Wilhelm von Doering (General, 1819)

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Wilhelm von Doering, Prussian major general in the uniform of Queen Elisabeth's Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 3
Wilhelm von Doering as a cadet

Karl Gustav Alfred Wilhelm von Doering (born September 3, 1819 in Königsberg ; † August 16, 1870 near Vionville ) was a Prussian major general , killed as a brigade commander in the Franco-German War .

Life

Doering was the son of the later Prussian Lieutenant General  Karl August Heinrich Wilhelm von Doering (1791–1866) and his wife Emma Gertrude Marianne, née Freiin von Buddenbrock (1800–1820).

Early military career

Doering came to the cadet institute in Potsdam at the age of 11 in 1830 and from November 1833 he was promoted to the main cadet institute in Berlin . In 1836 he was transferred to the Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 1 of the Prussian Army in Berlin as a second lieutenant . From 1842 to 1844 he was assigned to the 1st Artillery Brigade in Danzig. At the beginning of October 1846 he was sent to the General War School in Berlin. During his vacation in 1847, he spent a short time with the 1st Leib-Hussar Regiment No. 1 in Rosenberg . Because of the unrest in Berlin ( March Revolution 1848 ), the General War School was closed in 1848, and the officers assigned to it were ordered home to join their troops. Doering took part in the street fighting in Berlin in March 1848 . He belonged to the fusilier battalion, which covered the castle and from here let his companies advance in different directions. Before that, he was one of those officers who had been given leave of absence because they followed Prince Friedrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg's request to fight the Danes in the Schleswig-Holstein Army . In 1848 he served as a company adjutant in the Schleswig-Holstein 10th Infantry Battalion, where he participated in the attack on Missunde (April 23, 1848) and in the siege of Fredericia (May to June 1849). In 1849 he was promoted to Prime Lieutenant and served in the Holstein Guard Landwehr Battalion.

In 1850 he returned to Prussia and continued his education in November at the General War School in Berlin. From February 1851 he was employed successively as an adjutant in the high command of the Guard Corps , the II and IV Army Corps . In 1852 he was promoted to captain . From 1854 he led a company in the Guard Grenadier Regiment. His independent troop leadership earned him general recognition and led to a transfer to the General Staff . In 1858 he joined the General Staff of the 3rd Division in Stettin , which was headed by Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia in 1859 . The cooperation and the relationship between the two men turned out to be very functional. In August 1860 Doering was appointed director of the war school in Potsdam, this use lasted until spring 1863. After Doering was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1863 , he took over the leadership of a battalion in the 5th Westphalian Infantry Regiment No. 53 in Münster . While participating in the war against Denmark , he distinguished himself in April 1864 when he stormed the Düppeler Schanzen and received the order Pour le Mérite . In June 1864 he was transferred to the General Staff in Berlin as department head . In 1865 he was promoted to colonel and assigned to major Russian troop maneuvers in Petersburg .

During the war against Austria , from March 1866, he headed the newly established intelligence service on the General Staff. A last personal attempt to keep the Kingdom of Hanover from war against Prussia failed. He met King George V in Langensalza on June 26th without achieving anything. Doering later reported about his brief audience with Georg V: “I opened the conversation with the expression of my painful regret that His Majesty, as I had already told me about Lieutenant von Broesigke had found out that I was not inclined to any arrangement which would be suitable for preventing bloodshed, but that, despite the low prospect of success, I consider myself obliged to make an attempt on my part to encourage His Majesty to accept the proposals I have made move. To the king's question; 'Who do you have your assignment from?' I replied: 'From His Majesty the King of Prussia' and to the question: 'From the King himself?' - by the Minister-President Count v. Bismarck . ' Thereupon the king asked: 'What does man want?', Which led me to the utterance: 'Above all else, I must humbly ask that your Majesty consider that you are speaking of a Prussian minister and then choose your expressions! ' The king then said: 'Well, we are all human beings' and asked me to communicate my assignment. ” During the advance in Bohemia , he was a section chief in the general staff of Moltke's headquarters and lived on July 3, 1866 during the battle of Königgrätz at. After the peace agreement , he was appointed commander of the 3rd Guard Grenadier Regiment Queen Elisabeth in Dresden , to whose Prussian occupation it belonged at the time, and in May 1867 he returned it to his peace garrison in Breslau .

Franco-German War

When the war against France broke out on July 14, 1870, he was given command of the 9th Infantry Brigade in the association of the 5th Division under Lieutenant General von Stülpnagel . In 1870 he was promoted to major general . On August 6th, during the Battle of Spichern , he recognized the distressed position of the 14th Division under General von Kameke . On his own initiative he led his brigade to urgent aid against the French right wing and played a major role in the success of the day. As the parent III. Army Corps under Lieutenant General von Alvensleben opened the Battle of Mars la Tour on August 16, the 9th Infantry Brigade suffered heavy losses due to the French defensive fire while advancing on Vionville. When Doering was developing his brigade on the plateau between Rezonville and Vionville around noon , a bullet hit him in the abdomen and he died on the battlefield. General von Alvensleben lamented Doering's death as a loss not only for the corps, but for the entire army, and General von Stülpnagel longed to return to Doering in later parts of the campaign in difficult situations. “If I had General von Doering now” (Dec. 4, 1870 battle near Orleans).

Doering was transferred to the Dohnaschen Gut Finckenstein in West Prussia and buried in the parish churchyard on the edge of an oak forest when the population showed great interest.

family

In 1852 Doering married Amalie zu Dohna-Schlobitten (* January 31, 1828 - December 19, 1897), daughter of Alexander Fabian zu Dohna-Schlobitten, at Finckenstein Castle . There were four children from the marriage:

  • Adele (* 1854), deaconess
  • Maria (1856 - 12 May 1907)
  • Emma (* 1858)
  • Wilhelm Hermann (June 19, 1859 - October 5, 1921) Herr auf Arnim ∞ Countess Mathilde Elisabeth Marie Finck von Finckenstein (* July 19, 1868 - May 25, 1950)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kurt von Priesdorff: Soldatisches Führertum. Volume 6, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1938], DNB 367632810 , p. 288, no. 1906.
  2. Constantin von Altrock: History of the Queen Elisabeth Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 3 . ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1897.
  3. Thilo Krieg: Wilhelm von Doering, royal Prussian major general. A picture of life and character . ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1898, p. 232 .
  4. Thilo Krieg: Wilhelm von Doering, royal Prussian major general. A picture of life and character . ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1898, p. 232, footnote .