Kurt von Klüfer

Theodor Kurt von Klüfer (born October 1, 1869 in Münster ; † October 19, 1941 there ) was a German colonel , police officer and military writer.

Life

Klüfer came from an old noble family in Lower Saxony . In 1887, as a three-year-old volunteer, he joined the Hanoverian Fusilier Regiment No. 73 of the Prussian Army . There he was promoted to Second Lieutenant on September 21, 1889 . This was followed by his transfer to the Oldenburg Infantry Regiment No. 91 and his command for further training at the War Academy . After he had successfully completed this, Klüfer acted as regimental adjutant for three years.

During the First World War he was major in command of the 2nd battalion of the infantry regiment "Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II. Of Mecklenburg-Schwerin" (4th Brandenburg) No. 24 . On February 25, 1916, he commanded the storming of Fort Douaumont . Although his 6th company under Lieutenant Eugen Radtke was the first to penetrate the fortress, the chief of 8th Company Cordt von Brandis received the order Pour le Mérite due to a communication error . Klüfer then demanded an honorary court clarification of the matter by the responsible army corps. This request was interpreted by the commanding general of the army corps as a criticism of a decision by the German Emperor and as impropriety, who then initially had him transferred to his home country as a punishment. It was not until 1926 that the Reich Archives conceded that Radtke was the first German officer to break into the fortress. For his service in the Michael company , in which he participated as a major and regimental commander, Klüfer was awarded the order Pour le Merite on April 21, 1918.

After the end of the war, Klüfer acted briefly as the commander of a detachment named after him . He was initially in the Provisional Reichswehr adopted but resigned on 31 December 1920, awarding the character as a lieutenant colonel from active duty and joined the police force. Klüfer was involved in the suppression of the Ruhr uprising as commander of the Gelsenkirchen security police group. Subsequently, in 1921, he was entrusted with the overall leadership of the police forces on the occasion of the March fighting in central Germany . They ended with the storming of the Leuna works .

From May 1921 to April 1923 Klüfer acted as commander of the Neu-Ruppin Police School and then until 1926 as the commander of the Münster Police School. Subsequently, in retirement, he worked as a military writer. In particular, he tried to correctly portray the events surrounding the storming of Fort Douaumont. Klüfer had been a member of the Corps Cheruscia Erlangen since 1924 , which was merged into the Corps Saxo-Thuringia Munich in 1929.

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Tannenberg , Klüfer was given the character of a colonel on August 27, 1939, the so-called Tannenberg Day.

Fonts

• Foreword. In: Benno Martin, Otto Peter: Handbuch der Gesetzeskunde for the police sergeant - A guide for police instruction. 1926.
• Soul forces in the battle for Douaumont. 1938.
• How an outspoken layman came to consider spiritual matters. In: General Swiss military newspaper. Volume 84, 1938, Issue 10, pp. 633-641.
• Nerves in the fight. 1939.
• The Trojan Horse, the Paratroopers and the Douaumont, a comparison and the rejection of an accusation against German gun honor. 1941.

literature

• Hanns Möller: History of the knights of the order pour le mérite in the world war. Volume I: A-L. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Berlin 1935, pp. 590-592.
• Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Christian Zweng: The knights of the order Pour le Mérite of the First World War. Volume 2: HO. Biblio Verlag, Bissendorf 2003, ISBN 3-7648-2516-2 , pp. 231-232.

Web links

• Klüfer, (Theodor) Kurt von. at www.bundesarchiv.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Verdun - Prussian Grotesque on www.spiegel.de (article from November 26, 1979)
2. ↑ Erwin Willmann (Ed.): Directory of the old Rudolstädter Corps students. (AH. List of the RSC.). Edition 1928, No. 2367.