Otto von Lossow

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Lieutenant General Otto von Lossow (1922)

Otto Hermann von Lossow (born January 15, 1868 in Hof (Saale) , † November 25, 1938 in Munich ) was a German army officer, most recently lieutenant general in the Reichswehr . During the Balkan Wars he was a military instructor in the Ottoman Army , and during the First World War he was German military representative in Turkey . After 1921 he was commander of military district VII (Munich) and state commander of the Reichswehr in Bavaria . In the autumn of the crisis in 1923, he and the Bavarian State Commissioner Gustav von Kahr took a stand against the Reich government, but contributed to the suppression of the Hitler coup .

Life

Otto was the son of District Administrator Oskar von Lossow (1832–74) and his wife Johanna, née Schrön (1834–1926).

After training in the Bavarian Cadet Corps , he joined the Infantry Body Regiment of the Bavarian Army in 1886 as a portepee ensign . There he was promoted to secondary lieutenant in 1888 and in 1892 commanded as adjutant to the district command in Rosenheim . From 1895 to 1898 Lossow graduated from the War Academy , which made him qualified for the general staff and the subject. In 1899 he was assigned to the General Staff, and in 1900 he joined the 2nd East Asian Infantry Brigade as an adjutant to take part in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China.

Otto von Lossow

Lossow returned to Bavaria in 1901 , became a captain the following year and served in the General Staff of the I. Army Corps until 1904 . Then he was company commander in his main regiment for two years before he switched back to the general staff service. As a major , he was assigned to the Great General Staff in Berlin in 1908 and was also a military member of the Bavarian Senate at the Reich Military Court .

Military instructor in Turkey

As part of the German military mission , Lossow served from 1911 as a military instructor at the Ottoman War Academy and later as a lieutenant colonel in the General Staff of the Ottoman Army . In order to be able to participate actively on the Turkish side in the Balkan Wars (1912-13), he was released in October 1912 at his own request from the Bavarian army and from the Bavarian citizenship.

As commander of an Ottoman Infantry - Division collected Lossow after the defeat of the Ottoman army in Lüleburgaz in Eastern Thrace on 31 October 1912, the retreating army in disarray in the last line of defense, 25 km west of the capital Constantinople Opel in Catalca . Only there could the advance of the Bulgarian army be stopped. Horrified by the weak morale and clout of the Ottoman army, Lossow published the memorandum “Thoughts on Reforms in Turkey” in May 1913. This contributed to the appointment of Otto Liman von Sanders as head of the German military mission in Constantinople.

First World War

During the First World War, Lossow again served in the Bavarian army . He was initially chief of staff in the I. Reserve Corps on the Western Front and achieved the rank of colonel .

In July 1915 he was sent to Turkey, an ally of the German Empire, as a military attaché . As such he protested - albeit unsuccessfully - against the genocidal policy of the Young Turk regime against the Armenians , “a new form of mass murder , i. H. to starve the entire Armenian nation by complete closure. ”On April 19, 1916, Lossow was promoted to major general and appointed German military plenipotentiary in Constantinople. Together with the Ottoman Minister of War Enver Pascha , he visited the theater of war of the Turkish army. He reported to the German government on the military situation in Turkey, brokered armaments contracts for German industry and influenced the filling of positions. For example, he suggested the appointment of the German general Erich von Falkenhayn to the head of the Ottoman 6th Army.

As a result of the revolutions in Russia and the collapse of the Tsarist empire, Lossow was authorized on April 29, 1918 to negotiate a preliminary peace with the Transcaucasian government in Tbilisi on behalf of the German Empire . At the time, the imperial government hoped to establish a German protectorate in the Caucasus. After the collapse of the Transcaucasian Federation in May 1918, Georgia declared its independence and asked Lossow for German protection.

Post-war and crisis year 1923

After the end of the war, Lossow, who suffered from heart disease as a result of multiple malaria infections, considered saying goodbye. However, he made a different decision and was accepted into the Reichswehr . There he was initially in command of the infantry school in Munich. In 1921 Lossow became commander of military district VII . At the same time, from the beginning of 1923 he was commander of the 7th Reichswehr Division and state commander of the Reichswehr in Bavaria . Lossow worked with right-wing extremist military associations , had them trained by the Reichswehr and sometimes supplied with weapons. So he wanted to strengthen his division for volunteers in the event of a civil war or another war with France. Lossow was also impressed at times by the leader of the National Socialists, Adolf Hitler . After the rebellion against state power during the “national demonstration” in Munich on May 1, 1923, however, he distanced himself from Hitler and the military associations.

On September 26, 1923, the Bavarian State Commissioner General Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who ruled with dictatorial powers, declared a state of emergency in Bavaria, and on the same day Reich President Friedrich Ebert declared a state of emergency in the entire Reich. Lossow's “hybrid position” now proved to be a source of conflict: As military district commander he was subordinate to the Reichswehr Minister Otto Geßler as the owner of the executive power in the Reich, at the same time his task as state commander was “also to provide help to the Bavarian government in a public emergency (...)”. As the conflict broke out between the Bavarian and Reich governments, Lossow openly sided with Kahrs and refused to carry out orders from the Reichswehr Minister.

Due to the propaganda campaign by the Völkischer Beobachter , the Reich government banned the NSDAP newspaper and commissioned Lossow to enforce it. However, at the request of Kahrs, he did not follow the order. This caused General Hans von Seeckt , the chief of the Army Command , to suggest that Lossow say goodbye because he refused to obey . Despite various attempts to mediate, he could not be persuaded to say goodbye. Thereupon he was removed from his offices on October 19, 1923 by President Ebert and General von Seeckt, and General Kress von Kressenstein was entrusted with the management of the 7th Division and the duties of commander in military district VII.

The Bavarian State Ministry decided on October 20 to reinstate Lossow as state commander and to entrust him "with the leadership of the Bavarian part of the Reichsheer". Two days later, the 7th Division was sworn in to the Bavarian government. This committed an open breach of the imperial constitution . Together with von Kahr and the Bavarian police chief Hans von Seißer , Lossow formed a kind of " triumvirate " in Munich . Their goal, however, was not to separate Bavaria from the Reich, but to establish a “national dictatorship” throughout Germany from the “Bavarian order cell ”. Although General von Seeckt was angry about the open refusal to give orders, he refused to carry out the Reich execution against Bavaria - according to the motto "Troops do not shoot troops".

Lossov's role in the Hitler putsch

On the evening of November 8, 1923, Lossow was arrested in the Bürgerbräukeller by Hitler, together with the State Commissioner General Gustav von Kahr and the commander of the Bavarian State Police , Hans von Seisser . Hitler had interrupted the speech of the State Commissioner General Kahr by shooting a pistol into the ceiling. Lossow had previously learned of such an intention and therefore issued a secret order that the garrison could only obey the orders of the city commandant, General Jakob von Danner . As a result of a breakdown at the police headquarters , more people were captured. But when Hitler wanted to bring Maximilian II barracks under his control on the alleged order of Lossow , the officer from the daily barracks service opened the secret order and the matter was over. So the next day, November 9, 1923, the only thing left was the familiar train to the Feldherrnhalle .

Next life

After the failed Hitler putsch, the Bavarian government and the Reich government reached a compromise, which restored the understanding between Munich and Berlin and the 7th Division was no longer required. Thereupon Lossow resigned on February 18, 1924. In the Hitler trial of February / March 1924 Lossow was questioned in detail, but not charged himself. He then withdrew from public life.

The sculptor Arno Breker designed a portrait bust of the general in 1935.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Othmar Hackl: The Bavarian War Academy (1867-1914). CH Beck´sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-406-10490-8 , p. 514.
  2. ↑ Kai Uwe Tapken : The Reichswehr in Bavaria from 1919 to 1924. Kovač, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-8300-0646-2 (= series studies on contemporary history , volume 26, dissertation Uni Bamberg 1999)
  3. ^ A b c d e Franz Menges:  Lossow, Otto von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 204 f. ( Digitized version ).
  4. ↑ Jehuda L. Wallach : Anatomy of a military aid. The Prussian-German military missions in Turkey 1835-1919. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1976, p. 116.
  5. ^ Fritz Fischer: Reach for world power. The war policy of imperial Germany 1914/18. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1961/2013.
  6. ↑ Burkhard Asmuss : Republic without a chance? Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1994, p. 457.
  7. ^ Kai Uwe Tapken: The Reichswehr in Bavaria from 1919 to 1924. Kovač, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-8300-0646-2 (= series studies on contemporary history. Volume 26, dissertation, Uni Bamberg 1999). P. 381.
  8. ^ Kai Uwe Tapken: The Reichswehr in Bavaria from 1919 to 1924. Kovač. Hamburg 2002. ISBN 3-8300-0646-2 . Pp. 382-383.
  9. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : Weimar 1918–1933. The history of the first German democracy. 3rd edition, Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 223.
  10. ^ Heinrich August Winkler: Weimar 1918–1933. The history of the first German democracy. 3rd edition, Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1998, p. 211.
  11. ↑ Hellmuth Mayer: Experienced legal history. Farewell lecture PDF at Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel on July 20, 1965, pp. 11-12.
  12. ^ Kai Uwe Tapken: The Reichswehr in Bavaria from 1919 to 1924. Kovač, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-8300-0646-2 (= series studies on contemporary history. Volume 26, dissertation, Uni Bamberg 1999). P. 404.
personal data
SURNAME Lossow, Otto von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lossow, Otto Hermann von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lieutenant general
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Hof (Saale)
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 1938
Place of death Munich