Josias of Heeringen

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Josias of Heeringen (1915)

Josias von Heeringen (born March 9, 1850 in Kassel , † October 9, 1926 in Berlin-Charlottenburg ) was a Prussian colonel general , minister of war and association functionary.

Life

Origin and family

He was the son of the Hessian court marshal and theater manager Josias von Heeringen (1809–1885) and his wife Karoline von Starkloff (1817–1871). His younger brother August von Heeringen (1855–1927) later served as an admiral and was chief of the admiral's staff.

Josias von Heeringen married Auguste von Dewall (1853–1942), daughter of the Prussian Lieutenant General Kasimir von Dewall (1811–1895) in Wiesbaden in 1874 . The couple had four sons and two daughters.

Military career

Heeringen joined the Fusilier Regiment No. 80 of the Prussian Army as an ensign on April 11, 1867 , coming from the Cadet Corps . With the regiment he took part in the Franco-German War in 1870/71 as a second lieutenant . He was seriously wounded in the Battle of Wörth and was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class for personal bravery . After several stations in his military career, Heeringen became a major in the War Ministry in 1887 . Between 1892 and 1895 he was head of department in the General Staff . In 1898, Heeringen was appointed major general and director of the Army Administration Department in the War Ministry. In 1901 he was promoted to lieutenant general. In 1903 he became commander of the 22nd Division . On September 21, 1906 Heeringen was promoted to general of the infantry and at the same time appointed commanding general of the II Army Corps in Stettin. He held this command until August 31, 1909.

Term of office as Minister of War

From August 19, 1909 to July 4, 1913, Heeringen was Minister of War. He opposed the plans of Chief of Staff Helmuth Johannes Ludwig von Moltke and Colonel Erich Ludendorff , then head of the General Staff's deployment department, to increase the army from 670,000 to 970,000 men in peacetime. Only through an immediate lecture to Kaiser Wilhelm II was the Minister of War able to ensure that the army bill was limited to 117,000 (instead of the planned 300,000) men in 1913 . But the criticism that Heeringen had thwarted the creation of three additional army corps through his work against forced rearmament did not end. Relations between the War Ministry and the General Staff remained so tense that the War Minister asked the Kaiser to resign.

After leaving the cabinet, Heeringen was Inspector General of the Second Army Inspection based in Berlin and was promoted to Colonel General on January 27, 1914.

First World War

With the beginning of the First World War , Heeringen was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the 7th Army on the Western Front on August 2, 1914 . Army High Command 7 remained bound by the instructions of the 6th Army until September 1914 in order to ensure a uniform approach by the neighboring armies in the Battle of Lorraine (August 21/22, 1914). During the Battle of Mulhouse , Heeringen defended Alsace against attacks by the French Vosges group ( Armée d'Alsace ) under General Paul Marie Pau . Their attack on the Donon , the northern summit of the Vosges, which General Pau hoped to relieve the French 1st Army under General Auguste Dubail from taking it , failed with heavy losses. On September 13, 1914 and the following days, the 7th Army was transferred to the area south of Laon and helped to stabilize the hard-pressed German front in the Battle of the Aisne . Heeringen received short-term orders from a central army group on both sides of Reims. On August 28, 1915 he was awarded the order Pour le Mérite . On August 28, 1916 he had to hand over the 7th Army to General of the Artillery Richard von Schubert and left the Western Front. From 1916 to 1918 he was Commander in Chief of the Coastal Defense . On September 18, 1918, Heeringen was transferred to the army officer and, after the end of the war, retired from active service on November 18, 1918.

From November 15, 1919 to 1926, Heeringen was President of the Kyffhäuserbund .

Honors

Heeringen became an honorary citizen of the city of Kassel in September 1914 . In addition, since September 18, 1918 he was chief of the Colberg Grenadier Regiment "Graf Gneisenau" (2nd Pomeranian) No. 9 and Knight of the Black Eagle Order with Chain.

literature

Web links

Commons : Josias von Heeringen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerd Fesser : “The sooner, the better.” With an eye to the catastrophe of the First World War: In the much-invoked year 1913, the final armament push was decided in Berlin. In: The time. March 7, 2013. p. 21.
  2. ↑ Thilo Vogelsang: Heeringen, Josias Oskar Otto von. In: New German Biography. Volume 8. p. 197.
personal data
SURNAME Heeringen, Josias of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian colonel general, war minister and association functionaries
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 1926
Place of death Berlin-Charlottenburg