Ludwig Goiginger

Ludwig Goiginger (* 11. August 1863 in Verona , † 28. August 1931 in Neustift in Graz ) was an Austro-Hungarian Field Marshal Lieutenant in the First World War .

Life

Military career

After graduating from high school in Salzburg , he entered the genius cadet school in Vienna in 1881 . In 1884 he joined the Genie Regiment 2 in Krems and became a lieutenant . After attending the War Academy from 1888 to 1890, he was assigned to the General Staff Corps as an adjutant and was given a permanent position there in 1893. On December 29, 1906, he was appointed Colonel in the General Staff. Between 1907 and 1908 he worked as an Austro-Hungarian military adjutant with the Turks in Üsküb (Skopje) and earned merit in the fight against the highly organized gangs in Macedonia by the Ottoman gendarmerie .

After more than 20 years of staff activity, he took over command of the newly established 122nd Infantry Brigade in Bruneck on February 27, 1912 , which was assigned to the Kuk 8th Infantry Troop Division (FML Johann Freiherr von Kirchbach auf Lauterbach ) on February 23 Promoted to major general in May 1912 .

In the world war

During the mobilization of the Austro-Hungarian armed forces in August 1914, Goiginger's 122nd Infantry Brigade ( Kaiserjäger Regiment No. 1 ) was combined with the 87th Infantry Brigade to form the newly formed 44th Landwehr Infantry Division (FML Heinrich Tschurtschenthaler ), which in the Frame of the kuk XIV. Corps on the Eastern Front in the area north of Rawa Ruska . On October 1, 1914, Goiginger took over the command of the 32nd Infantry Division, which belonged to the Austro-Hungarian 2nd Army ( Böhm-Ermolli ) and had moved to Russian Poland. After returning to the Carpathian Mountains in October 1914, his division and the 103rd Landsturm Brigade formed the Goiginger group the following winter .

In March 1915 he took over command of the 44th Landwehr Infantry Division of the XVIII for a short time. Corps (FML von Ziegler ). On May 9, 1915 he was promoted to field marshal lieutenant and, after the outbreak of war with Italy, took over the leadership of the Pustertal division in Rayon V of the Tyrol Defense Command under General of the Cavalry Viktor Dankl on June 5, 1915 . He held this command on the western Dolomite front for over a year, and the mine blasting of Col di Lana (April 17, 1916) fell within his area of ​​command.

End of August 1916 changed Goiginger to the newly erected Romanian front , FML Goiginger took on 12 October 1916, the command of the newly formed 73rd Division in the framework of the German 9th Army in the group Krafft von Dellmensingen in the defense of Transylvania and participated in the battle of Rimnicul-Sarat .

After the successful conclusion of the fighting in Romania, Goiginger and his division returned to Italy on the Southwest Front and in 1917 became the commander of the now unnamed 60th Division, which was deployed in the Monte San Gabriele section of the Isonzo . For his leadership in the 11th Isonzo battle (August 22nd defensive battle near Jelenik) he was awarded the Golden Medal of Bravery for officers . During the 12th Isonzo Battle (Caporetto) he led the 60th Division as part of the Cossack Army Group in the 2nd Isonzo Army under the supreme command of the General of the Infantry von Henriquez . On March 8, 1918 he became the commanding general of the XXIV Corps, the Goiginger corps group was subordinate to the 55th and 60th Infantry Divisions and parts of the 94th Division, which held the section up to Monte Asolone.

Knight's Cross of the Military Maria Theresa Order

In June 1918, during the Second Battle of the Piave , he led his corps (13th, 17th and 31st divisions) in the section of the Austro-Hungarian 6th Army under Colonel General Archduke Joseph . For taking the Montello on June 15, Goiginger was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Military Maria Theresa Order after the end of the war .

On July 19, 1918 he took over the leadership of the XVIII. Corps, which was used on the Western Front from October 1918 until the end of the war . One after the other, the 1st, 35th, 37th Infantry Division and the 16th Landsturm Division were transported to the Ornes section of the German Army Group Gallwitz . The corps command was withdrawn from the front after heavy fighting with American troops at the end of October and relocated to Arlon on November 3 and to Diedenhofen on November 10 . By the evening of November 29, the last Austro-Hungarian troops of the de facto defunct Austro-Hungarian army had left Germany.

His older brother Heinrich Goiginger (* July 5, 1861, † November 21, 1927) reached the rank of Feldzeugmeister in the last year of the war . Field Marshal Lieutenant Ludwig Goiginger retired on January 1, 1919, retired to Graz-Neustift and died there in 1931.

Web links

• Goiginger Ludwig. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 2, Publishing House of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1959, p. 20 f. (Direct links on p. 20 , p. 21 ).
• Biography on Austro-Hungarian-Army