Rüdiger von der Goltz (officer)

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Rüdiger von der Goltz (1918)

Gustav Adolf Joachim Rüdiger Graf von der Goltz (* December 8, 1865 in Züllichau ; † November 4, 1946 at Gut Kinsegg, Bernbeuren ) was a German lieutenant general , free corps leader in the Baltic States and opponent of the Weimar Republic .

Life

Rüdiger von der Goltz (center) in Finland (1918)

He comes from the branching noble family von der Goltz . His parents were the lawyer Gustav Albrecht von der Goltz (1831–1909) and his wife Cäcilie von Perbandt (1839–1871).

Von der Goltz his military career on March 3, 1885 began with the entry as a cadet in the 1st Guards Regiment walk the Prussian army . After attending the War Academy , various general staff and troop assignments followed.

At the beginning of the First World War , von der Goltz was a colonel and commander of the infantry regiment "Hamburg" (2nd Hanseatic) No. 76 , with whom he went to war on the western front . After recovering from an injury sustained in the Battle of the Marne , he was in the further course of the war with the leadership of various brigades, such as B. from November 18, 1914, the 34th Infantry Brigade (Großherzoglich Mecklenburgische) , commissioned on the western and eastern fronts. Major general since 1916 , he took over the 37th Division in June 1917 . On February 25, 1918, he was appointed commander of the 12th Landwehr Division , which was converted into the Baltic Sea Division on March 20 . With the association, Goltz and the troops commanded by Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim fought successfully against the rebellious Red Guards in the Finnish civil war . After he had already received both classes of the Iron Cross , he was awarded the Order Pour le Mérite on May 15, 1918 . As a German general in Finland , he worked on the organizational structure of the Finnish army until December 1918 . In recognition of his services, von der Goltz received the Finnish Order of the Cross of Freedom, 1st Class with Gems and Swords on July 8, 1918 .

On February 1, 1919, Goltz became the military governor of Libau ( Latvia ) and a little later also commanding general of the VI. Reserve Corps . The corps led regular units, voluntary corps and local troops of Latvian, Russian and Baltic German nationality in a multi-layered, civil war-like conflict against the army of Rätelettland (see Latvian War of Independence ). Allied sanctioning measures were required (including the Baltic Sea closure for German ships) so that the Goltz, as demanded by Estonians , Latvians and parts of the Reichswehr , took command of his troops, who were guilty of the shooting of several thousand Latvians, on October 12th 1919 gave up.

Declaration by the Reich Association of German Officers on the so-called Röhm Putsch

During the Kapp Putsch of 1920, von der Goltz acted as "Commander of the Berlin Defense Section" and was intended to be head of the troop office. In the interwar period , from 1924 to 1930, he headed the Jungdeutschland-Bund (or the resulting working group of patriotic youth ) for military education of German youth and from 1925 was the first chairman of the United Patriotic Associations of Germany (VvVD), where he was politically active Fritz Geisler ousted. On July 17, 1931, he handed over the petition from the Economic Policy Association of Frankfurt am Main to Reich President Paul von Hindenburg , demanding that the NSDAP participate in the government. In October of the same year he took part in the founding meeting of the anti-republic Harzburg Front . After the seizure of power by the National Socialists and the dissolution of VvVD he became leader of the politically influential largely loose Reich Association of German officers .

Von der Goltz received on 27 August 1939 the so-called Tannenbergtag , the character as a lieutenant general bestowed. After the end of the Second World War , on November 4, 1946, Rüdiger von der Goltz succumbed to a stroke on his Kinsegg estate in Upper Bavaria .

He was married to Hannah Caroline von Hase (1873-1941), a granddaughter of Karl von Hase . A son of the same name, Rüdiger von der Goltz , became a lawyer. Through Hannah von Hase, von der Goltz was related by marriage to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's mother , who Uncle Rudi often used as a code word for war .

Fonts (selection)

  • My show in Finland and the Baltic States. KF Koehler, Leipzig 1920 ( online ).
2. completely reworked. Edition: As a political general in the East: (Finland and the Baltic States) 1918 and 1919. KF Koehler, Leipzig 1936.
  • Defender of the Fatherland and Revolutionary Germany. German Michel, wake up! Issue 8. E. Letsch, Hanover and Leipzig 1923.

literature

  • Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Christian Zweng: The knights of the order Pour le Mérite of the First World War. Volume 2: HO. Biblio Verlag, Bissendorf 2003, ISBN 3-7648-2516-2 , pp. 502-504.
  • Pawel Bermondt-Awaloff : In the fight against Bolshevism. Memories. Berlin 1925.
  • Josef Bischoff : The last front. History of the Iron Division in the Baltic States 1919. Berlin 1935.
  • Representations from the post-war battles of German troops and Freikorps.
Volume 2: The campaign in the Baltic states up to the second capture of Riga. January to May 1919. Berlin 1937.
Volume 3: The fighting in the Baltic States after the second capture of Riga. June to December 1919. Berlin 1938.
  • The Baltic state army in the liberation struggle against Bolshevism. A memorial book published by the Baltic Defense Forces. Riga 1929.
  • Leon Kiewisz: Sprawy łotewskie w bałtyckiej polityce Niemiec 1914-1919. Poznań 1970.
  • Piotr Łossowski: Między wojną a pokojem. Niemieckie zamysły wojenne na wschodzie w obliczu traktatu wersalskiego. Marzec-kwiecień 1919. Warszawa 1976.
  • Tomasz Paluszyński: Walka o niepodległość Łotwy 1914–1921. Warszawa 1999.
  • Tomasz Paluszyński: Walka o niepodległość Estonii 1914–1920. Poznań 2007.
  • From the Baltic provinces to the Baltic states. Contributions to the genesis of the republics of Estonia and Latvia. Vol I (1917-1918), Vol II (1919-1920), Marburg 1971, 1977.
  • Jobst Knigge : Continuity of German War Aims in the Baltic States. German Baltic Policy 1918/19 and the Continuity Problem. Kovacs, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-8300-1036-2 .
  • Suomi 75 Itsenäisen Suomen histori I. Weilin-Göös, Jyväskylä 1991, ISBN 951-35-5158-X .
  • Bernhard Sauer : The Myth of Eternal Soldierhood. The campaign of the German Freikorps in the Baltic States in 1919. In: Journal of History. 43rd year 1995, issue 10. ( PDF, 7.4 Mbyte )
  • Juha E. Tetri: Kunniamerkkikirja. Ajatus kustannusosakeyhtiö: Helsinki 1998 ISBN 951-9440-23-2 .
  • Thilo Vogelsang:  Goltz, Gustav Adolf Joachim Rüdiger Graf von der. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , p. 634 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Spencer C. Tucker : World War I. The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Volume 2: D – J. Santa Barbara, California-Denver, Colorado-Oxford, England 2014, ISBN 978-1-85109-964-1 , p. 673.

Web links

Commons : Rüdiger von der Goltz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tetri 1998: 49.
  2. ^ Hanns Möller-Witten : Rüdiger Graf v. the Goltz . In: German Soldier Yearbook 1965: Thirteenth German Soldier Calendar. Schild-Verlag, Munich-Lochhausen 1965, p. 161.
personal data
SURNAME Goltz, Rüdiger from the
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goltz, Gustav Adolf Joachim Rüdiger Graf von der (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Lieutenant General, Freikorpsführer, opponent of the Weimar Republic
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Züllichau
DATE OF DEATH November 4, 1946
Place of death Bernbeuren