Herman Baltia

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Herman Baltia (1922)

Baron Herman Baltia (born September 1, 1863 in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode / Sint-Joost-ten-Node near Brussels ; † September 16, 1938 in Saint-Gilles / Sint-Gillis ) was a Belgian lieutenant general, as well High Commissioner and Governor General for the Eastern Cantons , which in his time were called New Belgium .

biography

Herman Baltia was the son of a general of Luxembourg origin and a German mother. In 1899 he was assigned to the senior management of the General Staff. In 1907 he was an officer in the cartographic institute of the army in preparation for a mission to draw the border in the south of the Belgian Congo , which he did not take on. In 1908 he was promoted to major.

During the First World War he received high military awards and was promoted to major general in December 1916. He achieved his military successes mainly in the north of France and in the battles of Flanders . In March 1919, he was appointed lieutenant general.

On October 22, 1919, King Albert and the Belgian government entrusted him with the office of high commissioner and governor of the cantons of Eupen , Malmedy , Sankt Vith, which had been ceded to Belgium in the course of the Versailles Treaty , and of the former Neutral Moresnet in the Eupen-Malmedy governorate . He was in office until March 1925.

Baltia was given colonial powers to integrate the eastern cantons into the Belgian state structure. The then Belgian Prime Minister Léon Delacroix wrote to him shortly before he took office in 1920: " Take care that everything runs smoothly and that the costs are within acceptable limits. You will be like the governor of a colony that is directly subordinate to the fatherland will be able to act. "

One of the first symbolic official acts of Baltia was the dismantling of a memorial commemorating the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/1871 in his residence town of Malmedy. After the government's high expectations of Baltia were quickly met, he was given the title of baron by royal decree on August 28, 1920.

Between January 26 and July 23, 1920, Baltia initiated the referendum provided for by the Treaty of Versailles, in which those eligible to vote who disagreed with the incorporation (in the eyes of many an annexation ) enter their names and addresses in lists could. As this inevitably meant that residents who did not agree to the annexation became known by name and had to fear some reprisals, only 271 of the 33,726 eligible voters registered. Some of them were Reich German officials whose roots did not lie in the region.

Despite some miscalculations during his tenure, Baltia sought contact with the people he had "ruled" long after his tenure as governor.

literature

  • Mémorial publié à l'occasion de la Manifestation organisée en l'honneur du Lieutenant-General Baron Baltia on October 28, 1923. Eupen-Malmédy et son gouverneur. = Eupen-Malmedy and his governor. Memorandum issued on the occasion of the celebration held in honor of Lieutenant General Baltia on October 28, 1923. Goossens, Brussels 1923.
  • Martin R. Schärer: German annexation policy in the west. The reintegration of Eupen-Malmedy in World War II. Lang et al., Bern 1975, ISBN 3-261-02192-6 ( European university publications . Series 3: History and its auxiliary sciences 38), (2nd revised edition, increased by an introduction and a register. Ibid 1978).
  • Els Herrebout: "Lieutenant General Herman Baltia, Memoirs 1920-1925" (2011) ISBN 978-90-5746-328-0

Individual evidence

  1. Robert Christophe: Aperçu historique de Malmedy ( French ) Ulg.ac.be. Archived from the original on May 28, 2010. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 7, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ulg.ac.be
  2. ^ Grenz-Echo: press article on book publication