|
Maximilian
Wilhelm Gustav Moritz von Prittwitz und Gaffron
(27.11.1848 - 29.03.1917)
place of birth: Bernstadt, Niederschlesien (Bierutów, PL)
Königreich
Preußen: Gen-Insp,
OBH, Generaloberst
Imperial German Generaloberst Max von
Prittwitz briefly commanded the German Eighth Army at the
outbreak of World War One. Prittwitz was born into
a family of Silesian aristocrats. His mother was the former Elizabeth
von Klaß,
while his father Gustav had served as a general in the Prussian Army.
He was also a first cousin to Paul von Hindenburg's wife, Gertrude von
Sperling. Although reputed to be an excellent commander during the
pre-war years, several of Max von Prittwitz' contemporaries believed he owed his
command of the Eighth Army more to his courtly connections than to his
military skills. Chief of General Staff von Moltke and War
Minister Erich von Falkenhayn both supposedly considered him
intellectually and militarily unfit for command and simply wanted him
out of Berlin.
As a fledgling commissioned officer, Prittwitz
initially served in an infantry regiment and saw action in both the Austro-Prussian
War of 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War
of 1870-71. He rose steadily through the ranks of the German
military for the next forty years and was promoted to Generaloberst in
1913. As commander of the Eighth Army, von Prittwitz was tasked with
defending East Prussia from an attack by the Russian First and Second
Armies. On 20 August, as the Eighth Army's I. Corps had already met the
invading First Army head-on at Stallupönen
and
Gumbinnen. and with his
rear threatened by Samsonov's Second Army, Prittwitz made a fateful
call to Army Headquarters in Koblenz. With two of his
divisions in flight and threatened with encirclement, he notified Chief
of General Staff von Moltke that his forces would have to beat a
100-mile retreat back to the Vistula River. This
signified the abandonment of East Prussia, which the General Staff,
many of whom were from that state, found completely unacceptable. The
renowned Eighth Army 1.GSO Lt. Colonel Max Hoffmann, however, had been
able to convince Prittwitz to reverse his initial decision the very
next day. But these change of orders came too late for von Moltke, and
due to their perceived defeatist and panicked state, both Prittwitz and
his Chief of Staff Count Georg von Waldersee were replaced two weeks
after mobilization. Generaloberst von Hindenburg and right-hand man
Erich Ludendorff were immediately able to execute Hoffmann's plan and
thus succeeded in driving the two Russian armies from German soil
during the Battle of Tannenberg and Masurian
Lakes.
Max von Prittwitz was later desperate to
explain his actions, or inaction, which had resulted in his dismissal,
but he unfortunately never got this chance. He lived in retirement in
Berlin for the next three years of the War, when he died of a heart
attack on 29 March 1917 and was interred in Berlin's Invalidenfriedhof.
He was survived by his wife Olga von Dewitz. Their only son, Erdmann
von Prittwitz und Gaffron fell in battle on 23 May 1918.
|
