Siegfried zu Eulenburg-Wicken

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Botho Karl Siegfried Graf zu Eulenburg-vetch (* 10. October 1870 in Krag , † 18 October 1961 in Lindau (Bodensee) ) was a German colonel , leader of an eponymous volunteer corps and owner of the manor vetch in the district Bartenstein .

Life

origin

Siegfried was the eldest son of the later general of the cavalry Karl Botho zu Eulenburg (1843-1919) and his first wife Luise Johanna Valeska, born von Bonin (1845-1871). He was married to Jeanne von der Burg (1872–1960), daughter of the infantry general Ernst von der Burg . They had two children together: Siegrid zu Eulenburg (1898–1965) and Botho Ernst zu Eulenburg (1903–1944), who with Adelheid Freiin von Weizsäcker (1916–2004), daughter of the politician and State Secretary in the Foreign Office, Ernst Freiherr von Weizsäcker , was married.

Military career

The high school graduate of the Berlin Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium entered the 1st Guard Regiment on foot of the Prussian Army in Potsdam on April 23, 1889 as an avantageur . Here he became second lieutenant on October 14, 1890 . As such, Eulenburg was commanded from October 1, 1897 to July 1900 for further training at the War Academy and in the meantime promoted to lieutenant on February 9, 1899 . After brief service in the troops, he was assigned to the General Staff on April 1, 1901 for two years . He then returned to his regular regiment, was promoted to captain on June 6, 1905 and appointed chief of the 10th Company on September 27, 1905 . With his promotion to major , Eulenburg came to the regimental staff on October 1, 1913.

First World War

During the mobilization in 1914 Eulenburg was given command of the 1st Battalion. At its head he moved into neutral Belgium in conjunction with the 1st Guard Division . Eulenberg was seriously wounded for the first time in the Battle of Namur on August 24, 1914. It was not until March 1915 that he was ready for front use again and returned to his battalion. During the winter battle in Champagne , Eulenberg was wounded again, but stayed with his battalion. In April 1915 he moved to the Eastern Front , where his unit proved itself in the breakthrough battle of Gorlice-Tarnów and was then used on the San . This was followed by the fighting near Lubaczów and the battle near Grodek - Lemberg . On July 11th, Eulenberg was seriously wounded by shrapnel on his stomach near Baciska . After a stay in the hospital, it was not ready for use again until October 1915. He now led his battalion on the western front in the trench warfare at Roye - Noyon . On the Somme , Eulenburg took over the command of the Queen Elisabeth Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 3 at short notice on October 30, 1916 for the sick commander . After the previous regiment commander Friedrich von Bismarck had fallen on November 6, 1915, Eulenberg finally succeeded his main regiment on the same day. In the following Battle of the Somme he was able to prove himself with the regiment, received the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords and then took part in the retreat to the Siegfried position . At the beginning of the Battle of the Aisne , his regiment was initially ready as an intervention reserve and only intervened after the attack by the French on the Chemin des Dames . Eulenberg received the order to recapture the lost left section. After the reconquest, he suffered his fourth wound in this war from shrapnel the following day. However, he remained with his troops, was able to defend the area assigned to him against attacks and was finally pulled from the front at the end of April 1917.

He came with his regiment to the Argonne , where it remained until the beginning of July 1917, then was shipped to the east and used in the Zloczow section in eastern Galicia . During the breakthrough battle on the Sereth from July 19, 1917, his regiment was able to bring in 650 prisoners on the first day as well as capture one gun , two machine guns and four mine throwers . His division commander Eitel Friedrich von Prussia submitted it to the Pour le Mérite for these successes , which Eulenburg received on August 27, 1917 through AKO . By this time the regiment was already on the northern wing of the Eastern Front and was taking part in the capture of Riga . At the beginning of October 1917, Eulenburg and his regiment returned to the western front in the Reims area , where they remained until the end of January 1918. Here it fought from March 21 to April 6, 1918 in the Great Battle of France . On March 31, eleven enemy officers and 220 men were captured and one gun, three heavy and three light machine-guns and a tank were captured. During the fighting, however, his regiment itself suffered high losses. Nine officers, 173 NCOs and men were dead, 15 officers, 779 NCOs and men were wounded and 41 men were missing. Eulenburg himself was wounded for the fifth time on April 10th. After several weeks of rest and training on the Somme and in Belgium, the replenished regiment entered the fighting near Soissons and Reims at the end of May 1918 . In mid-July it stood on the Marne , crossed the river near Dormans and was able to gain a few kilometers of terrain. Due to the strong enemy counter-attacks, the regiment had to be taken back to the northern bank of the river by the Supreme Army Command . His brigade commander, Major General von der Osten, applied for the oak leaves for the Pour le Mérite for Eulenburg's services. As only one of six regimental commanders, Eulenberg was awarded this high medal on September 4, 1918.

After a short rest, his regiment was deployed in the defensive battle between Oise and Aisne at the end of August 1918 , where Eulenberg was also in charge of the 1st Guard Infantry Brigade from August 26th to 30th, 1918. He then moved the regiment to the Argonne and fought there until the armistice .

Free Corps Leader

After the end of the war, Eulenburg returned the remnants of his regiment to the home garrison in Potsdam on November 12, 1918, where it arrived on December 11, 1918. However, Eulenberg resigned when he was supposed to share it with the soldiers' councils of the garrison. He was then sent to the War Ministry and tasked with setting up a volunteer corps. In February 1919 he set up the 1,800-strong Freikorps named after him, some of which came to Courland , then to Upper Silesia , and was finally deployed in Frankfurt (Oder) . In July 1919 it was transferred to the Provisional Reichswehr as the Reichswehr Infantry Regiment 52 . Eulenburg commanded the regiment for two months, was on leave and on 31 March 1920 the character as a lieutenant colonel retired from military service.

Post-war years

Eulenburg then managed the Wicken family estate. He was involved in building up the local border guard and from 1920 to 1933 he was the regional leader of the East Prussian steel helmet .

Eulenburg received the character of a colonel on August 27, 1939, the so-called Tannenberg Day.

Towards the end of the Second World War , he had to flee from his estate in mid-January 1945 before the advancing Red Army , the 2000 kilometer long escape ended in Lindau. There he lived with his wife with the family of his daughter-in-law Adelheid and her parents Ernst and Marianne von Weizsäcker.

Awards and honors

Eulenburg was also Honorary Commander of the Order of St. John . Later he was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Prussian Shield of the East Prussian Landsmannschaft .

literature

  • Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Christian Zweng: The knights of the order Pour le Mérite of the First World War. Volume 1: A-G. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1999, ISBN 3-7648-2505-7 , pp. 379-381.
  • Hanns Möller: History of the knights of the order pour le mérite in the world war. Volume I: A-L. Bernard & Graefe publishing house, Berlin 1935, pp. 287–290.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kurt von Priesdorff : Soldatisches Führertum . Volume 10, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1942], DNB 986919810 , pp. 429-430, no. 3309.
  2. ↑ Harold J. Gordon Jr .: The Reichswehr and the Weimar Republic 1919–1926. Verlag für Wehrwesen Bernard & Graefe, Frankfurt am Main 1959, p. 417.
  3. ^ Georg Tessin : German associations and troops 1918–1939. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1974, ISBN 3-7648-1000-9 , p. 50.
  4. ^ Georg Tessin : German Associations and Troops 1918–1939 , Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1974, ISBN 3-7648-1000-9 , p. 128
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Prussian War Ministry (ed.): Ranking list of the Royal Prussian Army and the XIII. (Royal Württemberg) Army Corps for 1914. ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1914, p. 142.
personal data
SURNAME Eulenburg-Wicken, Siegfried to
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Botho Karl Siegfried Graf zu Eulenburg-Wicken (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German colonel, free corps leader and landlord
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Cranes
DATE OF DEATH October 18, 1961
Place of death Lindau (Lake Constance)