Hermann Aleksander Eduard von Salza

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Hermann Aleksander Eduard von Salza (born April 16, 1885 in Haapsalu , † January 23, 1946 in Moscow ) was a Baltic German baron and rear admiral in the Estonian Navy .

Life

As the son of Eduard Nikolai Saltza (1851–1913) and Sophie Marie von Staal, he was a member of the von Salza family, originally from Thuringia . He studied at the Alexander Lyceum in Tallinn and then at the Imperial Alexandrovsk Gymnasium in St. Petersburg .

Salza joined the Navy Cadet Corps in 1907 and became a ship's mate. He began his active naval career on the cruisers Bogatyr and Aurora and served as a navigator on the gunboat Bobr and the battleship Sława . In the years 1913-1914 he studied at the Imperial Mikołaj Military Academy in St. Petersburg and served on the battleship Poltava . In 1916 he joined the Baltic Fleet as a naval officer and became a navigation officer in the admiral staff of the 1st Battleship Squadron. In January 1917 Salza was assigned to the battleship Petropavlovsk , where he served until the end of the First World War. He was promoted to deputy commander of the ship and on December 16, 1917 to the commandant of the ship Petropavlovsk and was promoted to captain of the second rank.

Salza then took part in the Estonian War of Freedom (1918–1920) and served in 1919 as a lieutenant on a mine cruiser. From 1920 to 1925 he was chief of the naval staff, he was promoted to naval captain in 1922 and was then chief of the Estonian naval forces until 1932 . He was also an associate professor of maritime affairs, author of the first handbook for officers of the Estonian Navy and published articles on naval warfare (history of sea warfare, Dardanelles-Operaion). In 1928 he was promoted to rear admiral.

During the Spanish Civil War , Salza worked in France from 1937 to 1939, where he was a member of a planned intervention commission. In 1939 he returned to Estonia and, after losing his citizenship, emigrated to the Third Reich in November 1939 . He was arrested by the Red Army in 1945 and died in Moscow's Butyrka Prison on January 23, 1946 .

literature

personal data
SURNAME Salza, Hermann Aleksander Eduard von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Salza, Hermann von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Estonian military
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Haapsalu
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1946
Place of death Moscow