Albrecht von Blumenthal

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Albrecht von Blumenthal (10 August 1889 – 28 March 1945) was a

professor and soldier.

Early life

Albrecht

.

World War I

He volunteered as a trooper in the Second Heavy Cavalry at the outbreak of the First World War and was commissioned in the field after a few months. In the

.

Career

After the war he taught at

, which followed that year when he was appointed to a residential teaching professorship. However, he took little part in its activities and never rose to any significant rank in the party. His publications throughout the period of National Socialism were strictly apolitical and free from any kind of Führer-adulation.

Social Academia

Albrecht von Blumenthal belonged to the

, to whom he was close and to whom he dedicated one of his works.

Family

Von Blumenthal's first wife was Wilhelmine Hainsworth, daughter of the Yorkshire industrialist A.W. Hainsworth. They had two sons who accompanied their mother back to England following the divorce. One was the historian Charles Arnold-Baker, who joined the British Army when WWII broke out, both later serving in MI6. After divorcing on grounds of his adultery, Albrecht remarried and had a further four children, Albrecht, Viktor, Karolina and Erika. Albrecht is a Lutheran Pastor, and Viktor currently teaches at Marburg University in the footsteps of his father.

Albrecht's cousin

.

Suicide

A conservative and patriotic German, he found it impossible to imagine life in an occupied Fatherland. In February 1945 von Blumenthal fled with his second wife from the advancing American Army to Marburg and there, under a suicide pact, took the life of his wife and himself with his service pistol, on an upturned cart outside No. 12 Moltkestrasse on 28 March.

References

• Hans Georg Gundel Die Klassische Philologie an der Universität Gießen im 20. Jh., in: Heinz Hungerland (Hrsg.), Ludwigs-Universität – Justus Liebig-Hochschule, 1607–1957. Festschrift zur 350-Jahrfeier, Giessen 1957, S. 192–221 (zu Blumenthal: S. 201–202).
• Wolfgang Schuller: Altertumswissenschaftler im George-Kreis: Albrecht von Blumenthal, Alexander von Stauffenberg, Woldemar von Uxkull, in: Bernhard Böschenstein (Hrsg.), Wissenschaftler im George-Kreis. Die Welt des Dichters und der Beruf der Wissenschaft, Berlin/Hildesheim/New York 2005, S. 209–224.

External links

• Literature by and about Albrecht von Blumenthal in the German National Library catalogue

Further References