Magnus von Levetzow

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Magnus von Levetzow as Police President of Berlin (1933)

Magnus Otto Bridges von Levetzow (born January 8, 1871 in Flensburg , † March 13, 1939 in Berlin ) was a German rear admiral and politician ( NSDAP ) and police officer .

Life

origin

Magnus was the son of the Danish chamberlain and Prussian bailiff Kay Diederich Franz von Levetzow (* 1835) and his wife Maria, née von Hedemann (* 1839).

Empire

Levetzow was taught by private teachers in Gravenstein in Schleswig until 1880 . He then attended grammar schools in Roskilde and Copenhagen until 1885 , then the Johanneum in Hamburg until 1889 .

In 1889 Levetzow joined the cadet corps of the Imperial Navy . In 1893 he passed the naval officer examination. In the following six years he was used as an on-board officer in domestic and overseas waters (off East Africa). From 1899 to 1901 Levetzow was adjutant of the sailors division Wilhelmshaven. From 1900 to 1902 he received further training at the Naval Academy. He was then used as an admiral staff officer (chief of staff) of the cruiser division on the East American station . From 1903 to 1906 Levetzow was with the Admiral Staff in Berlin and Admiral Staff Officer with the staff of the autumn training fleet. During this time he participated in the planning of the blockade of various Venezuelan ports by the naval forces of European powers in 1903. From 1906 to 1918 he was assigned to the deep sea fleet as a squadron navigation officer without interruptions . During these years he served on the Wittelsbach or the Scharnhorst and the Braunschweig . In 1907 he married. From 1909 to 1912 Levetzow was 1st Admiral Staff Officer of the Command of the High Seas Fleet. From 1912 to 1913 he was in command of the small cruiser SMS Stralsund . In January 1913 Levetzow was promoted to sea captain and appointed commander of the battle cruiser SMS Moltke , which he commanded until 1916.

Levetzow commanded the Moltke during the first two years of the First World War . In November and December 1914 he took part in the German attacks on Yarmouth and Hartlepool . In January 1915 he took part with the Moltke in the battle on the Dogger Bank and in 1916 in the Skagerrak Battle .

In 1916 Levetzow was appointed head of the operations department at the High Seas Forces staff. In 1917 he took over the management of the staff of the naval command for the conquest of the Baltic Islands. In the same year he was awarded the Order of Pour le Mérite for his role in planning Operation Albion , the amphibious landing on the Baltic Islands . In 1918 he acted temporarily as leader of the 2nd reconnaissance group (small cruisers) of the high seas fleet. In August 1918 Levetzow was appointed Chief of Staff of the Naval War Command (the summary of the former three-part naval command ) under Reinhard Scheer at the headquarters.

In his comprehensive study, Gerhard Granier identified Levetzow as a person "who was basically incapable of strategic thinking" and as a "catastrophe strategist, as whom he should appear towards the end of the war not in theory but through action."

In October 1918, he played a key role in the decision of the naval war command to order the German deep-sea fleet to attack the British Grand Fleet . Large parts of the crews refused to do this because they viewed it as being directed against the new government. This led to the Kiel sailors' uprising , which triggered the November Revolution.

Justification of the naval command and levetzows for the planned naval advance

The government of Max von Baden asked for information about the events surrounding the prevented naval advance. There was a preliminary meeting of the naval leadership on November 3rd in Wilhelmshaven. In this preliminary meeting they agreed on the presentation that, after the end of the unrestricted submarine war, the naval warfare had now planned the purely military use of the submarines on a larger scale by laying out submarine lines in a semicircle around the German North Sea ports. In order to lure the enemy into the restricted area, the fleet should make a sortie in the direction of the Hoofden (Dutch name for the southern North Sea north of the Strait of Dover). Had the English succeeded in breaking through, this would have threatened the German coast and would have forced the fleet to defend the fatherland against this attack.

Due to the revolutionary events, however, there was no further discussion with the government. Admiral Franz von Hipper, chief of the deep-sea fleet, published an "official" report at the end of November 1918 in which he delivered a new version: It was then planned to relieve the right wing of the army by hindering the supply of the British. If the English fleet had then been called in, the German submarines previously positioned could have "tried their luck". Presumably Hipper felt compelled to deliver a new version because the version of his superior command authority left the question open, why should the entire deep-sea fleet take action for the operation they described.

The planners did not confess their true intentions to a wider public until the Munich stab process (Oct./Nov. 1925). But before that, Scheer had already indicated the intention in 1919 and Levetzow had for the first time admitted the actual planning in the April issue of the “Süddeutsche Monatshefte” in 1924. In this article Levetzow also reported that on October 26, 1918, at a naval throne lecture, the Kaiser said that he (Kaiser Wilhelm II) had given his consent to the subordination of military authority to civil authority, which had been decided in the Reichstag on the same day. Levetzow did not provide an explanation for the apparent disobedience to his former supreme warlord. Levetzow declared that he opposed the meanwhile clearly superior government by stating that Max von Baden's government had behaved wrongly, and in particular he made the "patriotic behavior" of government members Payer (DVP) and Scheidemann (MSPD) for Germany's defeat and the from his point of view hasty armistice responsible:

“… The use of the deep sea fleet at this hour […] remained a question of life for the navy and a question of honor for its […] crews - before our proud, glorious fleet, the winner of the Skagerrak battle, before it became a commercial object in a shameful peace , their commitment was required. The responsible decision for this was and remains correct. "

Levetzow openly admitted that the naval leadership opposed the government and that the peace efforts demanded by Ludendorff should be undermined.

Weimar Republic

In January 1920 Levetzow received as rear admiral the command of the naval station of the Baltic Sea in Kiel . At the same time he was appointed commander of the city of Kiel. During the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch in March 1920, he supported the putschists. According to the entry in his official diary, he suspected that Reich President Ebert and Reichswehr Minister Noske were in Hamburg, and gave orders to arrest them immediately if they arrived in Kiel. Even after Kapp's withdrawal, Levetzow initially continued the coup and gave the soldiers the following order:

"For us soldiers it is important to stand the fight announced by the communists with all sacrifices for the sake of the fatherland in a united front in association with the security police, resident defense and technical emergency aid."

After the coup failed, he was arrested in Lütjenburg, imprisoned for a short time and then released from the Reichsmarine .

From 1924 to 1926 Levetzow was employed in the Junkers airline company . During this time he was committed to the restitution of the former German Emperor Wilhelm II, who was living in exile in the Netherlands .

In 1928 he received a monthly allowance of 2,000 Reichsmarks (today's purchasing power approx. € 15,000) for his efforts to coordinate the national groups . In 1929/30 Levetzow took part in the organization of the popular initiative against the Young Plan . At the same time he planned to build up the former Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno as a candidate for the office of Reich President, whose re-election was due in 1932, an initiative for which he was able to win over Hitler for a short time.

In 1931 Levetzow joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), with which he had been in close contact since 1928. In January 1931 and May 1932 he arranged two trips for Hermann Göring to the former Kaiser in Doorn , and in autumn 1932 Hitler met Princess Hermine , the wife of the former Kaiser, in Berlin. In the run-up to the presidential elections of 1932 , Levetzow spoke out in favor of Hitler as a candidate for this office. At the same time, he and the ex-Kaiser began to alienate each other more and more and in December 1932 Wilhelm II turned away from Levetzow.

In the Reichstag elections in July 1932 , Levetzow entered the Reichstag , to which he was a member until November 1933, following a proposal by the NSDAP .

National Socialism

On February 15, 1933, before the National Socialists gained full access to the administration in the course of the seizure of power , Levetzow was appointed as the successor to Kurt Melcher on February 15, 1933 as police chief of Berlin . He was jointly responsible for the wild protective custody camps of spring 1933. In this capacity, he was instrumental in the DC circuit of the Berlin police and the building of the Gestapo involved. In January 1934, however, he lacked the influence to prevent the Nazi-controlled disruption of a monarchist celebration.

The Kurfürstendamm riot of July 1935 , in which radical Nazis beat up Jews on the street who had previously driven them out of cafés, attracted great international attention. The National Socialist leadership was angry. Goebbels , who had helped initiate this, skilfully withdrew from the affair and transferred responsibility to Levetzow, whom Goebbels newspapers held responsible for the riots. In July 1935 Levetzow was removed from the post of police president and replaced by the leader of the Berlin SA group Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff . This enabled Goebbels to present himself at home and abroad as a leader who tidied up his Gau, organized a crackdown by the state leadership that distanced itself from the riots. In the last years of his life Levetzow was entrusted with the management of the Berlin works of the Weser-Flugzeugbau company .

Levetzow died in Berlin in 1939. His grave is in the south-west cemetery Stahnsdorf near Berlin. His estate is kept in the Federal Archives under the identification number "N 239" .

Awards

Fonts

  • The sea battle on the Dogger Bank. Neudeutsche Verlags- u. Trust company, Berlin 1927.
  • Skagerrak. The glory day of the German fleet. 1935.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Genealogical pocket book of the knights and Noble families. 1878. p. 427.
  2. ^ Gerhard Granier: Magnus von Levetzow. Monarchist and pioneer of Hitler. Writings of the Federal Archives 31, Harald Boldt Verlag, Boppard am Rhein 1982, ISBN 3-7646-1824-8 .
  3. ↑ Granier, Levetzow, p. 21.
  4. ↑ Granier, Levetzow, p. 22.
  5. ^ Max Hirschberg, Reinhard Weber: Jew and Democrat. Memories of a Munich lawyer. 1998, p. 257.
  6. ^ Wilhelm Deist: The politics of naval warfare and the rebellion of the fleet at the end of October 1918. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 4th issue, Stuttgart 1966, p. 341–368, here p. 366 f. Accessible online (accessed February 25, 2020) at: [1] .
  7. ↑ Holger H. Herwig: The emperor's elite corps. The naval officers in Wilhelmine Germany. Hamburg 1977, p. 199.
  8. ↑ Anonymous: The last exit of the imperial class. In: Kiel Latest News, November 20, 1918 p. 2.
  9. ↑ Magnus von Levetzow: The last act. In: Süddeutsche Monatshefte. Vol. 21 (1924), No. 7 pp. 55-71.
  10. ^ Levetzow, last act, p. 66.
  11. ↑ Dirk Dähnhardt , Gerhard Granier (ed.): Kapp-Putsch in Kiel. Society for Kiel City History, Volume 66, Kiel 1980, p. 21.
  12. ↑ Federal Archives - Military Archives: Berlin, May 17, 1920 Annex 1, signed: Reichswehrgruppenkommando 1 la No. Handwritten: Funker, according to Klaus Kuhl: Bitter fighting in March 1920. Kiel 1980.
  13. ↑ Willi Jasper: The brother, Heinrich Mann. A biography. 1992, p. 236.
  14. ^ Klaus Drobisch , Günther Wieland : System of the Nazi concentration camps 1933-1939. Berlin 1993, p. 43.
  15. ↑ Stefan Malinowski: From the king to the leader. German nobility and National Socialism. Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 512.
  16. ↑ Peter Longerich: “We didn't know anything about that!” The Germans and the persecution of the Jews 1933–1945. Munich 2006, ISBN 3-88680-843-2 , p. 80.
  17. ↑ Goebbels Diaries - Complete Fragments. Volume 2, p. 494 (July 19, 1935), ISBN 3-598-21917-2 .
  18. ↑ a b c d e f g Marinekabinett (ed.): Ranking list of the Imperial German Navy for the year 1918. ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1918, p. 10.
  19. ↑ a b c d Marinekabinett (Ed.): Ranking list of the Imperial German Navy. ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1914, p. 115.
personal data
SURNAME Levetzow, Magnus von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Levetzow, Magnus Otto Bridges von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German rear admiral, politician (NSDAP), MdR and police officer
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Flensburg
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1939
Place of death Berlin