Karl Wilhelm Ernst von Waldenfels

Karl Wilhelm Ernst von Waldenfels (born April 10, 1772 in Baireuth , † June 15, 1807 in Kolberg ) was a Prussian officer.

Life

Karl Wilhelm Ernst von Waldenfels was the son of a margrave chamberlain and chief forest master. He began his military service as a lieutenant in the Reitzenstein infantry regiment. When the Principality of Ansbach-Bayreuth came to Prussia in 1792, he transferred to the Prussian army on January 5, 1792. Infantry Regiment No. 56 was then rebuilt from the troops in 1794 , which was garrisoned with its chief Major General Reitzenstein in Frankfurt am Main . Waldenfels was promoted to staff captain there and received its own grenadier company on January 28, 1803. He then switched to Infantry Regiment No. 45 and came back to Ansbach.

In 1806 the fourth coalition war broke out. After Prussia's defeat in the battle of Jena and Auerstedt , he escaped to Königsberg in Prussia . There he was appointed by the king on December 14, 1806 to be vice-commander of the Kolberg Fortress and at the same time to captain and commander of a newly formed grenadier battalion. The then wing adjutant, Major Graf Götz , had already classified the fort's defensive capabilities as low . During the siege of Kolberg , Waldenfels tried to use the surroundings of the fortress and also made a failure in the city of Wollin to keep the French away from the fortress. The attack failed with high losses and the commander of the fortress Lucadou lost confidence in Waldenfels. On April 29, 1807, Lucadou was recalled and replaced by Gneisenau . Waldenfels was promoted to major and received the Pour le Mérite . Gneisenau now made the Wolfsbergschanze the central point of his defense. Their strategically important position was also recognized by the French and a difficult battle for the hill developed. In the night of May 9th the French managed to occupy the hill, on May 18 the besieged succeeded in recapturing it. Since the Waldenfels Grenadier Regiment carried the main load here, the hill was renamed Grenadier Hill in honor of the regiment . On June 12th the French managed to take the hill again.

Waldenfels, he led the counterattack to storm the hill on the night of June 14th to 15th and fell in the process.

literature

• Hermann Klaje : Waldenfels and his grenadiers. A contribution to the history of the siege of Kolberg in 1807 , Dietz & Maxerath, Kolberg 1907
• Bernhard von Poten :  Waldenfels, Karl Wilhelm Ernst von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 40, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, p. 691 f.
• Walter von Prittwitz and Gaffron, History of the Royal Prussian Emperor Alexander Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 1 and his regular troops p.22f on the history of the Waldenfels Grenadier Battalion
• Friedrich Eduard Alexander von Höpfner, War of 1806 and 1807 , Volume 4, p.640 On the death of Waldenfels