Wilhelm Riistow

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wilhelm Riistow around 1865

Wilhelm Riistow (born May 25, 1821 in Brandenburg an der Havel ; † August 14, 1878 in Aussersihl near Zurich ) was a German soldier , freedom fighter and radical democrat , military writer and historian . He was a great-uncle of Alexander Riistow .

Life

Riistow studied law at the University of Heidelberg and from 1838 to 1840 at the Artillery and Engineering School in Berlin . In 1840 he became an officer in the Prussian Army Pioneer Troop . His first book, The Basic Lines for a Philosophy of Fortifications , was published anonymously as early as 1843 . In 1845, under his pseudonym Huldreich Schwertlieb, the two publications Der Deutschen Festungsvertheidigerstellung and Gefechtskunst und Krieg der Zukunft were published , in which he already spoke out in favor of the creation of a people's armed forces . At the end of 1846, Rüstow was transferred to Königsberg (Prussia) , where under General Leopold von Brese-Winiary the walling around the city had been under construction since 1843, the use of which he questioned through anonymously published articles in the magazine Minerva . Riistow led public debates in the Democratic Club and also made himself known through articles on military issues in the Neue Königsberger Zeitung . In 1847 he distributed the leaflet Letter from a Democratic Officer to the Men of the People and took an active part in the March Revolution .

On November 25, 1848, he was suspended from service and had to endure a series of military court proceedings, which were initially in his favor. But when on December 29, 1849 his book The German Military State before and during the revolution in Koenigsberg was published by the Samter publishing house, he was arrested for the statements made in it. The edition of the book still available in Prussia was confiscated. This book led to a new military trial , and this time, on March 7, 1850, Riistow was sentenced by the military court in Poznan to one and a half years of fortress arrest , loss of the national cockade and expulsion from the officer rank for public incitement to riot and libel . At the personal order of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV , the matter was tried again before the court martial in Stettin . On the night of June 30, 1850, Rüstow was able to escape from prison in Switzerland. In absentia he was sentenced on August 6, 1850 for high treason and lese majesty, among other things, to 31½ years with subsequent ten years of police supervision.

Letter of authorization from Wilhelm Riistow by Garibaldi

In exile in Switzerland, he wrote in Aussersihl near Zurich numerous books on contemporary wars, war theories and a military reference book that has been widely attention. He maintained correspondence with numerous other German emigrants such as Georg Herwegh and Hermann Köchly . From the winter semester of 1852 to the winter semester of 1854 he taught as a private lecturer at the University of Zurich , where he had completed his habilitation . In 1853 Riistow became an instructor in the Swiss Army . A pardon request failed in 1856, although Otto von Bismarck , the Prussian MP in Frankfurt at the time, had campaigned for him with the king. In 1856 he received Swiss citizenship from Bauma and was promoted to major in the engineering troops. In 1857 Riistow married and became a father. Of the four children, only two daughters who looked after their mother, who had a spinal cord disease, survived.

In the summer of 1860 he took part in the Second Italian War of Liberation at the bidding of Emma Herwegh as Chief of Staff Giuseppe Garibaldis , then as commander of the left wing of the Southern Army and was victorious on September 19 at Capua and on October 1 against the Neapolitans . After Garibaldi had handed over his conquests to King Viktor Emanuel II, Riistow returned to Switzerland as a Colonel Brigadier. 1864 was Rüstow personal Sekundant of Ferdinand Lassalle and witnessed this in an August 28, 1864 duel in a grove at Geneva was mortally wounded.

From 1867 to 1869, Rustow visited Paris several times at the invitation of the government to oversee the translation of some of his works and their inclusion in school books. In 1870 he unsuccessfully offered his services to Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War and finally became a colonel in the Swiss General Staff. The income from his literary works ebbed and he ran into financial difficulties. When, on October 26, 1877, a chair for war sciences was established at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich, today's ETH , with retroactive effect , Rüstow was appointed, but after the end of the winter half of 1877/78 the teaching post was transferred to the Swiss Emil Rothpletz . On August 14, 1878, Rüstow desperately shot himself in his apartment in Aussersihl near Zurich.

His two younger brothers Alexander Riistow d. Ä. and Caesar Riistow were also officers and military writers. They both died in the German-German War in 1866 .

Act

Wilhelm Riistow is one of the few German military writers who were able to bring their own practical experience from high management positions to their writings. His works were a popular topic of conversation at court and were even appreciated by opponents.

His extensive, varied work can be classified into three categories:

  • Basic research ( general tactics , the doctrine of small wars , the art of military command of the nineteenth century, etc.)
  • Investigation of contemporary and historical wars ( The German-Danish War 1864 , Greek war writers , etc.)
  • Military research tools ( military dictionary , war policy and use of war , etc.)

In the case of the war investigations, it must be recognized that Riistow seldom knew how to sift through the sources and separate the essentials from the insignificant, even though the events only happened a few months ago.

Wilhelm Riistow is considered to be one of the most prominent German representatives of the People's Armed Forces , the idea of ​​which he tried to underpin in some of his writings and which he was able to essentially implement with others during his Swiss exile in the Swiss General Staff .

His estate is in the Liestal Poet and City Museum .

Works

http://www.mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn=urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10807437-6 digitized version of the Bavarian State Library]

literature

  • Brockhaus yearbook Our time. 4th volume, Leipzig 1860, pp. 136-139
  • Marcel Herwegh: Guillaume Rustow. Un grand Soldat - Un grand Caractère (1821–1878), avec des lettres inédites en fac-similé de Garibaldi et de Bismarck . Paris, Neuchâtel, Editions V. Attinger, 1935
  • Robert von Steiger: The Rustow Trial, 1848-1850: a military policy controversy . Dissertation, Bern, 1937.
  • Bernhard von Poten :  Rustow . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 30, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, pp. 34-38.
  • Robert von Steiger: The Rustow Trial 1848/50; a defense policy controversy. Dissertation, Bern 1936
  • Peter Wiede: Wilhelm Rustow, 1821–1878, a military writer on the German left . Dissertation, Munich 1957
  • Carlo Moos: Wilhelm Rustow, Garibaldi stratega e l'ambiente zurighese . In: Garibaldi alla libertà, atti del convegno internazionale, Roma 29-31 maggio 1982, 235-294; Testi nel tedesco e italiano . Roma, Ministero della Difesa, 1984, pp. 235-294
  • Carlo Moos: Wilhelm Rustow and Switzerland . Actes du symposium 1987 (Center d'Histoire et de Prospective militaires, 5), Pully 1989. pp. 65-79
  • Thomas Will: Friedrich Wilhelm von Rüstow (1821–1878), a description of his teaching and expert activity in Switzerland from 1850 to 1878 in selected examples . Zurich, University, 1987 (licensed thesis)
  • Bruno Thoss :  Riistow, Friedrich Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 227 f. ( Digitized version ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert von Steiger: The Rustow Trial, 1848-1850: a military policy controversy . Dissertation. Bern 1937, p. 26.
  2. ↑ In the catalog of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek this book is assigned to the authors Franz Gemmingen von Massenbach and Georges François Symon de Carneville. The digitized version is the same. Digitized version of the Bavarian State Library
  3. ↑ (Anonymous) The historical-political development of the question of whether fixed places are necessary or superfluous for today's warfare? Four letters from a German engineer. In: Minerva, A Journal for History, Politics and the Present. Edited by Friedrich Bran. 221st and 222nd volumes. Jena 1847 I. and II.
  4. ^ Alfred Liede: The Herwegh archive in the poet museum Liestal. With a contribution by Edgar Schumacher. Separate print from «Scripta Manent» 5./6. (1960/61), No. 8-11, pp. 53-55.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Riistow, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Riistow, Friedrich Wilhelm; Dear sword, Huldreich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German revolutionary military writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1821
PLACE OF BIRTH Brandenburg on the Havel
DATE OF DEATH August 14, 1878
PLACE OF DEATH Aussersihl , Switzerland