Karl
Eduard Wilhelm Groener
(22.11.1867 - 03.05.1939)
place of birth: Ludwigsburg (Württemberg)
Königreich Württemberg:
1. General-Quartiermeister, KG,
Generalleutnant
Generalleutnant Wilhelm
Groener was a career officer in the Württemberg Army who
served at the end of the Great War as First
Quartermaster General. Born into the family of Karl Eduard Groener, a
regimental paymaster, and his wife Auguste Boleg, Wilhelm entered the
Württemberg Army in 1884 shortly after his Abitur exam and was a Portepéefähnrich on 8 August
1885. He attended the Kriegsakademie
from 1893 to 1896. By 1899, he became an almost permanent fixture in the
Great General Staff, where for the next 17 years he devoted
his energy to the Field Railway Section. As head
of this department, Groener was largely responsible for the
August 1914 mobilization and was vehemently opposed Moltke's
well-documented changes to the Schlieffen Plan. He
then headed up the supply and personnel departments at the War Office,
but his regard for the welfare of munitions workers and struggles with
war profiteers incurred the Supreme Command's wrath, so he was
eventually transferred to the Eastern Front as a corps level commander in Ukraine.
General Groener was awarded the Pour le Merite
in 1915 for organizing the railway transport of
Austro-German forces during the Galician campaign.
In the final month of the Great War, Kaiser
Wilhelm appointed General Groener to replace Ludendorff as First
Quartermaster General. OHL Headquarters retreated to the
German homeland, first to Kassel and then later to Kolberg, and Supreme
Command took over border security matters. In July 1919, Groener took
over for Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg when he stepped down as
Chief
of General Staff. When Kaiser Wilhelm II sought to deploy military
against post-war revolutionaries, Groener personally informed the
Kaiser that
the army no longer supported him. With the Kaiser's abdication, the Marxist
Spartacist League had declared a soviet republic in Berlin.
Newly-named Chancellor Friedrich Ebert sought to forestall the
communists' actions, but apparently on the spur of the moment Philip
Scheidemann proclaimed
the Republic. Groener, who was second-in-command of the German Army and
who had known Ebert
from the soldier's days in charge of war production, contacted the
socialist
leader that evening. The two men concluded the secret Ebert-Groener
Pact, with Ebert agreeing to suppress the Bolsheviks
and maintain the defeated Army's role as one of the pillars of
the German state. For his part, General Groener agreed to throw the
weight of the
still-considerable Army behind the new government. For this act,
Groener earned
the enmity of much of the military leadership, much of whom sought the
retention
of the monarchy. After supervising demobilization of the Army, Groener
served as Transportation Minister (1920-23), Reichswehr Defense
Minister (1928-32), and Interior Minister (1931-32). Groener
was married to Helene Geyer,
with whom he had one daughter, and later to Ruth Naeher-Glück, with
whom he had a son. He died on 3 May 1939 in Bornstedt near Potsdam.
"The
Army will march home in peace and order under its leaders and
commanding generals, but not under the command of Your Majesty...for it
no longer stands behind Your Majesty."
General Groener to Kaiser Wilhelm II
9 Nov 1918 - Spa, Belgium |
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1.
Gen-Quartiermeister |
30.10.1918
- 15.07.1919 |
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Generalleutnant |
01.11.1916 |
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Pour
le Mérite |
11.09.1915 |
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Württemberg
MVO |
03.07.1914
Ritter (Komtur: 13.07.1916) |
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