Karl Freiherr von Bothmer

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Karl Freiherr von Bothmer, 1919

Karl Bernhard Ludwig Ferdinand Freiherr von Bothmer (born December 22, 1880 in Greifswald ; † April 6, 1947 in Belgrade ) was a general staff officer , participant in both world wars , federal manager , historian and genealogist .

Life and family

Karl Freiherr von Bothmer came from the baronial line of Bothmer , House Bennemühlen . He is the son of the regional judge Bernhard Freiherr von Bothmer and his wife Gertrud, née von Borcke . His grandfather was the royal Hannoversche Justizrat Karl von Bothmer , Karow, who was a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly in 1848 in the Paulskirche .

In 1906 Bothmer married Ruth von Henninges. The daughter Gudrun was born in 1907. Bothmer had been archivist from 1919 and from 1935 until his death the elder of the entire von Bothmer family. 1935 Founding of the newspaper of the entire von Bothmer family, of which he was the editor. Numerous researches on the history of the von Bothmer, von Henninges, and von Schilden families. His historical research mainly relates to questions of military history.

jobs

From 1893–98 Bothmer was a cadet in Köslin and Groß-Lichterfelde . He was then transferred to the Braunschweig Infantry Regiment No. 92 of the Prussian Army as Portepeefähnrich. At the outbreak of World War Bothmer served as captain of the General Staff to the Chief of the Field Railway Service divided East and participated in the Battle of Tannenberg in part. After various posts in Poland , Galicia , the Carpathian Mountains , France (Verdun) and Flanders as a major , from April to August 1918 he was representative of the Supreme Army Command at the Imperial Embassy in Moscow . His task was to negotiate the repatriation of the German prisoners of war in Soviet camps. In the summer of 1918, Bothmer and Wilhelm Henning were the spokesman for a group of embassy members who - contrary to the concept of the responsible State Secretary Richard von Kühlmann - demanded immediate intervention in the Russian civil war and the occupation of Moscow and Petrograd by German troops. On June 25, 1918 Bothmer noted in his diary:

“I would like to see a couple 100 of the Jewish boys hanging next to each other (...) on the Kremlin wall. If possible so that death occurs slowly in order to increase the effect. "

He crossed out this anti-Semitic remark for the publication of his diary in 1922.

Karl Freiherr von Bothmer, 1927

After the war he took part in the Kapp Putsch . Bothmer was discharged from the army in 1920 and from 1922 worked as managing director of the Pomeranian Landbund Kreis Arnswalde , in which he particularly promoted the economically peaceful labor movement. In 1934 he was dismissed from the Reichsnährstand after the Landbund was brought into line. 1924-34 he was also the leader of the Bismarck Youth of the German National People's Party , DNVP, in the Arnswalde district.

In 1934 he joined the Reichswehr as a major ( E-Officer ) , was accepted into the Wehrmacht and took part in the attack on Poland in 1939 . As a colonel , he was field commander in Niš from 1941 . His written refusal to the superior departments to carry out Hitler's order to shoot 100 hostages for a German soldier killed by partisans led to his discharge from the Wehrmacht in 1943. In 1947, the examining magistrate Fred Kaufmann wanted Bothmer to be a witness for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials, in order to prove that there was "room for maneuver" for officers in relation to the assertion made by the defense that there was a lack of orders. At that time, however, he had already been convicted and shot as a war criminal by a Yugoslav court.

Works

  • approx. 70 articles in magazines and daily newspapers on the politics of the DNVP, the Landbund and the Bismarck Youth
  • numerous articles on family history and heraldry
  • With Count Mirbach in Moscow. Diary entries and files from April 19 to August 24, 1918. Osiander'sche Buchhandlung , Tübingen 1922; Russian translation: The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston (NY) 1999.
  • From the memories of Hans Kaspar von Bothmer. Apprenticeship and wandering years of a Hanover-English statesman around 1700. Ed. Karl Freiherr von Bothmer and Georg Schnath . August Lax Verlag, Hildesheim / Leipzig 1936.
  • The battle of the Drakenburg on May 23, 1547. A historical-military study. In: Lower Saxony Yearbook for State History. Vol. 15, 1938, pp. 85-104.
  • (anonymous) The reinforced border guard regiment Freiherr von Bothmer in the Poland campaign in 1939 by a fellow combatant. Verlag Bütower Anzeiger, Bütow in Pommern o. J.
  • Karl Freiherr von Bothmer: Moskauer Tagebuch 1918. Ed. By Gernot Böhme . Schöningh, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-76519-2 .

literature

  • Manfred Messerschmidt : Colonel Karl von Bothmer. In case of doubt for international law. In: Wolfram Wette (Ed.): Rescuers in Uniform. Scope of action in the Wehrmacht's war of extermination. 3. Edition. Fischer TB, Frankfurt am Main 2003, pp. 89-104.
  • Gernot Böhme: On the biography of Karl Frhr. from Bothmer (870). In: News sheet of the entire von Bothmer family. No. 85, 2004, pp. 27-30.
  • Gernot Böhme: A lateral view of history. The Weimar Republic from the perspective of a contemporary. Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-77323-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Genealogical Handbook of the Adels , Adelige Häuser A Volume XIII, Volume 60 of the complete series, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1975, ISSN  0435-2408 , p. 165.
  2. ^ Joachim Petzold (among others): Germany in the First World War. Volume 3: November 1917 to November 1918. Berlin 1969, p. 223.
  3. ↑ cf. With Count Mirbach in Moscow. (1922) and Moscow Diary 1918. (2010).
  4. ↑ Hamburg Institute for Social Research (ed.): Crimes of the Wehrmacht. Dimensions of the War of Extermination. 2nd edition Hamburg 2002, p. 512.
  5. ^ Manfred Messerschmidt: Colonel Karl von Bothmer. In case of doubt for international law. In: Wolfram Wette (Ed.): Rescuers in Uniform. Scope of action in the Wehrmacht's war of extermination. 3. Edition. Fischer TB, Frankfurt am Main 2003, pp. 89-104.
personal data
SURNAME Bothmer, Karl Freiherr von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bothmer, Karl Bernhard Ludwig Ferdinand Freiherr von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German general staff officer, Landbund manager, historian and genealogist
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Greifswald
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 1947
Place of death Belgrade