Ludwig von Estorff

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Ludwig von Estorff in the uniform of the Schutztruppe, ca.1905
Ludwig von Estorff in German South West Africa, 1906

Ludwig Gustav Adolf von Estorff (* 24. December 1859 in Hannover , † 5. October 1943 in Uelzen ) was a German general of infantry and from 1907 to 1911 commander of the colonial force in German southwest Africa and division commander in the First World War .

Life

Ludwig came from an old noble family and was the second child of the later major general Eggert Ludwig von Estorff (1831-1903) and his wife Julie Bernhardine, née von Witzendorff (1836-1902).

Estorff visited the Selekta of the Cadet House in Berlin and began his officer career in the 1st Thuringian Infantry Regiment No. 31 of the Prussian Army in early 1878 . There he was promoted to prime lieutenant on December 13, 1887 . From October 1st he was assigned to the War Academy . There he remained until his transfer to the Great General Staff on March 29, 1892. At the same time he took over on September 14, 1893 as captain (since September 14) and chief of a company in his main regiment, before leaving on October 17 of the same year was released from his command in the General Staff.

German South West Africa

On May 31, 1894 he was transferred to the Schutztruppe of German South West Africa . There he was used as a company commander from June 4, 1894 to July 9, 1899. After his return to Germany, he returned to the General Staff on September 13, 1899, where he was promoted to major on January 27, 1900 , and on April 18 of the same year he was transferred to the High Command of the Defense Forces. From there he came to the Schutztruppe in German East Africa on June 9, 1900 and to German South West Africa on March 12, 1901. On February 6, 1902, he was commissioned to act as deputy commander of the local protection force .

On June 25, 1904, he was appointed battalion commander in the 1st Field Regiment. As such, he took part in the Battle of Waterberg in August 1904 . In the war against the Herero , Estorff led one of the three main divisions of the Schutztruppe, the western division, to which the 2nd and 4th field companies, a company of the sea ​​battalion and some guns of various caliber belonged. Their goal was to pacify the Omaruru district . He was instructed by Lothar von Trotha to pursue the fleeing Herero in the almost waterless Omaheke desert and to “keep track of event. to chase away watering holes found there ” - a practice that cost the lives of many thousands of Herero. Estorff later reported on this mission:

“The Herero continued to flee from us into the sand field. The terrible spectacle was repeated over and over again. The men had worked with feverish haste to open up wells, but the water became more and more sparse and the watering holes rarer. They fled from one to the other and lost almost all cattle and a great many people. The people shrank to scanty remains ... "

The General Staff boasted of this tactic in its 1907 report:

“... like game hunted half to death, he was chased from watering place to watering place until he finally became a willless victim of the nature of his own country. The waterless Omaheke was supposed to complete what the German weapons had begun: the annihilation of the Herero people. "

On January 4, 1906, he was promoted to commander of the 2nd Field Regiment and on April 10 of the same year to lieutenant colonel. A year later, on April 1, 1907, he was appointed commander of the German South West Africa protection force. At the same time he became a member of a commission in the Reich Colonial Office which was supposed to advise on the experience gained in sending reinforcements for the protection force. Estorff was promoted to colonel on April 20, 1909 and ordered back to Germany in early 1911.

Here he took over as commander of the Braunschweig Infantry Regiment No. 92 on March 20, 1911, and of the 68th Infantry Brigade in Metz on October 1, 1912 while being promoted to Major General .

First World War

With his brigade he was on duty on the Western Front when the First World War broke out and was seriously wounded there on September 1st. After a stay in the hospital and recovery, he took over as commander of the 103rd Infantry Division on May 11, 1915 . His troops took part in the campaign against Serbia in the fall of 1915 as part of the X Reserve Corps, and in May 1916 they were also used in the Battle of Verdun . On June 6, 1916, he was promoted to lieutenant general and on November 7, 1916, he was entrusted with command of the 42nd Infantry Division . Estorff received the order Pour le Mérite on September 6, 1917 for his military services .

As part of Operation Albion , the occupation of the Baltic islands of Ösel , Dagö and Moon , he and his association took part in the fighting. In March 1918 he took over the leadership of the general command from Günther von Pappritz . b. V. No. 60 . Since December 17, 1918 he was deputy commander of the 8th Army and the German troops in the Baltic States .

post war period

On February 5, 1919, he was appointed governor of Koenigsberg and shortly thereafter, on February 25 , 1919, he was appointed to lead the 1st Army Corps. From October 1, 1919, he was transferred to the provisional Reichswehr and here he took over command of Group Command 3 and, at the same time, Military District Command I and, as commander, Reichswehr Brigade 1.

On April 8, 1920 he was put up for disposition in connection with the Kapp Putsch . No further use took place. On August 27, 1939, Estorff was given the character of General of the Infantry and a barracks on Stiftberg in Herford was named after him.

Movie

Fonts

  • Migrations and fighting in South West Africa, East Africa and South Africa 1894–1910. (edited by Christoph-Friedrich Kutscher 1968)

literature

  • Hans Hilpisch: Ludwig von Estorff; Prussian - idiosyncratic - respected. KUiseb Verlag, Windhoek 2019, ISBN 978-99945-76-65-4 .
  • CF Kutscher: Written under the camel thorn tree. (Letters + reports from Ludwig von Estorff from South West Africa 1894-1903, Windhoek 1982)
  • Hanns Möller: History of the knights of the order pour le mérite in the world war. Volume I: A-L. Verlag Bernard & Graefe, Berlin 1935, pp. 283–284.

Web links

Commons : Ludwig von Estorff  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kurt von Priesdorff : Soldatisches Führertum . Volume 10, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1942], DNB 986919810 , pp. 487-488, no. 3344.
  2. ↑ Dominik J. Schaller: "I believe that the nation as such must be destroyed": Colonial war and genocide in German South West Africa 1904–1907. In: Journal of Genocide Research. 6: 3, p. 398.
  3. ↑ ibid.
  4. ^ The battles of the German troops in German South West Africa , Volume 1, p. 207, quoted from: Reinhart Kößler ; Henning Melber : Genocide and Remembrance. The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa 1904–1908. In: Irmtrud Wojak; Susanne Meinl (Ed.): Genocide. Genocide and War Crimes in the First Half of the 20th Century. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2004 (= Yearbook on the History and Effects of the Holocaust 8), p. 49
  5. ↑ Waldemar Erfurth : The history of the German General Staff from 1918 to 1945. Muster-Schmidt, Göttingen 1957, ISBN 978-3-941960-20-6 , p. 74.
personal data
SURNAME Estorff, Ludwig von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Estoff, Ludwig Gustav Adolf von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German general of the infantry
DATE OF BIRTH December 24, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH October 5, 1943
Place of death Uelzen