Alfred Krauss (officer)
This article needs additional citations for verification. (August 2021) |
Alfred Krauss | |
---|---|
General der Infanterie | |
Commands held | 2nd Infantry Division 33rd Infantry Division 29th Infantry Division 1st Army Corps Eastern Army |
Battles/wars | World War I |
Alfred Krauss (26 April 1862, in Zara – 29 September 1938) was an Austro-Hungarian officer, privy councilor, and the last-appointed General of the Infantry in the Austro-Hungarian Army. From 1920 Krauss was the leader of the National Association of German Officers in Vienna. In the last year of his life he was appointed a member of the Reichstag for the NSDAP and a brigade leader in the SA.[1]
Biography
Family
Alfred Krauss was born in
Military career
After attending the elementary school in Vršac and Sopron as well as the lower grammar school in Cieszyn, Krauss was trained at the military high school in Mährisch-Weißkirchen and at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt.[4] On 18 August 1883 he was transferred to the Infantry Regiment No. 11. He then attended the war school in Vienna from 1886 to 1888. In November 1888 he was appointed General Staff Officer of the 20th Infantry Brigade in Hradec Králové. In 1891 Krauss joined the General Staff of the 5th Corps Command in Pressburg as a captain. In 1894 Krauss became a teacher of tactics at the Theresian Military Academy. In 1897 he became Chief of Staff of the 2nd Infantry Division in Jarosław and then the 33rd Infantry Division in Komorn.
In November 1901 Krauss became commander of a battalion in the Graz Rifle Regiment No. 3 and in 1904 was named head of Section III of the Technical Military Committee in Vienna. In October 1910 he became the commander of the Kriegsschule in Vienna. On 1 November 1910 he was promoted to major general, and on 1 November 1913 he achieved the rank of lieutenant field marshal; being also named a Privy Councilor.
From August 1914, Krauss was in command of the 29th Infantry Division in the Serbian campaign of World War I. At the beginning of the war, this was part of the 5th Army under General of the Infantry Liborius Ritter von Frank in Syrmia. In September he was appointed commander of the "Combined Corps Krauss". On 6 September 1914 he prevented the Serbian Timok Division from crossing the Sava at Mitrovica by counter-attacking at Šašinci. At the beginning of December, his troops were involved in the fighting to withdraw from Belgrade. On 23 December 1914 he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Balkan Forces, whose command after Oskar Potiorek was recalled was taken over by Archduke Eugen in January 1915.
On 27 May 1915, after
In mid-March 1917 Krauss became the commander of the I. Corps, which at that time was deployed in the
In 1920 he became leader of the National Association of German Officers in Vienna.[5]
From 1927 until his death in 1938 Krauss was one of the editors of the Pan-German and National Socialist magazine Deutschlands Erneuerung, which was founded in 1917 and which appeared continuously until 1944.[6]
On 1 April 1938 Krauss was granted the right to wear the German uniform with the insignia of rank of a general of the infantry; from this point until his death in the same year Krauss sat as a member of the Reichstag. His mandate was then taken over by Hanns Albin Rauter.[7] In the SA he achieved the rank of brigade leader. On 3 June 1938 Krauss and his wife Ida Krauss were personally received by Adolf Hitler in Berlin.
He died in Bad Goisern am Hallstättersee in 1938.
Works
- Moltke, Benedek and Napoleon , Vienna 1901.
- 1805 - The Campaign of Ulm , L.W. Seidel & Sohn, Vienna 1912, online at archive.org
- Our Germanness! , Salzburg 1920.
- The Causes of Our Defeat - Memories and Judgments from World War I , J.F. Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1920. (several editions) online at archive.org
- The essential unity of politics and war as the starting point of a German political theory, lecture, Munich 1921.
- The importance of Austria for the future of the German people, Hanover 1923.
- The "miracle of Karfreit", in particular the breakthrough at Flitsch and the conquest of the Tagliamento , Munich 1926.
- The mistake of German royal policy, Munich 1927.
- Führertum, lecture, Berlin 1931.
- Shaper of the World, Munich 1932.
- Mountain War, Vienna 1935.
- Theory and Practice in the Art of War, Munich 1936.
References
- ^ Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950, Volume 4, p. 221.
- ^ Digitalisat
- ^ Digitalisat
- ISBN 3-428-00193-1. Retrieved 2018-06-20.
- ISBN 978-3-86386-086-8.
- ^ Cover pages of the magazine Deutschlands Erneuerung from 1926 to 1939.
- ^ "Datenbank der deutschen Parlamentsabgeordneten. Parlamentsalmanache/Reichstagshandbücher 1867 - 1938" (in German). Retrieved 2018-06-19.
Bibliography
- Rainer Egger (1980), "Krauss, Alfred", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 12, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 711–712; (full text online)
- Rainer Egger: "Krauss Alfred". In: Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Vol. 4, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1969, p. 221 f. (Direct links to "p. 221", "p. 222")
- Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Christian Zweng: Die Ritter des Ordens Pour le Mérite des I. Weltkriegs, Band 2: H–O, Biblio Verlag, Bissendorf 2003, ISBN 3-7648-2516-2, S. 267–269
- Information about Alfred Krauss (officer) in the Reichstag database
- Newspaper clippings about Alfred Krauss in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW