18, 1833 .

Minister Gustav von Rauch as General of the Infantry and Chief of the 1st Infantry Regiment - oil painting probably by Johann Jakob Kirchhoff , 1838

Minister of War and later years (1837 until death 1841)

When, in early 1837, Lieutenant General Job von Witzleben was temporarily relieved of his duties as Minister of War for health reasons, Rauch was appointed to represent him. After Witzleben's death, the Prussian King appointed Rauch as Minister of State and War Minister on July 30, 1837.

During Rauch's time as Minister of War, the preparations for the reinforcement of the fortresses Wesel, Jülich, Cologne, Koblenz and Saarlouis fall. It was of long-term strategic importance that he saw to it that the needle gun was introduced to the infantry. And under Rauch as minister, the establishment of the Prussian Navy , for which he had been committed since 1811 a. a. as head of the naval commissions in the war ministry for planning and against much resistance. Last but not least, he took care of the military guard by a war invalid at the Gustav Adolf Monument near Lützen , where the Swedish king died in the battle of the same name in 1632 .

Gustav von Rauch was the Prussian Minister of War for four years. After the death of King Friedrich Wilhelm III. In 1840 his successor and son Friedrich Wilhelm IV urged him to remain in the ministerial office. Bad health since the end of 1838 and temporarily represented by Generals Ferdinand von Stülpnagel and Ludwig von Rohr , Rauch asked to leave in early February 1841. This was granted to him on February 28, 1841.

Only a few weeks later he died in Berlin on April 2, 1841.

Grave in the Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin

Gustav von Rauch was buried in the Berlin Invalidenfriedhof in today's grave field C. His final resting place is an honorary grave of the State of Berlin .

It is located in the immediate vicinity of the grave monuments of his predecessors Gerhard von Scharnhorst and Job von Witzleben and his successor from 1814 and 1841, Hermann von Boyen. In 1850, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Had the burial place laid for his brother Friedrich Wilhelm von Rauch by the court architect Friedrich August Stüler in the run-up to Gustav von Rauch's grave . In the following hundred years this became the hereditary burial of the Rauch family , including in 1890 for the war minister's son Gustav Waldemar von Rauch and for some of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Rauch's grave in the Invalidenfriedhof was probably lost in GDR times due to its close proximity to the Berlin Wall . The grave was rebuilt in 2003 by the garden monument maintenance department of the Berlin State Monument Office. Its reconstruction was funded by the federal government, the Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin foundation and the Invalidenfriedhof eV association

family

Gustav von Rauch was married to Caroline von Geusau (1780–1867), the daughter of his boss at the time, Lieutenant General and Quartermaster General Levin von Geusau, and his wife Marie Caroline, née Grepler, since 1802. The marriage was divorced in 1815.

• The son of Gustav and Caroline von Rauch, Chamberlain Adolf von Rauch (1805–1877), first rose as a cavalry officer in the regiment of the Gardes du Corps up to major, then to be court chief of Princess Luise of Prussia , the wife of Grand Duke Friedrich I. from Baden , to become. Adolf von Rauch was a well-known coin collector and chairman of the Numismatic Society in Berlin . Since 1836 Adolf von Rauch was married to Therese von Ziegler (1817-1858), daughter of the Prussian Colonel Friedrich August von Ziegler and his wife Philippine Amalie, née Kypke.

Gustav von Rauch's second wife was Rosalie von Holtzendorff (1790–1862), daughter of the Prussian staff captain Georg Friedrich von Holtzendorff and his wife Rudolphine Wilhelmine, née von Lütke; she was the granddaughter of Major General Georg Ernst von Holtzendorff . Rauch had children with her:

• Gustav Waldemar (1819–1890), Prussian cavalry general and chief of the rural gendarmerie ⚭ 1848 Polyxena von Stéritsch (1823–1859), who came from a Russian aristocratic family
• Fedor (1822–1892), chief stable master of the Prussian kings and German emperors, vice-president of the Union Club ⚭ 1856 Countess Elisabeth von Waldersee (1837–1914), lady in waiting for Grand Duchess Marie von Mecklenburg-Strelitz , daughter of the Prussian colonel Eduard Graf von Waldersee and his wife Laurette, née von Alvensleben , granddaughter of Franz Graf von Waldersee
• Albert (1829–1901), Prussian infantry general and chief of the rural gendarmerie ⚭ 1866 Elisabeth von Bismarck (1845–1923), daughter of the Prussian major Klaus von Bismarck and his wife Constanze, née von Schleinitz

• Daughter Rosalie (1820–1879) married Prince Albrecht of Prussia , the brother of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. And Emperor Wilhelm I. Albrecht of Prussia in 1849 in 1849 in Schweina, Saxony-Meiningen, in an morganatic marriage , by his first wife Princess Marianne von Orange-Nassau , where Rosalie von Rauch had previously been the lady-in-waiting. In May 1853, Rosalie von Rauch was made Countess of Hohenau . By order of the king, the couple had to take up residence outside Prussia. Therefore, it was in the Dresden Elbhängen Castle Albrechtsberg by Schinkel -Students Adolf Lohse built in the 1850s. Albrecht von Prussia, who rose to the rank of Colonel General in the Prussian army , felt particularly close to Rosalie's father Gustav von Rauch as one of his first military instructors.

Troop flag of the pioneer battalion "von Rauch" (1st Brandenburg) No. 3 in the choir stalls of the St. Catherine's Church in Brandenburg an der Havel

Honor

Honorary citizenship in Berlin

Gustav von Rauch became the 16th honorary citizen of Berlin in April 1840 .

Honored by the Prussian Army

• In 1889, in his honor, the Brandenburg Pioneer Battalion No. 3 in Torgau received its name: Pioneer Battalion “von Rauch” (1st Brandenburg) No. 3 for his services to the establishment of the Prussian pioneer troops in the 19th century . The battalion was later stationed in (Berlin-) Spandau and Brandenburg an der Havel .
• In the Saarlouis Fortress , the Capuchin Redoubt was opened in 1821 by order of King Friedrich Wilhelm III. von Prussia renamed Fort Rauch after Gustav von Rauch, at that time general inspector of all Prussian fortresses .
• Likewise, around 1860 the former Fort Rochus in the fortress of Posen was given the name Fort Rauch .
• And within the Cologne fortress ring , the new fortress in front of the Deutz wall was named after Rauch in 1864 . In 1958/59 Fort Rauch in today's Siegburger Strasse was demolished .
• On the occasion of his 50th anniversary in service in 1838, Gustav von Rauch became honorary chief of the 1st Infantry Regiment (1st East Prussian) in Königsberg. In the grenadier casino of this association and its successor regiments there was an oil painting, presumably by Johann Jakob Kirchhoff, showing Rauch as a general of the infantry and head of the regiment. It has since been lost.

Street naming

• In Spandau, which was the location of the Pioneer Battalion of Rauch (Brandenburgisches) No. 3 from 1896, a street in Hakenfelde was named after Rauch in 1900 .
• In Saarlouis , the Fort Rauch street is reminiscent of the fortifications bearing the name Gustav von Rauchs .

literature

• Kurt von Priesdorff : Soldier leadership . Volume 4, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, no year, pp. 201–215; Volume 5, p. 22 f.
• Bernhard von Poten :  Rauch, Gustav v. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 27, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 388-390.
• Wolfgang Petter:  Rauch, Johann Gustav Georg von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 197 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Birgit Fleischmann: The honorary citizens of Berlin. Publishing house Haude & Spener. Berlin, 1993. p. 38 f.
• J. Schott: The von Rauch family in the Prussian army. In: Military weekly paper . No. 79 of September 6, 1893, p. 1979 ff.
• Gothaisches aristocratic paperback . Volumes B 1928 (older genealogy) to 1939, p. 468 ff.
• Thomas Stamm-Kuhlmann : King in Prussia's great times. Friedrich Wilhelm III - the melancholic on the throne. Wolf Jobst Siedler Verlag , 1992. pp. 233, 251.
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : Journey on the Rhine, Main and Neckar in the years 1814 and 1815 , in: Goethe's posthumous works. Edited by Johann Peter Eckermann and Friedrich Wilhelm Riemer . Volume 43. Stuttgart, Tübingen: Cotta 1832–1842.
• Erich Less : Goethe and the Generals . Insel-Verlag Leipzig, 1942, p. 138 f.
• Hans Zeidler and Heidi Zeidler: The forgotten prince. History and stories about Albrechtsberg Castle. Verlag der Kunst , Dresden 1995. p. 79.
• Benedikt Loew: The Prussian modernization of the fortress and the Saarlouis garrison . In: Andreas Kupka (ed.), Ars militaris after the revolution. European fortress construction in the first half of the 19th century and its foundations. Fortress research Volume 8, Verlag Schnell + Steiner. Regensburg, 2016. pp. 100ff., 110, 115f., 118.
• Albert Röhr: Handbook of German naval history . Gerhard Stalling Publishing House. Oldenburg / Hamburg, 1963. p. 202 f.
• Laurenz Demps : Between Mars and Minerva. Signpost Invalidenfriedhof, 1998, p. 126.

Web links

• Works by and about Gustav von Rauch  in the German Digital Library
• Entry on Gustav von Rauch in Kalliope
• Entry about Gustav von Rauch in the digital portrait index
• Portrait of Gustav von Rauch in the DHM image database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ from: Droysen : Das Leben des Feldmarschall Graf York von Wartenburg , Volume 2, Berlin 1852, p. 154
2. ↑ Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ): Directory of honorary graves, accessed on June 14, 2012.
3. ↑ Rauchstrasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )