Victor Franke

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Victor Franke (1907)

Erich Victor Carl August Franke (* July 21, 1866 in Zuckmantel ; † September 7, 1936 in Hamburg ) was a German major general and the last commander of the Imperial Protection Force in German South West Africa .

biography

Victor Franke, son of a landowner, began his military career after graduating from high school in 1887 when he joined the Silesian Pioneer Battalion No. 6 in Neisse . On May 20, 1896, he left the Prussian Army , meanwhile with the rank of first lieutenant , and on May 26, 1896 joined the Imperial Protection Force for German South West Africa . Just a month later he started his service in Swakopmund . First he served as district chief of Otjimbingwe , then of Omaruru . From late 1897 to March 1898 he was involved in the fight against the Swartbooi . In 1899 he took over the management of the Outjo district , from where he went on an extensive research trip to the northern and at the time almost unknown Ovamboland . In 1901 he became district chief of Sesfontein , in 1903 he was appointed captain and he returned to Omaruru.

Cover picture "Die Heldenkompanie Franke", Volume 32 of the magazine novel series Under the German Flag (Reprint 1933, original edition around 1912)

In 1904 Franke was involved in the armed conflict between the Schutztruppe and the rebellious Bondelswart in the south of the country. After the news of the Herero uprising around Okahandja reached him, he and his company embarked on a violence of almost 400 km in four and a half days, unique in the history of the protection force, and drove the Herero fighters from Okahandja and Omaruru after heavy fighting. Franke was not involved in the decisive battles on the Waterberg .

He was awarded numerous medals for his military successes. Among other things, Wilhelm II personally honored him on November 2, 1905 with the highest Prussian order of valor, the Pour le Mérite .

In order to survive the exertion, he repeatedly resorted to morphine after clues in his diaries . Franke is said to have been addicted to alcohol and morphine . His native lover is said to have borne him children; Nothing more is known about this.

After the Herero War, Franke took command again in Outjo, from where he made several trips to Ovamboland and concluded protection treaties with five tribes living there. In 1910 he was promoted to major .

At the beginning of the First World War , the German district captain of Outjo, Hans Schulze-Jena, was murdered in Fort Naulila in the neighboring Portuguese colony of Angola . A troop under Viktor Franke then stormed the fort in the battle for Naulila on December 18, 1914. In November 1914, after the death of the Schutztruppe commander Joachim von Heydebreck , Franke was appointed lieutenant colonel and commander of the Imperial Protection Force in German South West Africa. On July 9, 1915, Franke surrendered at Khorab to the overwhelming strength of the Union Defense Force advancing from South Africa in order to save the German armed forces from a devastating defeat, and signed the surrender protocol. In later years this was accused by some quarters as a dishonorable act. Until the end of the war Franke was interned on the Okawajo farm near Karibib . After the end of the war and his return to Germany, he was given the character of Major General by the Reich President Friedrich Ebert in 1920 and was adopted into retirement.

Viktor Franke married Maria Diekmann, the daughter of a large merchant and his wife Molly Kraeft, in Hamburg in 1921 and lived as a farmer on Gut Groß-Schwaß near Rostock from 1927 to 1930 . Franke, who had suffered from chronic tropical diseases since his arrival in German South West Africa , moved in 1930 with his wife to an estate belonging to the family in São Paulo , Brazil , to operate a mineral water factory in Itajahy because of increasing health problems . They later moved to Joinville in Brazil, but had to return to Germany in 1936 because of his deteriorating health, where he hoped for medical help from the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg. He died childless in Hamburg on September 7, 1936.

After his cremation, an odyssey of his urn via Berlin to Brazil began for unknown reasons . His widow Maria Franke is said to have been refused a burial of the urn in Omaruru in South West Africa. Finally, on September 2, 1957, Victor Franke's remains were buried in the Ohlsdorf cemetery where he died in Hamburg .

Memories of Victor Franke

The Franketurm in Omaruru
  • In 1904 Victor Franke was honored by the community of Omaruru with the erection of a memorial tower , the " Franketurm " still standing there today .
  • The violence from the south of South West Africa to Okahandja has become a legendary part of German colonial history, which gave rise to many books and enthusiastic battle stories.
  • The life of Victor Franke became known to a broad public in 2003 through the novel "Herero" by Gerhard Seyfried . The author Franke's detailed diaries were the authoritative source of the book and are kept in the Koblenz Federal Archives under the signature BArch NL 30 / 1–16. The publishing house "Namibiana Buchdepot", which published the first volume of Die Tagebücher des Schutztruppenoffizier Victor Franke in 2003, is currently working on the subsequent Franke diaries in three more volumes.

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i 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. 1351.
  2. ↑ a b Gisela Graichen; Horst founder: German colonies, dream and trauma. Ullstein Tb 2007, ISBN 3548369405 , p. 139.
personal data
SURNAME Franke, Victor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Franke, Erich Victor Karl August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German major general and last commander of the Imperial Protection Force in German South West Africa
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Zuckmantel
DATE OF DEATH September 7, 1936
Place of death Hamburg