Walther
Gustav Reinhardt
(24.03.1872 - 06.08.1930)
place of birth: Stuttgart, Württemberg
Königreich Württemberg: AOK-Stabschef, Oberst
Walther Reinhardt was a Württemberg
officer who functioned during the Great
War as Chief of Staff for the Eleventh Field Army engaged n Macedonia
under General von Winckler. Reinhardt was born into the family of Royal Württemberg officer and regimental commander,
General August von Reinhardt. Walther's brother Ernst (1870-1939) was
also a general officer active during the Great War era. Walther and his
spouse Luise Fürbringer were married din
1900 and had three children.
In the year's leading up to the Great War,
Major Reinhardt functioned as the 1st General Staff Officer (Ia) at
Herzog Albrecht's XIII. Army Corps headquarters in Stuttgart. It was
also in this capacity that Reinhardt entered
the hostilities in August 1914, with the corps troops, now under the
command of Max von Fabeck, immediately seeing action at sites such as Longwy
and Varennes. In the Winter of 1914, Reinhardt and
most of the corps were transferred to the Ninth Army on the Eastern
Front, where they were engaged at Lowicz. When
Oberstleutnant Fritz von Loßberg was transferred to OHL in January of
1915, Reinhardt replaced him as XIII. Army Corps Chief of Staff. When
Theodor Freiherr von Watter replaced Fabeck at the helm of the corps,
it became the first time since 1870 that both the corps Commander and
Chief of Staff were Royal Württemberg
officers.
The XIII. Army Corps was deployed back to the
Western Front in September 1915, where it was briefly engaged in the Champagne
region, but then later became entrenched in Flanders. In November 1916,
Reinhardt was named Eleventh Army Chief of Staff in Macedonia. In
February 1917, he returned West to the River Aisne
region in order to head up General Max von Boehn's Seventh Army staff.
During the great Spring Offensive of 1918, the
Seventh Army took up a position on the right wing of the attacking
force, seeing success at Chemin des Dames and along
the Aisne-Marne-Canal. The Seventh Army likewise
participated in the final assault on over the Marne
in mid-July 1918, although the forces were soon instructed to pull back.
Approximately one week prior to the
Armistice, Oberst Reinhardt was brought back to Berlin to
head up the Prussian War Ministry's newly-organized Demobilization
Branch. In January 1919, he replace Heinrich Scheüch to become Prussia's last
Minister of War. In the chaos of post-War Germany, Reinhardt was very
successful in helping that country's remnant military forces into what
would soon become the Reichswehr. Serving as the
first head of Germany's Army Command, Chef der Heeresleitung,
Reinhardt was eventually promoted up to General of Infantry and
remained on active duty until December 1927 at 55 years of age. The
general died three years later and was interred in Berlin.
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Oberst |
18.04.1918 |
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Pour
le Mérite |
30.04.1917
(Eichenlaub: 03.06.1918) |
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Württemberg
MVO |
00
Ritter |
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