Henning von Vieregge (officer)

Henning von Vieregge (born August 27, 1872 in Steinhausen near Neuburg ; † May 3, 1945 ibid) was a German officer and paramilitary activist and one of the leading functionaries of the Stahlhelm, the Association of Frontline Soldiers in the late phase of the Weimar Republic .

Life

Vieregge was initially a professional soldier in the Prussian Army and received his patent as a second lieutenant on September 20, 1890 . In the further course of his military career he was promoted to major on October 1, 1913 and served during the First World War in the staff of the Infantry Regiment "von Manstein" (Schleswigsches) No. 84 . After the war, Vieregge retired from active service as a lieutenant colonel . Instead, he settled as a farmer on his Steinhausen family estate near Wismar . Politically, he had held a leading position in the Stahlhelm Bund der Frontsoldaten (Stahlhelm Bund der Frontsoldaten) since the 1920s, where he was promoted to state leader in Mecklenburg in 1932, a position he retained until 1934.

On March 1, 1934, after the Stahlhelm was incorporated into the National Socialist SA , Vieregge was appointed SA Honorary Brigade Leader and assigned to the SA Brigade Hansa. Since the regional party offices saw him as a monarchist who worked against the party from his estate, his relations with the NSDAP were extremely tense. The Gauleiter Friedrich Hildebrandt wrote in a report about Vieregge that he would “never approve of the Führer and never recognize the National Socialist state”. The party's district leadership had previously complained that it had not been able to gain a foothold on Gut Steinhausen, as the employees there feared being dismissed by Vieregge after approaching the party. The NSDAP membership applied for by Vieregge in November 1935 was refused. He was released from the SA in August 1936 as SA Brigadefuhrer .

During the Second World War , numerous prisoners of war were employed as labor on Vieregges Gut.

Vieregge killed himself in May 1945, just before the end of the war, on his estate near Neuburg during the looting of his house by members of the Red Army by self-poisoning with morphine. His wife, who had also taken poison, was saved. Vieregge was buried in his garden.

family

Vieregge was married to Elisabeth (Lisa) Amalie Hedwig Martha von Oertzen (born June 20, 1896 in Briggow; † May 20, 1968 in Bonn) since 1923.

literature

• Henning von Vieregge: Steinhausen. In: Mario Niemann (ed.): Rural life in Mecklenburg in the first half of the 20th century. Rostock 2004, pp. 771-782.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ranking of the officers of the Royal Prussian Army and the XIII. (Royal Württemberg Army Corps 1917 , Ed .: War Ministry , ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1917, p. 16.