Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen

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Schwartzkoppen

Maximilian Friedrich Wilhelm August Leopold von Schwartzkoppen (born February 24, 1850 in Potsdam , † January 8, 1917 in Berlin ) was a Prussian officer , most recently a general of the infantry and military attaché . He is best known today for his role in the Dreyfus Affair .

Life

family

Maximilian came from the Swartekop family , first mentioned in a document in Braunschweig around 1500 , whose members were raised to the imperial and hereditary-Austrian knightly nobility in 1688 . He was the son of the later Prussian general of the infantry Emil von Schwartzkoppen (1810–1878) and his wife Christiane Marie Hildegard, born von Brederlow (1833–1916) from the House of Tragarth near Merseburg .

Military career

Schwarzkoppen joined the Prussian Army in the late 1860s . In 1870 he took part in the Franco-German War . From 1885 to 1888 he was a captain on the general staff. After that he was the military companion of Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig .

From December 10, 1891 to November 15, 1897 Schwartzkoppen served as a German military attaché in Paris . In this function he was responsible for maintaining the German Reich's military-political relations with France . Unofficially, he also obtained information about the French army for the German intelligence service , on which his role in the Dreyfus affair was based: In the spring of 1894, an initially unidentified French officer had offered Schwartzkoppen secret military information for sale. On September 25, the cleaning lady Marie Bastian stole a so-called bordereau from his wastebasket - a letter that accompanies documents - and forwarded it along with other fragments of paper to the French intelligence service , which regularly paid her for such services. The torn, unsigned bordereau was reassembled by the intelligence service. The letter recorded which documents had been handed over to the German intelligence service. These weren't serious secrets, but the bordereau was the clear indication for the French intelligence service that an officer of the French general staff was selling information to the German intelligence service.

As a result, Alfred Dreyfus , a Jewish officer from Alsace, was suspected of being Schwartzkoppen's informant , publicly accused and convicted despite considerable doubts about his guilt. It was later possible to prove the innocence of Dreyfus, who, as it turned out, had been accused primarily of anti-Semitic motives and charged with forged documents. Later investigations showed that the officer Ferdinand Walsin-Esterházy , commander of a battalion of the 74th Infantry Regiment in Rouen, had actually addressed the offer to Schwartzkoppen. Schwartzkoppen himself confirmed Dreyfus' innocence decades later in his memoirs, which were published posthumously in 1930 by Bernhard Schwertfeger, the editor of Schwartzkoppen's estate. In France in particular, they were known as Les carnets de Schwartzkoppen in the early 1930s . La vérité sur Dreyfus, édités par Bernhard Schwertfeger et traduits sur le texte allemand par Alexandre Koyré, préface Lucien Lévy Bruhl a bestseller.

On September 11, 1907 Schwartzkoppen received the character as General of Infantry . He also stood à la suite of the Emperor Franz Garde Grenadier Regiment No. 2 in Berlin and was a. a. Owner of the Order of the Red Eagle 1st Class with Oak Leaves, the Order of the Crown 1st Class and Knight of the Knights of the Order of St. John . During the First World War , Schwartzkoppen became commander of the newly established 202nd Division on July 6, 1916 , with which he was deployed on the Eastern Front .

David Lewis described Schwartzkoppens outward appearance as that of "the Prussian officer par excellence": "tall, slim - but athletic", of "steely elegance" and "the delight of every military tailor".

Fonts

  • Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen, Bernhard Schwertfeger (ed.): The truth about Dreyfus. Edited from the estate by Bernhard Schwertfeger, Berlin 1930.

Web links

Commons : Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Alexis : Naturalisme pas Mort. Lettres inédites de Paul Alexis á Émile Zola , 1971, p. 447.
  2. ^ William Fortescue: The Third Republic in France , 2000, p. 53.
  3. ^ Ranking list of the Royal Prussian Army and the XIII. (Royal Württemberg) Army Corps for 1909 , Ed .: War Ministry , Ernst Siegfried Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1909, p. 139
  4. ^ Honorary ranking list of the former German Army. Ed .: German Officer Association, ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1926, p. 115.
  5. ↑ David L. Lewis: Prisoner of Honor. The Dreyfus Affair. 1975, p. 76.
personal data
SURNAME Schwartzkoppen, Maximilian von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schwartzkoppen, Maximilian Friedrich Wilhelm August Leopold von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian officer, most recently general of the infantry and military attaché
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH Potsdam
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1917
Place of death Berlin