Roland Ostertag (officer)

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Roland Friedrich Wilhelm Ostertag (born June 10, 1869 in Milan , † June 23, 1916 in Ghent ) was a Prussian officer and military attaché .

Life

Military career

Ostertag joined the Prussian Army in the 1880s . At the turn of the century, Ostertag was assigned to the General Staff , where he became a protégé of General Alfred von Schlieffen . He served there with the rank of captain as adjutant to the quartermaster general .

In 1909 Ostertag was sent to the German Embassy for the United Kingdom in London as a military attaché , where he was responsible for maintaining military-political relations between the two states. Convinced that the German-British tensions of these years were due to the jealous fears of the British government that Great Britain would soon be "left behind" by the German Empire as the leading trading and industrial power, Ostertag entered the London embassy, ​​together with the naval attaché Wilhelm Widenmann as an advocate of a “hard line” towards the host country. This put him in opposition to the Ambassador Paul Graf von Metternich and the Embassy Secretary Richard von Kühlmann , who were aiming for a moderate course and saw the reasons for the German-British resentment primarily in the construction of the German deep-sea fleet. Widenmann and Ostertag, on the other hand, took the position that British displeasure with German naval construction was not the actual reason, but only one of the reasons for the tension in the relations between the two powers, the real reason for which lies in the aforementioned British fear of competition. The differences between Ostertag and Widenmann on the one hand and the representatives of the moderate course on the other went so far that Ostertag was on the verge of challenging Kühlmann, by whom he felt betrayed, to a duel.

After his return to military service at the end of 1913, Ostertag was a major (since September 10, 1908) in command of the 1st Battalion of the Emperor Franz Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 2 in Berlin. He also held this position at the beginning of the First World War . In the further course of the war, Ostertag then became Chief of the General Staff of the Stage Inspection of the 4th Army in Ghent. Here he died in 1916 and at the time of his death held the rank of lieutenant colonel .

Ostertag has received several awards for his services. He was the holder of the Red Eagle Order IV. Class, the Crown Order III. Class, Commander of Honor of the Princely House Order of Hohenzollern and Commander of the Royal Victorian Order .

family

During his time in London Ostertag met Alix Bingel (1889–1953), whom he married in 1913. In his second marriage, Bingel was married to Gunthram Freiherr Schenk zu Schweinsberg (1874–1944) from 1920.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Date of birth after entry in August Ludwig Degener, Walter Habel: Who is who? The German Who's Who. 1909. Year of death in the entry on the Schenk zu Schweinsberg family in: Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Freiherrliche Häuser. Vol. XVII., P. 426
  2. ^ Wilhelm Widenmann: Naval attaché at the Imperial German Embassy in London. 1954, p. 40.
  3. ↑ a b Ranking list of the Royal Prussian Army and the XIII. (Royal Württemberg) Army Corps for 1914. Ed .: War Ministry , ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1914, p. 149.
  4. ^ Honorary ranking list of the former German Army , publisher: Deutscher Officier-Bund, ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1926, p. 113.
personal data
SURNAME Easter day, Roland
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ostertag, Roland Friedrich Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian officer and military attaché
DATE OF BIRTH June 10, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Milan
DATE OF DEATH June 23, 1916
Place of death Ghent