Walter von Eberhardt

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General von Eberhardt

Friedrich Wilhelm Magnus Heinrich Walter von Eberhardt (born January 7, 1862 in Berlin , † January 7, 1944 in Wernigerode ) was a German lieutenant general . In 1913 he became the first inspector of the air force (IdFlieg) of the German army .

Life

Walter von Eberhardt was the offspring of an old city dynasty from Görlitz and Bautzen . He was a son of the later Prussian major general Heinrich von Eberhardt (1821–1899). His two older brothers also embarked on a military career in the Prussian Army . Magnus (1855-1939) rose to general of the infantry , Gaspard (1858-1928) to lieutenant general.

Eberhardt joined the Prussian Army on November 12, 1878 , coming from the Cadet Corps as a Second Lieutenant . Eberhardt served in the Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 5 and, as a major (since November 22, 1902), was in 1909 the commander of the Potsdam NCO School . On September 17, 1909, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in this capacity . In 1911, when he was transferred to Altenburg, he returned to military service. Here he came to the 8th Thuringian Infantry Regiment No. 153 , as its commander, after being promoted to colonel on April 22, 1912.

Air Force Inspector

As the Prussian army on October 1, 1913 to better coordinate its being established air forces the inspection of the air force (Idflieg) and the inspection of the airship troops (IdLuft) founded, Eberhardt was appointed the first Chief of the air force. In this function he was also an extraordinary member of the traffic engineering examination commission in Berlin .

Like IdLuft, IdFlieg was subordinate to the Inspection of Military Aviation and Motor Vehicles (ILuK) formed in 1911 under Major General Wilhelm Messing (and this in turn was subordinate to the General Inspection of Military Transport ) and led the Royal Prussian Air Force, including those subordinate to them sovereign units of Saxony and Württemberg , but not the aviation units of Bavaria .

After the outbreak of World War I , Eberhardt tried unsuccessfully to control the chaos of the front, stage and home organization of the air force. His proposal to establish a "Chief of Field Aviation " at the Supreme Army Command (OHL) and " Commanders of the Aviators " at the Army High Command for more effective management was supported by the Chief of the General Staff , Colonel General Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. J. , rejected on August 27, 1914. It was not until March 11, 1915 that the "Chief of Field Aviation" department was created and placed with the Army Quartermaster General . The first and only chief of field aviation was Major i. G., later Lieutenant Colonel i. G. Hermann Thomsen . He was assigned the management of field pilots, field airmen and tethered balloons for the purpose of effective organization and training, albeit without tactical-operational powers.

When, on October 8, 1916, a comprehensive reorganization of the command structure of the air force was finally carried out, this also brought about the elimination of Eberhardt's office and his transfer to the troop service. Lieutenant General Ernst von Hoeppner was appointed to the newly created office of the "Commanding General of the Air Force" ( Kogenluft ) in the main headquarters . Eberhardt, who has meanwhile been promoted to major general (since January 27, 1915), was awarded the Order of the Red Eagle, 2nd class with oak leaves and swords , on October 12, 1916 . As early as September 18, 1916, Eberhardt had been appointed commander of the 20th Landwehr Division , which he commanded until March 30, 1917. He then had command of the 45th Reserve Division until February 24, 1918 . From February 27, 1918 until the end of the war, Eberhardt was commander of the 37th Division on the Western Front , which he had taken over on February 27, 1918 as the successor to Major General Rüdiger von der Goltz . In the spring of 1918 he took part in the 18th Army section in the spring offensive.

Baltic 1919

On December 30, 1918 he was appointed Deputy Commanding General of the XX. Army Corps appointed in Olsztyn. At the beginning of 1919 he was entrusted by Field Marshal Hindenburg with the defense of the Kulmerland against Polish claims, but then ordered behind the Soldau line, and Poland occupied this part of West Prussia . On February 22, 1919 he became the commander of the 46th Landwehr Division (2nd Royal Saxon) , which provided occupation and security service in Lithuania . It was in April 1919 demobilized , and from remaining and newly recruited volunteers was the brigade southern Lithuania , a volunteer corps formed which, together with Lithuanian troops against the invading forces of the Red Army fought. The last volunteers of the South Lithuania Brigade left Lithuania in July 1919.

On October 13, 1919 Eberhardt released the commanding general of VI. Reserve Corps , Rüdiger von der Goltz , which, due to its unauthorized policy in the Baltic States, was no longer acceptable either with the victorious powers or with the German government. The corps led regular units of the German army, 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 ). When the volunteer Russian Western Army of the Russian adventurer Bermondt, consisting of 80% German Freikorps, was forced to retreat after its unsuccessful attack on Riga by a Latvian counter-offensive in November 1919 and was also expelled from Mitau , Bermondt fled to Denmark . The remnants of his German Freikorps were placed under Lieutenant General von Eberhardt on November 10, who organized their evacuation to East Prussia . This was completed by mid-December 1919. Then Eberhardt acted as leader of the Reichswehr Brigade 20.

Ring of Aviators

In 1922, Eberhardt became the successor to the late General Ernst von Hoeppner, Chairman of the Ring der Flieger e. V. , the association of aviation "comradely associations", which was established on October 29, 1933 in the German Air Sports Association e. V. gleichgeschaltet was.

Awards

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Genealogical handbook of the nobility . Noble houses B. Volume XVIII, p. 484, Volume 95 of the complete series, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1989, ISBN 3-7980-0700-4 , p. 88.
  2. ↑ a b c Eberhardt. in: Gothaisches Genealogisches Taschenbuch der Briefadeligen houses. Vol. 14 (1920), section Biss-Mann.
  3. ^ List of seniority of officers in the Prussian Army and the XIII. (Royal Württemberg Army Corps 1917. Ed .: War Ministry . ES Mittler & Sohn . Berlin 1917. p. 6.
  4. ↑ a b Dermot Bradley (Ed.), Günter Wegner: Occupation of the German Army 1815-1939 Volume 1: The higher command posts 1815-1939 , Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1990, ISBN 3-7648-1780-1 , p. 194
  5. ↑ V. Lesčius: The Lithuanian Armed Forces in the Struggle for Independence 1919-1920, p. 436 (PDF file; 72 kB)
  6. ↑ D. Schröder, Otto Schroeder, Ralph von Heygendorff: The Saxon volunteer troops in Lithuania 1919. Dresden, 1933
  7. ↑ Bernhard Sauer: From the myth of an eternal soldierhood. The German Freikorps campaign in the Baltic States in 1919 . In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft (ZfG) , Volume 43, 1995, Issue 10, pp. 869–902 (here p. 892) (PDF file; 7.28 MB)
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h i 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. 123.
personal data
SURNAME Eberhardt, Walter von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eberhardt, Friedrich Wilhelm Magnus Heinrich Walter von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Lieutenant General, Inspector of the Air Force
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 1944
Place of death Wernigerode