Max von Montgelas

Maximilian Count of Montgelas

Maximilian von Montgelas' grave in the old north cemetery in Munich (Maxvorstadt)

Maximilian Maria Karl Desiderius Graf (von) Montgelas (pronounced mõʒəˈla ) (born May 23, 1860 in Saint Petersburg ; † February 4, 1938 in Munich ) was a Bavarian infantry general as well as German politician , military attaché and historian from the Montgelas family .

Life

family

Montgelas was born in Saint Petersburg in 1860, where his father Ludwig von Montgelas was the Bavarian envoy at the time . His grandfather was the Bavarian minister and founder of modern Bavaria , Maximilian von Montgelas . In 1897 he married Pauline von Wimpffen (1874–1961). The marriage remained childless.

Military career

After graduation in 1878 at the Wilhelm Gymnasium München 1879 came Montgelas as an ensign in the Infantry Regiment body of the Bavarian army one. The following year he was promoted to second lieutenant. In 1887 he became the personal adjutant of Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria . From 1888 to 1891 Montgelas graduated from the Bavarian War Academy , which awarded him the qualification for the general staff, the higher adjutantage and the subject.

In 1900 Montgelas took part in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China as major and commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 4th East Asian Infantry Regiment . He then held the post of German military attaché in Beijing for three years . After his return to Bavaria, Montgelas was employed as a lieutenant colonel in the central office of the general staff and in 1905 became chief of the general staff of III. Army Corps appointed in Nuremberg . In 1906 he switched back to military service and, as a colonel , commanded the Leib-Infanterie-Regiment until 1908. He then became major general and commander of the 7th Infantry Brigade in Würzburg. From 1910 to 1912 Montgelas was a senior quartermaster on the Prussian Great General Staff in Berlin . He then commanded the 4th Division until 1915 . He was still in contact with the General Staff as an advisor to Helmuth von Moltkes .

Because of his criticism of the German breach of Belgian neutrality and the brutal German war effort in the early stages of the First World War in August 1914 Montgelas in 1915 - probably forcibly - to disposition made. In 1917, however, he was promoted to general of the infantry. He moved to Switzerland until the end of the war . At this time, Montgelas turned into a staunch pacifist .

post war period

In March 1919, together with Hans Delbrück , Max Weber and Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy , Montgelas was appointed to the so-called Fourth Commission within the German delegation to the peace negotiations at Versailles. On May 27, 1919, the four of them presented a joint memorandum, the so-called Professors' Memorandum ( comment on the report of the Commission of the Allied and Associated Governments on the Responsibility of the Authors of the War ), in which they expressly oppose those of the victorious powers of the world war the thesis of German sole guilt for the outbreak of war in 1914 (see war guilt question ).

The attempt to refute the war guilt thesis formed the focus of Montgelas' activity as a military historian. This was based on the opinion that Germany would subsequently be granted milder peace conditions once Germany's innocence in the war was proven. As early as July and August 1919, Montgelas had a series of publicly acclaimed disputes held on three evenings with the liberal Hellmut von Gerlach on the issue of war guilt in the premises of the former Prussian manor house . Together with Walther Schücking , he acted as editor of the official German documents on the outbreak of war in the early 1920s. He then published a number of books as well as numerous articles for magazines such as the Berlin monthly issue , the war guilt question or the political magazine . From 1923, Montgelas acted as the deputy director of the Central Office for Research into the Causes of War , a cover organization of the Foreign Office that was set up as a private association and was intended to convince the world public of the innocence of Germany at the outbreak of the First World War with more scientific arguments. During his time in Switzerland he had taken a completely different position and spoke of Germany's “triple guilt”. At the time, he saw this in the false assumption that increased armament would preserve peace, in the conscious creation of a preventive war and in the setting of war goals that no “honorable” opponent could have accepted. In addition, the German preventive war had become a war of conquest by September 1914 at the latest.

In 1919 Montgelas became secretary of the Heidelberg Association (founded by Max Weber and Maximilian von Baden , according to the latter a "fighting organization against the Versailles Treaty "), in 1920 an expert on the parliamentary committee of inquiry. In 1928 Montgelas received an honorary doctorate from the University of Munich .

literature

• Othmar Hackl : The Bavarian War Academy (1867-1914). CH Beck´sche publishing house bookstore. Munich 1989. ISBN 3-406-10490-8 . P. 527.
• Detlef Vogel: Count Max Montgelas (1860–1944). An officer in the field of tension between national claims and humanity. In: Pacifist officers in Germany 1871–1933. Bremen 1999. p. 82ff.

Fonts

• On the question of guilt. An investigation into the outbreak of world war. 1921.
• The most important mobilization dates 1914. 1922. (also as a time overview of the mobilizations 1914. 1922)
• Overview of troops I and II line for mobilization orders were issued. 1922.
• Guide to the War Guilt Question. 1923.
• The key to the war guilt question. 1926. (with Heinrich Kanner)
• Comment on the report of the Commission of the Allied and Associated Governments on the Responsibility of the Authors of the War . In: The German White Book on Guilt in the War 1914. Berlin 1927, pp. 74ff.
• Three invasions of France? , 1932. (French edition: Les trois invasions de La France. 1932)

As editor:

• The German documents on the outbreak of war. 4 volumes, Berlin 1927. (together with Walter Schücking)

See also

• Montgelas (noble family)

Web links

Commons : Max von Montgelas  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Max von Montgelas in the catalog of the German National Library
• Max von Montgelas in the online version of the Reich Chancellery Files Edition . Weimar Republic
• Biographical website with photo

Individual evidence

1. ^ Annual report from the K. Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Munich. ZDB ID 12448436 , 1877/78
2. ↑ Othmar Hackl : The Bavarian War Academy (1867-1914). CH Beck´sche publishing house bookstore. Munich 1989. ISBN 3-406-10490-8 . P. 527.
3. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: Escape from Germany. On exile in the 20th century. 2001. p. 12.
4. ↑ Sacha Zala : History under the scissors of political censorship. 2001, p. 53.
5. ^ Ulrich Heinemann: The suppressed defeat. Political Public and War Guilt Question in the Weimar Republic. Göttingen, 1983 p. 96.
6. ↑ Quoted from Iris Wigger: “Against the culture and civilization of all whites”. The international racist campaign against the "black shame". In: Fritz Bauer Institute (Ed.): Limitless prejudices. Anti-Semitism, nationalism and ethnic conflicts in different cultures (= yearbook 2002 on the history and effects of the Holocaust). Campus, Frankfurt / Main 2002, p. 105.