Georg Escherich

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Georg Escherich (born January 4, 1870 in Schwandorf , † August 26, 1941 in Munich ) was a German forester , politician and explorer . He became known in 1920/21 as the founder of the "Organization Escherich" in the wake of the November Revolution and the Munich Soviet Republic . The "Orgesch" was one of the most influential anti-republic self-protection organizations in the German Reich . In addition, Escherich is also considered a colonial expert and a capable forest and wood industry organizer during the First World War .

Forestry Councilor Georg Escherich

Life

Origin and education

Georg Escherich was born in Schwandorf as the son of the pottery manufacturer Hermann Nikolaus Escherich - the inventor of the gas ring stoves - and his wife Katharina, nee Freiin von Stengel. He was the older brother of the later forest entomologist Karl Escherich . His mother's father, Karl Freiherr von Stengel, was a royal Bavarian forester and her cousin, Fritz Freiherr von Stengel, was a royal Bavarian forestry advisor. Georg Escherich lost his father at an early age and his mother sold her shares in the Schwandorfer Tonwarenfabrik.

After attending the old grammar school in Regensburg , Georg Escherich embarked on a forestry career and studied forest sciences in Aschaffenburg (basic studies) and Munich. He completed both study sections with the main grade II. During his studies Escherich was involved in the student union Corps Hercynia Aschaffenburg, now in Munich. Not least because of the connection he had many hunting activities. As a one-year volunteer , he served in the field artillery . He passed his legal clerkship in the Bavarian state forest administration, during which he also made contacts with the Princely House of Thurn und Taxis , as the tenth of 17 candidates. However, an attempt to do a doctorate on the subject of “ larch cultivation ” with forest botanist Robert Hartig in Munich failed. However, within just eight months, Escherich managed to do his doctorate with Anton von Bühler on the topic of forest permits . Within the Bavarian State Forestry Administration, he made initially for one year assistant service in the in the Bavarian Forest nearby forest office Neureichenau and then taught for five years as a teacher at the forestry school in Kaufbeuren .

The colonial specialist

During this time in Kaufbeuren he began his numerous hunting trips, which initially took him to Bosnia-Herzegovina . In addition, Escherich was also active as a scientific research traveler. During his first trip to Ethiopia in 1907, he met Negus Menelik II at an audience , who officially invited him for 1909. During this second visit, a forest garden was laid out in Addis Ababa under Escherich's direction and a new route to Lake Rudolf was explored under great strain . Escherich also drafted a forest law for Ethiopia. For this and for his explorations at the Rudolfsee the forester received the Prussian Order of the Red Eagle . The passionate hunter had also made extensive use of the hunting opportunities available to him in Abyssinia . He recorded his forestry and hunting experiences in the books Hunting Trips in Norway, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Abyssinia (1910) and In the Land of the Negus (1912). In 1913/14 Georg Escherich then researched the vast forest areas of Neukamerun on behalf of the colonial administration with regard to the possibilities of wood extraction. Extensive wood collections were created during these trips. Now recognized as a colonial expert, he reported to both Kaiser Wilhelm II and the budget commission of the German Reichstag .

Head of the Bialowies Military Forest Service

The beginning of the First World War shattered Escherich's plan to develop the Cameroon primeval forest as Reich Commissioner for a special purpose. Instead, he moved to the Western Front on August 16, 1914 as captain of the Landwehr and battery leader of the 2nd replacement battery of the Bavarian 1st Field Artillery Regiment . Seven days later he was wounded on the Col de Sainte-Marie near Wissembach by a ricochet on his left leg and unfit for front duty. Now severely disabled by the war, he managed to get a clerk's post in Łódź after a ten-month hospital stay in Karlsruhe , bypassing official channels and still hobbling on two crutches . From there he was transferred to the Warsaw governorate as head of the passport department just a month later , and again a month later he was appointed head of the passport office in the governorate general.

The High Command of the 9th Army , which had meanwhile conquered the area of ​​the "Bialowieser Heide" ("Puszcza Białowieska"), then asked whether Escherich, as head of the military forest management, should develop the famous Białowieża Primeval Forest (today the Białowieża National Park ) want to take in hand. This imperial Russian hunting estate ("Udiel") alone, which was perhaps the most famous hunting ground of its time, not least thanks to its bison population, had a size of 128,000 hectares , on which 35 million cubic meters of solid wood were stored, of which around 24 million cubic meters were timber , which were important raw materials for the front and the stage. Escherich agreed and arrived in Bialowies on September 18, 1915.

The first task was to end the rampant poaching and to disarm the numerous gangs that used the forests as retreats. “It was taken with iron sharpness,” wrote Escherich in 1934 in his memoirs. Although it quickly calmed down, clashes always resulted in deaths on both sides. Strict hunting regulations were also quickly issued.

As head of the military forest management , Georg Escherich had the Bialowies primeval forest developed

As a result, Escherich had the huge and previously only extensively used forest area developed by Belarusians , supported by around 10,000 men , sometimes under unfavorable living and working conditions. Among other things, the construction of railways and sawmills was planned .

Together with his brother Karl, Escherich also took the opportunity to examine the jungle more closely. He found that the wild population, which had previously been greatly increased due to feeding, had taken on an almost forest-endangering extent and had damaged the originality of the primeval forest far more than all wood uses. In this connection, he went hard into court with the "downright nonsensical feeding in a way that was no longer justifiable" practiced by the former tsarist hunting administration. The area started to take on "the character of a wildlife park with all its signs of degeneration". The bison, for example, would have become so used to the feeding that they would have become semi-tame forest animals that hardly showed any fear of humans. Escherich therefore severely restricted feeding.

However, the wild stocks were severely decimated by poaching in a very short time. Escherich estimated that after the takeover of the administration in the jungle total of only about 120 to 150 bison, 2,000 to 3,000 pieces deer , about 500 pieces fallow deer , to the 2,000 deer and more than 1000 pieces wild boar remained. In some cases, however, this was still too much game, so that Escherich immediately set about greatly reducing the number of red deer, fallow deer and wild boar, for silvicultural and hunting considerations and also to provide the population with food. According to Escherich, a total of 600 cloven- hoofed game were shot in 1916 , over 1000 in 1917 and even more in 1918.

However, bison were spared in order to rebuild the population. Only a few were allowed to be shot with the exclusive permission of Prince Leopold of Bavaria, who was later appointed Commander in Chief East . According to Escherich, during his three-year time in Bialowies only eight bison, seven of which were bulls ready to be shot, were usually shot under his leadership.

The first of these was given by Kaiser Wilhelm II on November 12, 1915, who still knew Escherich personally from his lecture on Cameroon in Berlin. Next, General Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg hunted down the wisent in January 1916 , followed by the Saxon King Friedrich August III a month later . , finally Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia , Archduke Karl Franz of Austria, the Bavarian King Ludwig III. and General Max Hoffmann . The legendary "Red Baron" Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen , who came to Bialowies at the end of December 1917, was one of the other hunting guests .

The hunting operation was, however, only a small subsidiary within the huge military forest management, which had to supply the army with forest products of all kinds. The armistice of November 11, 1918 brought the end of German occupation, and the fate of the bison was sealed. Within a very short time, the population, which had just recovered somewhat, was exterminated by poachers, apart from a few individual animals. Escherich himself was the last to stay on site after the German surrender and did not vacate his position until December 28, 1918, before Lithuanian troops occupied the area.

The "Organization Escherich (Orgesch)"

Back in his native Bavaria to the now received Colonel and forest advice transported Escherich the management of the forestry office Isen . Now his political activity against the "red terror" began, which was to make him known throughout the Reich. As opposition to the establishment of the Munich Soviet Republic in the course of the November Revolution, the People's Commissioner for the Army and Navy and Reich Defense Minister Gustav Noske ( SPD ) ordered the formation of so-called " Resident Wehrungen " on April 25, 1919 . Georg Escherich was commissioned in August by the Bavarian government ( Cabinet Hoffmann I ), which had fled to Bamberg , with the consolidation of local resident services that had already been established. The state parliament made money available for this “Bavarian Resident Defense Force”, and from December 1919 Escherich acted as its governor. Since he advocated the restoration of the monarchy , he had also joined the newly founded Bavarian People's Party (BVP). In March 1920, the right wing succeeded in pushing the coalition with the SPD out of office. Escherich is said to have tried to become Bavarian Prime Minister himself, which the left BVP wing under the leadership of the Regensburg journalist Heinrich Held prevented. Instead, the non-party district president of Upper Bavaria, Gustav Ritter von Kahr , was proposed and confirmed by the state parliament. He formed the cabinet of Kahr I ; this was in office until July 16, 1920.

Ceremony of the Resident Defense in 1920 on the Königsplatz in Munich. On the speaker's platform: Governor Georg Escherich.

With the support of General Franz Ritter von Epp and Captain Ernst Röhm, Escherich founded the so-called "Organization Escherich", or "Orgesch" for short, in Regensburg on May 9, 1920 . Escherich became their Reichshauptmann, Rudolf Chancellor his deputy, Walther Beumelburg head of the Munich headquarters and Hermann Kriebel their staff chief. As a paramilitary organization, the Orgesch had weapons and appropriate logistics. When the Stahlhelm joined the Orgesch as the leading paramilitary force in northern Germany after the Kapp Putsch , it was able to spread across the entire German Empire . At the height of its influence, the extremely right-wing organization was estimated to have around one million members, including 300,000 in Bavaria, making it one of the most influential and controversial self-protection associations of the 1920s due to their hostility to the republic. In order to document its political importance, the Bavarian Resident Services organized the first state shooting from August 26 to October 2, 1920. In addition to Escherich, Bavarian Prime Minister Gustav Ritter von Kahr also took part in the welcoming act in Munich.

In midsummer 1920, the Prussian Interior Minister Carl Severing (SPD) forced the "voluntary disarmament" of the Orgesch, in 1921 it was banned by the Reich government, and on May 5, 1921, the Entente issued an ultimatum regarding its final dissolution. After that, the Orgesch split up into various small groups, which remained for some time as reactionary leagues, especially in Bavaria. The Orgesch weapons stocks were taken over by the underground organization “ Black Reichswehr ” under the leadership of Major Bruno Ernst Buchrucker . Beumelburg unofficially managed the Munich headquarters until 1923.

Escherich himself subsequently founded or supported other paramilitary groups. He tried to prevent the Hitler putsch as much as possible, then on the day of the putsch, during a visit to Crown Prince Rupprecht in Berchtesgaden, he learned that the head of the House of Wittelsbach was on the side of his competitor von Kahr. On December 2, 1928 in Ebersberg , he founded the “ Bavarian Homeland Security ” to compete with the “Stahlhelm ”, which was particularly popular in Upper Bavaria . The federal government was friendly towards the House of Wittelsbach and also sought contact with church circles. After Adolf Hitler's " seizure of power " , the "Bavarian Homeland Security" had to be disarmed and finally disbanded itself.

Otherwise, Escherich, who had meanwhile been promoted to the Oberforstrat, concentrated on his duties as the head of the Forestry Office and maintained his membership in the German Forestry Council as well as his contacts with Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann and a number of industrialists.

Retired

Due to his severe walking difficulties, which increasingly afflicted the war disabled, Escherich took early retirement in 1931 and built a country house in Isen, which soon became a meeting place for numerous guests from all over the world and from various social sectors - including old friends like Oswald Spengler or Robert Bosch - developed. In any case, Escherich was a well-known and popular personality in his time, which was also reflected in the great success of his memoirs "Der alten Jäger" (1934) and "Der alten Forstmann" (1935), which had several editions.

Escherich's grave in the church cemetery in the market town of Isen, Bavaria.

As a former BVP member, Escherich was not close to the new rulers of the NSDAP . When the head of the ministerial forest department, Theodor Mantel , complained by telephone to him in March 1933 about the arrest of the BVP ministers - especially his superior, Finance Minister Schäffer - and asked Escherich for support, this conversation was tapped. The police chief of Munich, Heinrich Himmler , even had Mantel arrested for a short time.

Georg Escherich was married to Gabriele von Hößle - her father was the Oberforstrat Albert von Hößle. The couple remained childless. At the time when Reichsforst- und Reichsjägermeister Hermann Göring had the Bialowieser Heide, which was again occupied by German troops in the course of the attack on Poland , converted into a huge state hunting area, Georg Escherich died on August 26, 1941 after a short illness of a heart condition in the Munich Neuwittelsbach Clinic, which was located in the immediate vicinity of his brother Karl's villa.

Georg Escherich's death picture

In memory of the famous forester, the market town of Isen later named Georg-Escherich-Straße after him.

Fonts (selection)

Georg Escherich's autobiography Der alten Jäger , published in 1934 . Memories from my life .

Travelogues and non-fiction books

  • Hunting trips in Norway, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Abyssinia. Reimer, Berlin 1910, (2nd edition, ibid 1921).
  • In the land of the Negus. Stilke, Berlin 1912, (2nd, increased edition, ibid. 1921).
  • Forest entomological forays into the primeval forest of Bialowies. In: Bialowies in German administration. Issue 2, 1917, ZDB -ID 989830-X , pp. 97-115.
  • In the Tsar's hunting grounds. In: Bialowies in German administration. Volume 3, 1918, pp. 192-218.
  • Across the jungle of Cameroon. Stilke, Berlin 1923.
  • In forest and steppe. Köhler & Amelang, Leipzig 1925.
  • In the jungle. Stilke, Berlin 1927.
  • Cameroon. Riegler, Berlin 1938.

Political writings and lectures

  • Communism in Munich. Based on official previously unpublished material. 6 parts. Heimatland publishing house, Munich 1921;
    • Part 1: Prehistory and personalities (= Escherich-Heft. No. 1, ZDB -ID 1218578-4 ). 1921, ( digitized version );
    • Part 2: The working forces (= Escherich booklet. Booklet 2). 1921, ( digitized version );
    • Part 3: Towards Bolshevism (= Escherich-Heft. No. 4). 1921, ( digitized version );
    • Part 4: The Scheinrätrepublik (= Escherich-Heft. No. 6). 1921, ( digitized version );
    • Part 5: The Communist Soviet Republic (= Escherich-Heft. No. 7). 1921, ( digitized version );
    • Part 6: The collapse of soviet rule (= Escherich-Heft. No. 8). 1921, ( digitized ).
  • The peasant and the peace. The tragedy of the German middle class. Two lectures (= publication series of the Prussian Yearbooks. 13, ZDB -ID 217933-7 ). Stilke, Berlin 1923.

Editorial activity

Autobiographies

  • The old hunter. Memories from my life. Parey, Berlin 1934.
  • The old forester. Trips and tracks in the wide world. Parey, Berlin 1935.

literature

  • Günther Axhausen (Ed.): Organization Escherich. The movement towards the united national front. Weicher, Leipzig et al. 1921, 80 pp.
  • Erwin Rosen: Orgesch. Scherl, Berlin 1921, 120 pp.
  • Hermann Bahr : Diary. October 10th. In: Neues Wiener Journal . Vol. 30, No. 10.399, October 29, 1922, p. 7 .
  • Wolfgang Zorn :  Escherich, Georg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 648 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Hans Fenske : Conservatism and right-wing radicalism in Bavaria after 1918. Gehlen, Bad Homburg vdHua 1969, (at the same time: Freiburg (Breisgau), university, dissertation, 1965).
  • Horst Nußer : Conservative military associations in Bavaria, Prussia and Austria. 1918-1933. With a biography of the Forestry Councilor Georg Escherich 1870–1941 (= Modern History. 1). 2nd Edition. Nusser, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-88091-249-1 (also: Munich, university, dissertation, 1973).
  • Heinrich Rubner : Georg Escherich. In: Heinrich Rubner: Hundred significant Bavarian forestry people (1875 to 1970) (= communications from the Bavarian State Forestry Administration. 47, ISSN  1616-511X ). Bavarian State Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forests, Munich 1994, pp. 93–96.

Web links

Commons : Georg Escherich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Rubner: Georg Escherich. In: Rubner: Hundreds of important forest people in Bavaria (1875 to 1970). 1994, pp. 93-96, here p. 94.
  2. ↑ Georg Escherich: The old hunter. 1934, pp. 114-115.
  3. ^ Rubner: Georg Escherich. In: Rubner: Hundreds of important forest people in Bavaria (1875 to 1970). 1994, pp. 93-96, here pp. 94-95.
  4. ↑ Georg Escherich: The old hunter. 1934, p. 125.
  5. ↑ a b c d Rubner: Georg Escherich. In: Rubner: Hundreds of important forest people in Bavaria (1875 to 1970). 1994, pp. 93-96, here p. 95.
  6. ↑ Georg Escherich: The old hunter. 1934, p. 119.
  7. ↑ a b Georg Escherich: The old hunter. 1934, p. 121.
  8. ↑ Georg Escherich: The old hunter. 1934, p. 126.
  9. ↑ Georg Escherich: The old hunter. 1934, pp. 150-151.
  10. ↑ Georg Escherich: The old hunter. 1934, p. 133.
  11. ↑ Georg Escherich: The old hunter. 1934, pp. 149-150.
  12. ↑ a b c Information on the Orgesch at www.polunbi.de ; Retrieved June 13, 2007
  13. ↑ Christoph Huebner: First state shooting of the Bavarian Resident Services, 1920. In: Historisches Lexikon Bayerns. 2006. Retrieved December 20, 2017.
  14. ^ Rubner: Georg Escherich. In: Rubner: Hundreds of important forest people in Bavaria (1875 to 1970). 1994, pp. 93-96, here p. 96.
  15. ^ Wolfgang Stäbler: Bayerischer Heimatschutz, 1928–1933. In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria. 2006. Retrieved December 20, 2017.
  16. ^ Heinrich Rubner: Theodor coat. In: Heinrich Rubner: Hundred significant Bavarian foresters (1875 to 1970) (= communications from the Bavarian State Forest Administration. 47). Bavarian State Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forests, Munich 1994, p. 42.
personal data
SURNAME Escherich, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German forest scientist and politician, founder of the "Organization Escherich"
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwandorf
DATE OF DEATH August 26, 1941
Place of death Munich