Hans Bogislav Count of Schwerin

This article deals with the civil servant in German South West Africa, Hans Bogislav Graf von Schwerin (1883–1967). For information on civil servants and diplomats, see Hans Bogislav von Schwerin (1683–1747).

Hans Bogislav Count v. Schwerin

Sophienhof Palace, Western Pomerania (2010)

Schwerinsburg , Namibia (2009)

Heynitzburg , Namibia (2009)

Hans-Bogislav Georg Victor Graf von Schwerin-Löwitz (* July 12, 1883 in Hanover , † August 27, 1967 in Bad Wörishofen ) was a German government official in German South West Africa . He was the builder of the Schwerinsburg (1913) and the Heynitzburg (1914), both of which are today the landmarks of Windhoek .

Life

He was the son of the manor owner Gerd Graf von Schwerin (1857–1916), landlord at Sophienhof (now part of the municipality of Ducherow ) in Western Pomerania , and Helene von Mangoldt (1858–1894). He spent his childhood at his father's palace in Schwerinsburg (also today a part of Ducherow) and Gut Sophienhof. Schwerin attended the ducal Friedrichgymnasium in Altenburg ( Thuringia ) until he graduated from high school in 1902 .

After studying law at various universities and receiving his doctorate as Dr. jur. he completed military service like many of his family with the Cuirassier Regiment "Queen" (Pomeranian) No. 2 in Pasewalk . At the end of 1907 he resigned as a lieutenant in the reserve. Schwerin then began his career as a royal Prussian government trainee with the district administrator in Belgard , with the district court in Weißenfels and with the district government in Stettin .

On May 1, 1909, he joined the Reich Colonial Service of the German Foreign Office as a government employee and soon traveled to the German colony of German South West Africa . There began there as a civilian aide of the governor Bruno of Schuckmann . In 1910 he was appointed imperial district chief and he was given the administration of the district office of Gobabis . At the same time he was assistant clerk at Schuckmann's successor, the last governor Theodor Seitz , in the central administration in Windhoek.

On October 25, 1912 he drove again from Hamburg to Swakopmund on the steamer "Princess" of the German East Africa Line . On this crossing he met his future wife Margarete von Heynitz (born July 13, 1884 at Gut Neuhausen , Cottbus district ; † February 27, 1954 in Marburg an der Lahn ), the youngest daughter of the retired royal Saxon cavalry master . D. Ernst von Heynitz (1840–1912), Fideikommissherr at Gut Dröschkau (today part of Belgern-Schildau , district of Northern Saxony ) and at the time active in South West Africa for the Imperial German Protection Force, and Marie von Kottwitz (1841–1926). Both married on October 21, 1913 in Swakopmund. The marriage was divorced again on January 28, 1935 in Greifswald . The couple had three children, Helene Henriette (Hella), Heidi and Hans (1921-2010), who remained unmarried.

Schwerin lived with his wife in Windhoek. Already in April 1913 he bought nearby the elevated former observation and heliograph tower of the Schutztruppe (built in 1891), which was later converted into the “Sperlingslust” restaurant. He had the star architect at the time, Wilhelm Sander, convert this old mountain ruin into a “Schwerinsburg”, which is now a symbol of the city. The Schwerinstrasse, named after him, still leads to the castle today. Since the property had no water, to the amazement of the residents, Schwerin had a well built on the mountain and when drilling actually came across a rich water vein at a depth of 104 meters. In addition, in the early summer of 1913, he acquired another 1500 m² of land to plant trees on. Today (2009) the "Schwerinsburg" is used as the Italian embassy . Not far from the “Schwerinsburg”, architect Sander erected another castle-like building for himself on a slightly lower hill in 1914. But two years later (1916) he also sold it to Count Schwerin, who then named the system “Heynitzburg” after his wife's family. A hotel is operated in this facility today.

When the First World War broke out , he became a civil adjutant and secret secretary to Theodor Seitz. From 1913 until the abandonment of South West Africa as a German colony, Schwerin was also First Secretary of the State Council .

In July 1915, Schwerin, as Seitz 'adjutant, played a key role in the conclusion of the armistice , which was signed at Khorab between the defeated Schutztruppe and the South African Union troops under the command of General Louis Botha . On the night of July 7th to 8th, he was able to explain to the governor the hopelessness of the situation, according to which, if the fighting against the tenfold superiority of the Union troops were to continue after the destruction of the German troops, mainly consisting of reservists from the German farmers, Germanness in South West Africa would almost be would be wiped out. The commander of the Schutztruppe, Lieutenant Colonel Victor Franke , had also given this concern. Then Seitz signed the contract on July 9 at Khorab at kilometer stone 500 of the Otavi Railway to Tsumeb . As a result, the German reservists were released back on their farms and were able to contribute to the further development of the country. In many cases their descendants still live in Namibia today . In recognition of this, he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class.

After the end of the German administration, Schwerin operated in the private sector. He bought eight farms in the Okahandja district with a livestock of approx. 8000 cattle and a number of small settlements near Windhoek.

After the war was lost, the couple and their three children were expelled by the British and left the country in November 1919 on the steamer “Windhuk”. Prior to that, Schwerin founded an open trading company (OHG) with a friend - so he was personally liable with all of his private assets - and left the management of the extensive property to the partner. But the company's continued existence was threatened by the economic decline in the post-war years and the mismanagement of its manager. Schwerin therefore returned several times, most recently in the spring of 1923, to South West Africa to personally negotiate with the creditors. Since, however, under the now applicable South African law, creditors could have insolvent or unwilling debtors arrested, Schwerin decided to flee in order not to endanger at least his family property in Pomerania , which as part of his total assets would also be endangered. He managed to escape through Angola on adventurous routes . In 1925 his company finally went bankrupt.

Schwerin was active in the imperial colonial service until 1920. From 1921 he lived on his father's Gut Sophienhof in Pomerania and managed it. In 1923 he was named as a board member in the Reichslandbund . Together with its President Gustav Roesicke ( MdR ), board member Hans von Goldacker and National Rural League director Arno Graf von Kriegsheim , all three were members of the German National People's Party (DNVP), he had on 20 September of a conversation with Hans von Seeckt , since June 1920 Chief of the Army Command of the Reichswehr ; they demanded "the removal of all social democratic influence from the government". Schwerin should therefore also have been a member of the DNVP.

From 1924 Schwerin worked again as a civil servant in Berlin. Together with other personalities in the Imperial Colonial Service, he founded a rescue company in Germany, in which he also used his own capital to secure the farm property of the German farmers living in South West Africa against the pressure of the Boers and English coming into the country . During the Nazi regime he was a member of the NSDAP .

After the divorce from his first wife Margarete von Heynitz on January 28, 1935 in Greifswald, Schwerin married Martha Riehn for the second time on October 2, 1935 (* September 11, 1887 - † January 7, 1968). After the end of the Second World War and fleeing to the west, Schwerin lived in Bad Wörishofen after stops in Eschwege and Lindenberg in the Allgäu until his death.

Schwerin had inherited poetic talent from his mother, which was expressed in numerous aphorisms , ballads , poems and a play. A smaller part of these works was published in "Pommern, Zeitschrift für Kultur und Geschichte" . He kept in close contact with the Pomeranian country team , which gave him the title of “Pomeranian Homeland Poet” for his poems related to Pomerania .

Schwerin went completely blind several years before his death, but this did not prevent him from giving lectures. He was buried in Bad Wörishofen in 1967.

Orders and decorations

• 1915: Iron Cross 2nd class

Publications

• My escape from Africa. no year
• The creation of the ancestral passport. Central publishing house of the NSDAP Franz Eher, Munich 1939 a. 1941 (placed on the list of literature to be sorted out in the Soviet occupation zone .)

literature

• Genealogical manual of the nobility , noble houses A volume XXIV, p. 110, volume 111 of the complete series, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1996, ISBN 3-7980-0811-6 .
• Siegfried Godendorff: Lieutenant d. Res., Dr. jur. Hans Bogislav Count of Schwerin. In: Bulletin No. 87 of the traditional association of former protection and overseas troops, Friends of the former protected areas, issue 1/2001, Heidelberg 2001, pp. 22-25.
• Hans Bogislav von Schwerin. In: Clare Willer: Important Pomerania and Elective Pomerania. Self-published, Tübingen 1974.
• Fritz Raeck, Rüdiger Bliss: Pomeranian literature. Samples and dates. Pommerscher Zentralverband, 1969, p. 356.
• Leonhard von Dobschütz : A farm in Africa. unpublished manuscript in family possession, Berlin 2009.

Web links

• Literature by and about Hans Bogislav Graf von Schwerin in the catalog of the German National Library
• Hans Bogislav Graf von Schwerin-Löwitz in the files of the Reich Chancellery
• Trunk role, biography

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Passenger list of the Reichspostdampfers (RPD) "Princess", Captain Gauhe.
2. ↑ Minutes of the municipal council meeting of May 19, 1913, reproduced in the Windhoek newspaper "Südwest" of May 20, 1913.
3. ^ Olga Levinson: My castle is my home. In: Merian . "South West Africa" booklet . No. 10 / XXVI. - Quote: “For a while the count resided on Schwerinsburg and the countess on Heynitzburg. When he wanted to visit them, he would send a messenger to ask whether his visit was acceptable, which may have led to the belief that the two castles are connected by an underground passage. Over time it became too cumbersome for him: He sold Schwerinsburg and moved in with his wife. "
4. ↑ Sander then built the Sanderburg, named after him, as his own private residence near by in the same year 1916 (Completion 1917) ( Monuments and historical buildings in Windhoek ).
5. ^ Walter Peters: Architecture in South West Africa 1884–1914. The reception of German architecture in the period from 1884 to 1914 in the former German South West Africa (Namibia). Windhoek 1981, p. 303 f.
6. ↑ Thomas Keil: Postcolonial German Literature in Namibia (1920-2000). Dissertation , Philosophical-Historical Faculty of the University of Stuttgart. Institute for Literary Studies at the University of Stuttgart, 2003, p. 496. (PDF)
7. ↑ Entry from September 20, 1923 in the "Files of the Reich Chancellery, Weimar Republic"
8. ↑ The exact starting date is not known.
9. ^ Letter S, list of literature to be discarded. Published by the German Administration for Public Education in the Soviet Occupation Zone. Preliminary edition as of April 1, 1946 (Berlin: Zentralverlag, 1946). .