Patrick Brooking

Patrick Guy Brooking CMG CB MBE DL (born April 4, 1937 in Chobham , England - † January 22, 2014 in Wiltshire , England) was a British officer and Major General of the Army . From December 1985 to December 1988 he was the 20th commandant of the British Sector of Berlin and thus one of the Allied city ​​commanders .

From 1997 until his death he was Deputy Lieutenant of the county of Wiltshire and thus Deputy Personal Representative of Queen Elizabeth II .

Early years

Patrick Brooking grew up in the English county of Surrey and was a graduate of the private youth boarding school Charterhouse School in Godalming , where he was also taught German .

On June 23, 1956, he volunteered for military service as part of the National Service and was subsequently appointed as a second lieutenant in the Royal Armored Corps. On his 19th birthday, he finally joined as Lieutenant for the 5th Regiment of the Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards ( "The Skin") , a time still independent cavalry regiment .

On April 4, 1964, his 27th birthday, he was promoted to captain . After graduating from Staff College Camberley , a general staff academy for officers, he was promoted to major on December 31, 1969 , whereupon he served in the British Army of the Rhine , including in Berlin , Northern Ireland and Cyprus .

In 1973 he took over the post of Chief of Staff of the 39th Brigade in Belfast , before he was regimental commander of the "Skins" in 1975. For his achievements during the service there, he was awarded the rank of Member of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II .

In 1978 he returned to Staff College Camberley as an instructor , before taking up the post of Chief of Staff of the 4th Armored Division in 1979 . Three years later, in 1982, he was appointed commander of the 33rd Panzer Division stationed in Paderborn .

Finally, with the rank of brigadier , he was named Deputy Chief of Staff of the United Kingdom Land Forces in 1983. In 1985 he was promoted to major general.

City Commander in Berlin

As the successor to Bernard Gordon-Lennox (1932-2017), he was appointed Commander of the British Sector of Berlin in December 1985. He was one of the allied city commanders and formed with the American John Mitchell (1933–2013) and the French Paul Cauvarrot (1923–2012), the highest authority of the western allies of Berlin. He was thus a member of the Allied Command , which was subordinate to the Allied Control Council .

The First Gulf War , which began in 1980, as well as the time of squatting , riots and mass demonstrations in Berlin also fell during his term of office .

As city commander, he assumed one of the most important and outstanding posts that the British military had to fill outside of Great Britain. As such, he was on the one hand the military, but above all the "political leader" of his country and exercised a kind of representative status for Queen Elizabeth II, since Berlin was formally not part of the scope of the Federal Republic of Germany and Great Britain's ambassador residing in Bonn was not responsible.

Like his predecessors, Brooking, as city commander, focused primarily on the political and diplomatic representation of his country and his duties as a member of the Allied Command, while the respective brigade commander took over the purely military leadership of the British armed forces in the four-sector city .

With the move to Berlin Brooking moved with his family in the Berlin district Gatow located Villa Lemm . Members of the British royal family also resided on the property, which was guarded by members of the 248 German Security Unit , a German company and guard police unit of the British Military Police (RMP) , during their stays in Berlin. The function of the host towards the royal family was fulfilled by a British city commander at least once a year when the Royal Birthday Parade ("Queens Birthday Parade") was to be accepted on the Berlin Maifeld at the Olympic Stadium .

Patrick Brooking maintained a close relationship with the British royal family and managed to get Elizabeth II to travel personally to the four-sector city for the third time in May 1987 on the occasion of Berlin's 750th anniversary. The monarch was received at Gatow military airport by Brooking and the Governing Mayor Eberhard Diepgen and ultimately also accepted her traditional birthday parade.

Patrick Brooking (second row, left) during Ronald Reagan's speech at the Brandenburg Gate

Thus Brooking was, after David Peel Yates in 1965 and Robert Richardson in 1978, the third and at the same time last city commander who was allowed to receive the Queen personally in Berlin.

In June 1987, Brooking was one of the dinner guests of US President Ronald Reagan and was also present when he said famously , "Tear down this wall" , the Soviet Communist Party - Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in front of the Brandenburg Gate to the demolition of the Berlin Wall asked.

Rudolf Hess

During Brookings' term of office, the former Hitler deputy Rudolf Hess died , who committed suicide on August 17, 1987 in the Spandau war crimes prison at the age of 93. Hess had been sentenced to life imprisonment in the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals and had been in Spandau since July 18, 1947 - of which the last and therefore the only prisoner since October 1, 1966.

Brooking was one of the town commanders known to personally visit Hess in the war crimes prison located in the British Sector. Besides Roy Redgrave , he was also one of the few who spoke to the prisoner in German without an interpreter .

A pardon for the aged Hess, which had already been officially requested several times by state and private agencies for humanitarian reasons, always failed due to the veto of the Soviet Union, including a pardon from the federal government on the occasion of Hess's 90th birthday.

In April 1987, just a few months before the suicide , the news magazine Der Spiegel reported that Mikhail Gorbachev was planning to release Hess.

Immediately after the death of Hess was determined, a procedure laid down in advance by the Allies began. The body was brought from the prison grounds to the British Military Hospital Berlin in Westend by a British military ambulance, where it was autopsied by the coroner James Cameron . The protective measures at the military hospital were massively increased by forces of the 248 German Security Unit and other units, including shooters with long weapons who were positioned on the roofs.

Upon completion of the medical morgue the body was in uncharted route to Wunsiedel spent and there handed over to the family. Finally Hess was buried in the family grave.

A few days later the demolition of the war crimes prison by British units began.

Loosening to the outside

In the politically and socially tense situation in Berlin, the relationship with the governing mayor was not always free of conflict. Diepgen passed more and more information on to the Allied Command. After the Allies, who held Berlin's air sovereignty, first approved a civilian rescue helicopter for the ADAC to carry out emergency rescue operations , Diepgen also demanded the approval of a helicopter for the Berlin police and the abolition of high penalties for actions directed against members of the military. However, the Allies rejected these applications .

At the urging Diepgen and an initiative Brookings, facing the Allies in 1988 for the first time a complaints body one to which affected citizens and citizens could turn to. Although the site continued to operate, most of the submissions that were directed against the many barriers , but also against exercise and aircraft noise , failed . In a letter to the mayor in 1988, Brooking stated: "This aircraft noise is the price of freedom ."

In the same year he was named Companion of the Order of the Bath .

At the end of December 1988, his time as British city commander in Berlin ended. He attended his last appointment as a guest at the Christmas party of the 248 German Security Unit in the Smuts Barracks in Berlin-Wilhelmstadt before he left the city that evening . Robert Corbett , a former schoolmate Brookings, succeeded him in January .

Patrick Brooking took over in London the top job recruiting department in the Ministry of Defense before it in 1991 as a major general in the retirement occurred.

For a short time returned Brooking again to Berlin and took over directorship at the telecommunications company Crown , in which he for the settlement of overseas business was responsible.

Social work

Colonel of Honor

In 1991 Brooking, following an old tradition for retired officers of the general rank, took over the post of Colonel of Honor in the 5th Regiment of the Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, his former unit.

In 1992 he moved to 1994 in the same function of the combined cavalry regiment Royal Dragoon Guards .

Chorister

Patrick Brooking was a great music lover and passionate choir singer . During his time as city commander, he worked as a singer in five choirs . On his initiative, a close connection was established between his home choir , the Salisbury Musical Society and the Berlin Philharmonic Choir . This connection ultimately resulted in four return visits and joint concerts between the two groups . He has also hosted Yehudi Menuhin on several occasions , who also conducted Brookings personally during a performance .

Because of his great commitment , Brooking was also given the honor of performing with the Berlin Philharmonic Choir on the occasion of the British War Requiem in 1990 .

British-German Association

Since 1997 Brooking has been involved in the British-German Association , which promotes understanding and connections between the two countries in the fields of business , politics and art . Above all, he used his numerous trips to Germany to get involved personally. In 2001 Brooking was elected President of the Association and was named Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George for his services . He held the honorary office of president until 2004.

International Club Berlin

After the withdrawal of the British armed forces from Berlin, Patrick Brooking campaigned for the formation of the International Club Berlin , which was founded on the site of the former British officers' club in Berlin-Charlottenburg as a meeting place. He again used his connection to the British royal family and achieved that Prince Charles took over the patronage of the club.

Patrick Brooking was founding president of the club in 1994 and one of the honorary members alongside former Federal Presidents Walter Scheel , Richard von Weizsäcker and Roman Herzog .

Brooking was last in Berlin in 2011.

Deputy Lieutenant

In 1997 he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant in his home county of Wiltshire, taking the position of Deputy Personal Representative to Queen Elizabeth II. With this administrative office he was entrusted with welcoming the members of the royal family.

Private

Brooking came from a soldier family and was the son of former Colonel Cyrill Brooking and his wife Geraldine. Since April 11, 1964, he was married to his wife Pamela, a daughter of Lieutenant Colonel John Walford. The daughter Samantha (* 1965) and the son Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Brooking (* 1967), who also served in the Royal Dragoon Guards and now works for the Ministry of Defense, emerged from the marriage. He was also a multiple grandfather and spoke fluent German.

Patrick Brooking died in January 2014 at the age of 76 of complications from a serious illness. The former major general found his final resting place in the cemetery of St. Michael's Church in Wilsford, southwest England .

In June 2017, the Kameradschaft 248 German Security Unit, which upholds the tradition of the unit that was responsible for protecting Brookings as city commander, honored him with a wreath-laying ceremony.

Awards

• Member of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (1975)
• Companion of The Most Honorable Order of the Bath (1988)
• Honorary Colonel (5 Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, 1991–1992)
• Colonel of Honor (Royal Dragoon Guards, 1992–1994)
• Order of Merit of the State of Berlin (1996)
• Companion of The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (1997)
• Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2004)

literature

• Robert Corbett: Berlin and the British Ally 1945-1990 . 1991.
• Werner Salomon: Focus Spandau: Memories . Projekt-Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-86634-139-3 .
• Volker Koop: Occupied - British occupation policy in Germany . be.bra.verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-89809-076-6 .
• Friedrich Jeschonnek, Dieter Riedel, William Durie: Allies in Berlin 1945-1994 , Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8305-0397-2
• Detlef Stronk: Berlin in the eighties . Berlin Story Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-86855-024-5 .

Web links

• The British city commanders on the GSU History website
• British-German Association website
• Website of the International Club Berlin

Individual evidence

1. ^ Carsten Schanz: The smiling general . In: GUARD REPORT . February 2014, 4th year. Comradeship 248 German Security Unit.
2. ^ THE TELEGRAPH (ed.): Major-General Patrick Brooking-obituary . 19th February 2014.
3. ↑ Elisabeth Binder: Patrick Brooking is dead - mourning for the former British commander. DER TAGESSPIEGEL ONLINE, January 25, 2014, accessed on February 18, 2018 . 
4. ^ Carsten Schanz: A visit to the Corbett's. Kameradschaft 248 German Security Unit e. V., June 2017, accessed on February 18, 2018 .