Moritz von Egidy (son)

Christoph Moritz von Egidy

Christoph Moritz von Egidy (born July 27, 1870 in Pirna ; † January 5, 1937 in Langfeld ) was a German naval officer. In the First World War he was cruiser commander, then 1918/19 commander of the naval school. From 1933 to 1936 worked for the SS security service.

family

Egidy came from the Egidy family, who were raised to the nobility by Emperor Leopold I in 1687 . He was the eldest son of Christoph Moritz von Egidy , the author of the “Ernstehlen”, and his wife Luise geb. from Götz .

Moritz von Egidy was married to Irmgard geb. von Bethe (1877–1939) and had two children. His son Moritz von Egidy, born in 1906, died in 1943 in Jablonka near Kiev during World War II . His only daughter later died childless. His daughter Irene (1909–1991) married Hubert Freiherr von Wangenheim (1904–1973) and had four children. Hubert von Wangenheim was a sea captain on destroyers in World War II and later a fleet admiral in the German Navy. At times he was head of the Mürwik Naval School, like Moritz von Egidy before.

His sister was Emmy von Egidy , a writer, sculptor and painter.

See also : Egidy (noble family)

Life

Egidy made his at the Royal Grammar School in Dresden High School and entered on April 13, 1888 in the Imperial Navy . Before the First World War he was adjutant to Prince Heinrich , brother of Kaiser Wilhelm II. His training included trips to South America and the USA (1889–1890) and to the Far East (1904).

In May 1913 he became captain of the sea in command of the large cruiser SMS Seydlitz . The Seydlitz and her commander became known because they took part in the two great naval battles of the First World War, the battle on the Doggerbank on January 24, 1915 and the Skagerrak Battle on May 31 and June 1, 1916. In both battles the Seydlitz hit particularly hard; The attitude of the crew and their commander is expressly highlighted in the reports as being extremely exemplary.

During the battle on the Dogger Bank , the Seydlitz was the flagship of Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper . In the book about the North Sea War by Rear Admiral Friedrich Lützow you can find the following: “The worst thing was the“ Seydlitz ”got away with a chance hit that will probably never happen again. The grenade drove between the armored deck and the armor of the two aft towers through a small, less heavily armored ring into the ammunition elevator and ignited the ammunition there. An explosion of the entire ammunition chamber was prevented by the courage and presence of mind of a machinist's mate who flooded the chamber by opening the flood valve. The flesh of his palms, however, stuck to the handwheel, so great was the heat ”. Despite the enormous fire, the management of the entire association was continued from the Seydlitz .

In the Skagerrak Battle, the English battle cruiser HMS Queen Mary (27,000 t, 1,266 dead) sank under fire from the Seydlitz . She was later badly damaged herself and had great difficulty driving back. Admiral Reinhard Scheer , the German fleet chief, wrote in his memoirs of Germany's deep-sea fleet during the World War : “Special mention is made of the arrival of the“ Seydlitz ”, Commander Kpt. ZS v. Egidy. The fact that the ship has reached the port is an excellent nautical achievement on the part of the commander and the crew. It finally entered the Wilhelmshaven lock via the stern post. "

Towards the end of the First World War he became the commander of the Mürwik Naval School . After the war he retired to private life on his farm in Langfeld near Flensburg.

After 1933 he joined the NSDAP ( membership number 3.549.077) and became an SS member (SS number 107.212). On November 29, 1934 he was promoted to Untersturmführer , on September 15, 1935 to Obersturmführer and on January 30, 1936 to Hauptsturmführer. He worked for the SD main office and head of the SS branch in Gelting . His wife Irmgard, however, was Christian and very skeptical of National Socialist politics. She convinced Egidy to take a long trip to China in 1936 on a ship belonging to the Hamburg Rantzau Group. After his return, Egidy no longer actively participated in SS activities at the age of 66 and died in 1937 on his farm in Langfeld. Moritz von Egidy's military legacy has been completely bequeathed to the International Maritime Museum Hamburg .

Honors

• Iron Cross 2nd and 1st class
• Royal House Order of Hohenzollern , Knight's Cross with Swords
• Royal Crown Order (Prussia) 2nd class with swords

See also

• List of commanders of the naval school (Kiel and Mürwik)

literature

• Genealogical manual of the nobility. Noble Houses B. Volume XXV. Limburg 2004. p. 102.
• Berndt von Egidy: 300 years of the Egidy family 1687–1987 . Tübingen 1987. DNB 871285541 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Seniority list of the NSDAP Schutzstaffel, status on December 1, 1936, Berlin 1936 (No. 1466)
2. ^ History of BK SH: Wolfgang Miether. Retrieved on August 14, 2018 (German). 
3. ↑ http://home.foni.net/~adelsforschung2/druckstuecke00.htm
4. ^ Ranking list of the Imperial German Navy for 1918. Ed .: Marine-Kabinett . Mittler & Sohn publishing house . Berlin 1918. p. 9