Werner von Kieckebusch

Werner von Kieckebusch (born November 11, 1887 in Kassel , † September 7, 1975 in Berlin-Lichterfelde ) was a German historian, genealogist and farmer. In 2020 his diary about the years 1945/1946 was published in Potsdam .

Live and act

Werner von Kieckebusch was a son of the Prussian Colonel Ernst Paul Peter Arthur von Kieckebusch and his wife Erna nee Henschel, daughter of the industrialist Oscar Henschel . The Kieckebusch family came from the Mark Brandenburg and was ennobled in 1906.

Kieckebusch spent the first two years of his life in Kassel, where his father served as adjutant in the 22nd Division . In 1889 the family moved to Metz . In 1895 his father became commander of the Magdeburg Dragoon Regiment No. 6 in Diedenhofen (Thionville) and in 1901 acquired the Hoof manor near Kassel. Werner von Kieckebusch first attended the Friedrichsgymnasium in Kassel and in 1908 passed the Abitur at the Pforta State School in Schulpforta . Then he joined the Prussian dragoon regiment "Freiherr von Manteuffel" (Rheinisches) No. 5 in Hofgeismar as a one-year volunteer . Further military uses failed because of a heart condition. Kieckebusch began an agricultural training, first in Vienau near Kalbe in the Altmark , then in Nackel in the Mark Brandenburg.

In 1911, with the support of his parents, Kieckebusch acquired the Altgaul estate on the western edge of the Oderbruch. In 1914, when the First World War broke out, Kieckebusch volunteered and was promoted to deputy sergeant in the reserve . After being wounded in September, he was awarded the Wound Badge and due to a heart condition he was retired and declared unfit for military service. In Altgaul, Kieckebusch built the old manor house into a castle-like mansion. Contacts with the imperial family existed through relationships with the educator of the Crown Prince's sons, Wilhelm-Dietrich von Ditfurth . After the end of the monarchy, the Crown Prince sons Wilhelm and Louis Ferdinand came to Altgaul to hunt several times. Frequent guests were also Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and his brother Prince Oskar of Prussia .

In view of the economic crisis in 1927 and the poor quality of the land on the estate, Kieckebusch sold Altgaul and moved with his family to Schwiessel near Prebberede near Rostock , rented the manor house of the Counts of Bassewitz and leased hunting rights. He began to work professionally as an archivist and genealogist. A portfolio of self-drawn coat of arms watercolors was also created. At the University of Rostock , he attended lectures in history and historical auxiliary sciences, namely genealogy, for four semesters. He often worked in the Reichsarchiv in Potsdam and published his first articles in specialist journals. In 1931 he entered the Knight of Honor in the Order of St. John , in 1957 he became a legal knight .

In 1933, Kieckebusch and his family moved to Jägerallee 40 in Potsdam, where he lived with brief interruptions until 1966. In 1927, at the request of his father-in-law, he began to write a chronicle of the Henschel family, which appeared in Kassel in 1931. The first commissioned work was the extensive history of the Brandenburg fire society , created between 1934/35 . The Secret State Archives in Berlin-Dahlem now became the permanent reference point for his work. In order to be able to publish during the time of National Socialism , he joined the Reichsschrifttumskammer and thus the NSDAP . In the following years the stories of the noble families Schallenberg and Esebeck emerged ; however, the latter was lost in 1945. In 1938, on behalf of the family, Kieckebusch published the history of the von Stülpnagel family , which he completed in 1957. For his research on the Heiligengrabe Monastery, commissioned by the Evangelical Consistory of Brandenburg , as a continuation of the monastery history by Johannes Simon published in 1929, Kieckebusch still had sources that were lost in World War II. The work, completed in 1949, was not published for financial reasons. Kieckebusch's “Chronicle of the Kloster zum Heiligengrabe - from the Reformation to the middle of the 20th century” was published in 2008.

Kieckebusch had already started a detailed diary in Altgaul. In Potsdam from April 1945 to 1950, he recorded current events as a chronicler with topics such as kidnapping, shootings, murder, rape, hunger, rationing and bartering, the establishment of Soviet occupation and the emergence of new bans on speaking and thinking. He wrote this for his younger son, who had been missing since the last days of the war.

The chronicle of the time from April 1945 to Christmas 1946 was published in 2020 under the title “I don't trust peace - life between two dictatorships” ; edited by Jörg Bremer . This diary and others with, among other things, photos and letters from members of the House of Prussia , guest books as well as lists of participants and routes of the hunts can still be found in the Secret State Archive of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin-Dahlem.

Between 1945 and 1948, members of the Hohenzollern family came to help the von Kieckebusch couple in Potsdam several times, e. E.g. in the form of CARE packages . In 1966, Kieckebusch moved with his wife from the GDR to West Berlin and lived first “Auf dem Grat 42” in Dahlem and then in the Johanniterhaus in the Lichterfelder Finckensteinallee.

Werner von Kieckebusch died on September 7, 1975 in Berlin and was buried in the family crypt at Gut Hoof near Kassel.

family

Werner von Kieckebusch married Elisabeth Marie von Krosigk (1890–1922), daughter of Prime Lieutenant Konrad von Krosigk and his wife Sarah Margarete, née Countess von Bentinck , in 1911 . After his wife died of appendicitis, he married Anna-Luise von Kriegsheim - Barsikow (1897–1981), the daughter of the chief judge and Prussian senior forester a. D. Adolph von Kriegsheim and his wife Elisabeth née von Platen .

Werner von Kiekebusch had three children.

From first marriage:

• Erika Sophie Anna (1912–1990) ⚭ 1933 Hans Heinrich von Korn (1903–1993), forester

From second marriage:

• Hubertus Ernst Adolph (1924–1942), Fahnenjunker-Gefreiter , killed at Dunajewo , godson of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia
• Burkard Ernst-Henning Adolf Oskar (1926–1945), Fahnenjunker NCO, missing since the Battle of Halbe , godson of Prince Oskar of Prussia

Publications

• History of the Henschel family , Kassel, 1931
• History of the Brandenburg Fire Society , 1934
• History of the family v. Stülpnagel , Volume 1, Berlin 1938
• Continuation of the story of the von Stülpnagel family , 1957
• Schallenberg family history , 1942
• Chronicle of the Kloster zum Heiligengrabe from the Reformation to the middle of the 20th century; edited by Brigitte Müller-Bülow zu Dohna and Gabriele Simmermacher, Studies on the History, Art and Culture of the Cistercians, Volume 28, Berlin ( Lukas Verlag ). 2008.
• I don't trust peace - life between two dictatorships - diaries 1945–1946 ; published by Jörg Bremer, Herder-Verlag , Freiburg , 2020,  ISBN 978-3-451-38551-3

literature

• Genealogical manual of the noble houses B , Volume II, Verlag CAStarke , 1956, p. 160 f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Werner von Kieckebusch in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Werner von Kieckebusch in the bibliographic database WorldCat

swell

• Secret State Archive of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin-Dahlem, VI, HA, NL Kieckebusch

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Sven Felix Kellerhoff: Fall of Potsdam: Why Prussia's Residence Was Destroyed . In: THE WORLD . April 14, 2020 ( welt.de [accessed August 2, 2020]).