THREE
AFTER THE ARMISTICE, GRAF VON STRACHWITZ REturned to a country that was almost unrecognisable as the one he had left in 1914. Germany was in turmoil. Revolution and the collapse of authority were spreading like a forest fire throughout the nation. The problems were ignited by a mutiny in the High Seas Fleet when the sailors refused to steam out and attack the enemy in a last suicidal mission on 28 October 1918, designed to restore the reputation of the hitherto moribund fleet. The crews raised the red flag of revolution, formed soviets as in Bolshevik Russia to control their ships, and seized the port of Kiel. Three naval officers were killed while preventing the red flags being raised on one vessel. Elsewhere the traumatised officers simply caved in. Dock workers in Hamburg and Lubeck followed the example of the sailors by taking control of their cities, much to the consternation of the authorities.
The army, which had been doing all the fighting while the fleet rotted at anchor, was bled white and close to collapse. Although suffering as much as the French, it had never mutinied as the French army had in May and June 1917, but the German High Command was convinced that if pushed much further, mutiny or at least a complete rout, in the summer of 1918, was a strong possibility. The senior commanders, particularly Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, Chief of the General Staff, and his deputy, General Erich Ludendorff, had to admit the war was lost. Ludendorff told the Kaiser the news, on 14 August 1918. So blinded was Wilhelm by his own bombast that he could not believe it. Five weeks later, after the Kaiser had absorbed the unpalatable truth, Germany called for an armistice.
The Imperial Chancellor Graf Georg von Hertwig resigned to make way for the more liberal Prince Max of Baden, the Kaiser’s cousin, who by 26 October had transformed Germany into a parliamentary democracy, albeit with the Kaiser still at its head.
On Friday, 8 November, at Compiegne, northeast of Paris, an ashen-faced German delegation was read the 18 points their nation would have to abide by for the armistice to take effect. These included withdrawal from all occupied territories within 14 days, surrender of the submarine and High Seas fleets, and crippling reparations in cash and material. It was not to be a peace with honour. The Germans were to be cast as villains and would pay accordingly. As bad as the 18-point treaty originally drafted by US President Wilson was, the actual peace treaty the Germans had to sign on 28 June 1919 was far worse.
The French, clamouring for revenge, would not countenance any form of conciliation. Fully realising they had not defeated Germany on their own, and fearing—with good reason as it turned out—a resurgent Germany, the French suggested a complete dismemberment of Germany. This the British and Americans flatly rejected; however, they did agree to the harshest terms possible. The provinces of Alsace and Lorraine would be returned to France, which was reasonable and expected, seeing that it was what the French had wanted all along. The German Saar, an industrial region, was ceded to France for fifteen years. Austria, dismembered from Hungary and the rest of its Empire, was expressly forbidden from merging with Germany. The new state of Poland was given a large swathe of German territory including a corridor through East Prussia to give her access to the sea. The Baltic seaport and surrounding territory of Memel was given over to Allied control.1 Germany was shorn of all her colonies, ostensibly because she was unfit to govern other races, but in reality to prevent her from rivalling Britain and France overseas.
The German Army was to be limited to 100,000 men, a self-defence force only. The German General Staff, by virtue of its supposed unbridled militarism, was to be abolished. The truncated army was forbidden to have tanks or armoured vehicles, while the navy was not permitted to purchase or manufacture submarines, and its existing submarines were turned over to the Allies. Military aircraft were also banned, denying Germany an air force. Allied garrisons were to be deployed on a strip of territory on both sides of the Rhine for a period of fifteen years.
Most intolerable of all, emotionally, was Article 231, which firmly laid the blame and guilt for the war on Germany as the aggressor. This neat piece of chicanery made Germany the unquestioned bogeyman of Europe, if not the world. The reparations were set so high as to beggar Germany for years to come. The initial payment of 20 million marks was the first installment only, with many more to follow. All of these terms were far in excess of what President Wilson had set down when the armistice was first proposed.
In inflicting such severe penalties, but not going as far as France’s suggestion of dismembering Germany, they were opening the door to the worst outcome possible, giving Germany the time to recover and good reason to start another war. Perhaps the Allies should have heeded Machiavelli, who advised his prince to totally destroy a defeated enemy, so that they would never rise again or alternatively be so magnanimous so as to preclude any desire for revenge.
The Germans regarded the Treaty of Versailles as an abomination, a betrayal of their original agreement when the armistice had first been signed. Later the USA and Britain, and even some voices in France, tended to agree, but by then it was too late. The French Marshal Foch predicted the result of the treaty when he famously growled, “This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.”2 And so it was to be, with World War II even more cruel and devastating then the prior one, emanating partly from the harsh terms of the first.
However, all this was in the future. For Kaiser Wilhelm II, the reckoning was to come well beforehand. On 8 November, Prince Max of Baden telephoned him, as a friend and relative, urging him to abdicate. The Kaiser refused point blank. He may have lost the war, being let down as he was by his army, but he nevertheless expected to keep his throne. It was thus left to the army to force the issue. On 9 November Field Marshal von Hindenburg and General Wilhelm Groener, Ludendorff’s replacement as Quartermaster General, drove to Spa where the Kaiser and the Imperial General Staff were quartered. Wilhelm, still recovering from the sudden, and to him, inexplicable shock of losing the war, was trying to take an optimistic view of things, at least as far as his own position was concerned. He fully expected the Allies, alarmed by the march of communism and its success in already taking over Russia, to intervene on his behalf, quash the communists and socialists currently running rampant through German cities, and thereby enabling him to retain his throne. Certainly, it would be as a monarch of a parliamentary democracy, as in Britain, but a monarch nonetheless.3
Ushered in to see the Kaiser, Hindenburg’s nerve failed him. Overcome with emotion and unable to speak, Groener had to impart the bad news. He outlined the seriousness of the situation: revolution was rampant, with scarcely any loyal troops to put it down. Some had in fact joined the revolutionaries, while the majority simply wanted to return home. The fate of the government, or more particularly, of the Kaiser, simply meant nothing to them. “Sire, you no longer have an army. It no longer stands behind your majesty,” Groener finished gravely.
The Kaiser was shocked. Perhaps most galling of all, his own troops, the 2nd Guard Division, who had taken a personal oath of loyalty to him, had refused to suppress a rebellion in Cologne. Wilhelm was left with no other recourse but to abdicate. His son Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Prussia, was even less popular than the Kaiser so there was no option for him to ascend the throne. It was the end of the monarchy and the Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty.
The following morning the republic was declared with undue haste, perhaps to prevent a monarchist uprising, as many senior and even junior officers still believed in its retention. It would be safe to assume Graf von Strachwitz would have been in this category. He was too much the aristocrat, too proud of his lineage and what the nobility meant in terms of service and continuity, to feel otherwise, and an aristocracy without a monarchy was strictly nominal only. The Kaiser chose to go into exile in Holland, where he remained until his death in 1941.
In Berlin, the socialists under Frederick Ebert took over as the new government as they were the majority party, but they did not have full control of Berlin, let alone the country. The streets were swarming with protesting revolutionaries of the far left, communists—called Spartacists after the slave who rebelled against Rome—and demobilised soldiers searching for employment, action, or just revenge for real or perceived grievances.
Groener pledged the army’s support if Ebert was prepared to restore order. This the new Chancellor willingly agreed to do, asserting his bitter enmity towards the revolutionaries, regardless that many of them were socialists and former allies. Thus reassured, Ebert settled back to wait for the army to suppress the rebellion, saving both his government and Germany.
The problem was, however, that the army was fast disintegrating. Only well-liked and popular officers had any control over their troops, and this was solely based upon shared front-line service and mutual respect. The vast bulk of the army could simply not be counted on. The answer was to gather whatever troops remained loyal into special units. So the Freikorps was born. Many of the first soldiers of the Freikorps were former members of the stormtroopers, specialised assault troops used to clear enemy trenches to pave the way for main attacks. They had a freebooting spirit and a singular loyalty to their officers, who shared with them a camaraderie born of great personal danger. Later, less disciplined troops and thugs attracted to violence would also join, giving the whole concept an unsavoury character.
The Freikorps became a collection of unofficial military units varying in size from division to, more often, battalion or company strength, which supported the government temporarily to crush communists and other left-wing malcontents, and restore order. They were commanded by army officers ranging in rank from generals to captains, and it was to these officers that the men gave their first loyalty. Some were merely a collection of thugs and adventurers, although most were staunchly anti-communist, nationalistic, and a few perhaps even idealistic. However no matter what their composition or motivation, most disliked the socialist government but hated communism more. They were very often all the government had to ensure its survival.
Although the revolution had spread to various parts of Germany, Berlin was the first priority of all sides. The Spartacists under Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg could bring the masses out on the streets, but thereafter often lost control. Unlike Lenin and his murderous cohorts in Russia, the German communists were badly organised, lacked clear aims, detailed plans and discipline. Nevertheless they remained a real threat to Ebert’s stumbling socialist government.
The revolution certainly worried von Strachwitz, and like many of his fellow officers he resolved to personally do something about it. He no doubt saw it as his mission to save Germany from Bolshevism. One of the many Freikorps units then becoming operational at this time was the Garde Kavallerie Schutz Division, a division of the Horse Guards, now converted to an infantry role under General von Hoffman. It was to this Guards Cavalry division that Hyazinth von Strachwitz would have attached himself, it being only natural that he would wish to join a Guard Cavalry unit even in its altered state.
Fighting between the Freikorps and Spartacists was well underway when the Garde Kavallerie Schutz Division, together with the Iron Brigade from Kiel, 2,400 men from General Maercker’s unit, and General von Roeder’s Scouts, marched into Berlin. The columns passed through the suburb of Lichterfelde, and von Strachwitz must have surely felt a pang as he entered the familiar grounds of his youth.
An enthusiastic crowd greeted the disciplined troops, glad that peace and order were being restored at last, and the troops felt like returning heroes rather than the defeated troops they had been. A Spartacist machine-gun nest was eliminated from the triumphal arch at the Brandenburg gate as the Freikorps men deployed to do battle.
While the Iron Brigade took charge of the Moabit barracks, Maercker’s men took over Lichterfelde. The Horse Guards Division marched into the suburb of Zehlendorf taking control there with very little opposition. Another section of the Horse Guards, together with attached units, took control of Berlin’s southern suburbs, deploying along a line from Buckow to Zehlendorf.
The next evening, preceded by an artillery bombardment, the Freikorps attacked the revolutionaries’ headquarters at the Police Presidium building on the Alexanderplatz, in eastern Berlin. The front of the building was demolished and the Spartacists were driven out only after a furious exchange of gunfire and hand-to-hand fighting, with the communists retreating room by room. Mopping-up operations with the occasional skirmish followed. The Freikorps units then consolidated their positions. The Horse Guards Division occupied part of the government district comprising the Reichstag, the Ringbahn and the Potsdamen Platz. The divisional staff commandeered the luxurious Eden Hotel for its headquarters. The overall Freikorps commander, General Walter von Lüttwitz, set up his headquarters in Dahlem.4
After a few weeks at most, with the main part of the fighting over, Graf von Strachwitz called it a day, and returned to his native Silesia, where trouble with the restive Silesian Poles was brewing. It was just as well that he left when he did, for the Horse Guards were soon to gain a notoriety with which von Strachwitz would not have felt comfortable. After he had left, the Freikorps concentrated on hunting down the Spartacist leadership. This task was given to Captain Waldemar Pabst, Chief-of-Staff of the Horse Guards Division.
On 9 December a unit of the Horse Guards raided the offices of the Rote Fahne (Red Banner), the communist newspaper which Rosa Luxembourg used for her inflammatory editorials. Their mission was to murder Karl Leibknecht, an associate editor of the paper, and who was expected to be hiding there. As an incentive they had been promised a reward of 50,000 marks by the billionaire industrialist Georg Sklars. The once-proud Horse Guards had sunk so low as to become hired assassins. Liebknecht had fled however, joining Rosa Luxembourg in the communist-controlled Neuholm. The Horse Guards undertook house-to-house searches, flushing the pair out of Neuholm and into the middle-class suburb of Wilmersdorf where they found refuge in an apartment. Here Rosa Luxembourg continued her work, dictating pamphlets and articles while Liebknecht simply gave up, telling stories to their hosts’ children.5
On 15 January a Horse Guards detachment under Lieutenant Linder, acting on a tip, raided the apartment and captured the pair. The prisoners were roughly manhandled then taken to the Horse Guards Division headquarters at the Hotel Eden where Captain Pabst was waiting. Here, under Pabst’s direction, they were interrogated and badly beaten.6 Karl Liebknecht was then handed over to Naval Lieutenant Horst von Pflug-Hartung from the Iron Brigade, which had been temporarily seconded to the Horse Guards Division. He and some other naval officers drove a short distance then ordered Liebknecht out of the car. The broken man had barely staggered a few steps when von Pflug-Hartung shot him in the back. Not to be outdone, the other officers quickly joined in, firing their pistols into their victim. His body was driven a short distance further, and dumped unceremoniously outside the steps of a nearby morgue. A short while later Rosa Luxembourg was roughly hauled out of the Horse Guards headquarters. On the way out a cavalryman callously clubbed her with his rifle butt, seriously injuring her. Horse Guards officer Lieutenant Kurt Vogel and five of his men threw her into a car and drove off, shooting her soon thereafter. They weighted her body with stones and threw it into the Laudwehr canal. Her badly decomposed body was not found until five months later.7 Pabst reported that Liebknecht had been shot while attempting to escape, which no one seriously believed, while Horse Guards Lieutenant Linder asserted that a mob had surrounded his car and spirited Rosa Luxembourg away.
To his credit, General von Hoffman ordered an immediate investigation. Lieutenant Vogel and von Pflug-Hartwig were quickly arrested. Waldeman Pabst appointed an equally slippery friend of his, Naval Lieutenant Wilhelm Canaris—who would rise to the rank of admiral and become head of Military Intelligence under Hitler, whom he would then plot against—as an associate judge of the case. Canaris immediately set about perverting the course of justice, even holding a mock trial in Moabit Prision to coach the defendants in a series of lies and false trails. He also organised false passports and an escape plan should the trial not deliver his expected outcome. The General Staff of the Horse Guards, eager to play their part in assisting their brother officers, raised 30,000 marks for an escape fund.
At the trial Canaris went to great lengths to ensure that Captain Pabst was not implicated in any way, that the real events were completely obscured, and the anticipated verdict was delivered. One officer received a six-week gaol sentence for exceeding his authority. The horse guardsman who had clubbed Rosa Luxembourg, the only enlisted man on trial, felt the full brunt of the law and was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. Lieutenant Vogel, thanks to eyewitness reports that could not be refuted, was given two years and four months’ imprisonment, and no doubt felt aggrieved being the only officer to be seriously punished. Canaris, not to be outmanoeuvred by justice, subsequently engineered Vogel’s escape, with Horse Guards officers simply turning up at the gaol with false papers for the prisoner’s transfer. What Graf von Strachwitz would have thought of this saga can easily be imagined. For him, justice was not to be trifled with, as he would subsequently show when plotting to arrest Hitler.
Graf von Strachwitz only enjoyed a few years of peace, where he could recuperate from his prison ordeal and lead the life of a gentleman farmer tending his estate. In 1919 he married Alexandrine (Alda) Grafin (Countess) Saurma-Jeltsch, a slim, striking woman with dark hair, high cheekbones and an angular face. She came from a prominent aristocratic family, so he had done his duty by not marrying below his station. Nevertheless it was, by aristocratic standards, a love match, which produced two sons, the eldest called Hyazinth as tradition demanded, born on 2 May 1920, Hubertus Arthur, born 11 March 1925, and a daughter, Lisalotte. So the line of succession was secured.
Meanwhile Silesia was in turmoil, facing difficult but different problems from the rest of Germany. The region’s chequered history meant that over the centuries Silesia had been subject to Polish, Bohemian, Austrian, Prussian and Imperial German rulers, often with a mixture of overlords governing different localities. This was reflected in its demographics with a mixture of German and Slavic ethnic groups. Lower Silesia was German Protestant, while Upper Silesia was strongly Catholic with a large Polish population—comprising 61% of the population of the region in 1829. Forced Germanization reduced the Polish proportion to 58% in 1849. In 1900, in the Austrian part of Upper Silesia, 44% of the population was German, 33.2% was Polish and 22.5% was Czech, with loyalties flowing accordingly to Poland or Austria/Germany in proportion.
The first drafts of the Treaty of Versailles added Upper Silesia to the newly independent state of Poland, but British Prime Minister David Lloyd George rejected this and forced through a clause calling for a plebiscite.8 Poland was unhappy with this and two insurrections of the Silesian Poles, under Wojciech Korfanty and Josef Rymer, were organised before the plebiscite took place on 26 March 1921. Given the Weimar Republic’s inability to effectively intervene, due largely to Allied pressure, the German Silesians formed their own Freikorps equivalent, the Selbstschutz Oberschleisen, which both Graf von Strachwitz and his younger brother, Manfred, joined. The unit was more in the nature of a local militia, with the men being called upon when needed. Being a lieutenant, Hyazinth did not play a major role in the unit. His lack of front-line experience meant that he was less likely to be given a commanding role, although his two Iron Crosses no doubt impressed his contemporaries and gave him credibility.
The first Polish uprising began in August 1919, but was not supported by the Polish government and was quickly put down by the Weimar government’s Grenzschutz division. This unit of 3,000 men was only capable of vigorous police actions, so while they could react to attacks, they were unable to secure Upper Silesia. The Poles were only temporarily subdued, going underground to await their next opportunity. This came on 19 August 1920 with a general strike. The Polish insurrectionists followed this up with an armed uprising, which seized control of several districts. The Allies intervened, and after some negotiations it was agreed that a mixed police force would be established, which satisfied the Poles for the time being. By August 25 the whole affair had fizzled out. Both insurrections were localised and brief, so Graf von Strachwitz would not have been involved in any heavy fighting.
The following year the Allied-sponsored plebiscite was held on 20 March, with 706,000 people representing some 792 communities voting to remain with Germany, and 479,000 people representing 682 communities voting to merge with Poland. It wasn’t a huge win for the Germans, and solved nothing as the Poles refused to accept the result, and rose up in revolt under their leader Korfanty.
The Weimar government wanted to send in troops from its truncated Reichwehr, but this was once more blocked by the Allies who feared a direct war between Germany and Poland. Better they fight it out through their surrogates, the Silesian Freikorps against the Silesian Polish Nationalists. This left the German government no choice but to employ the Freikorps. However, mobilising the disparate units and sending them under cover from different locations took over two weeks, with many Freikorps fighters making their own way there thinly disguised as miners or farmers. Several of the Bavarians arrived trying to look inconspicuous wearing the Bavarian national dress of leather shorts, long socks and alpine hat. They of course fooled no one.
On 3 May the Poles launched their offensive. They quickly pushed the smaller units of the Selbstschutz Oberschleisen back towards the west. Panic began to set in, and the German Silesian calls for help grew ever more strident. Together with other units, Hyazinth’s detachment became involved but their numbers were still insufficient to hold back the Polish force which drove them back to the line of the River Oder. The Poles’ other objective was capturing the strategic Annaberg hill which they did on 4 May.
The hill, 400 metres in height, overlooked the Oder valley and commanded the east bank of the River Oder. On its peak sat the Catholic Monastery of St. Anna, a place of reverence for both Germans and Poles. Both sides considered control of the hill to be vital to their campaign.
By now the Freikorps had finally gathered in Upper Silesia. They comprised Maecker’s Laudes-Jagerkorps, the Stahlhelm (Steel Helmet), the Jungdeutsche Ordern (The Young German Order), von Aulock’s Freikorps, and individuals from the Rossbach Freikorps and Peter von Heydebreck’s Wehrwolves. The largest unit, 1,650 men strong, was the Bavarian Oberland Freikorps. It was a well-organised, highly effective unit of tough WWI and post-war revolutionary fighters. It had included, at one time or another, such future Nazi luminaries as Heinrich Himmler, the future Reichsfuhrer SS, who wasn’t present in Silesia; Sepp Dietrich, who would later command the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and become an SS field army commander, who was present during the campaign; future Waffen SS Brigadefuhrer Fritz von Scholz, who distinguished himself as an SS general; and Hilmar Wackerle, future commandant of Dachau Concentration Camp. Non-military members included Elenore Bauer, aka Sister Pia, a nursing sister and early Nazi Party member who received the Blood Order for her part in the Beer Hall Putsch; Arnold Runge, the philosopher; and author Bodo Uhse, an early Nazi party member and later communist. Altogether an eclectic mix of thinkers, fighters and thugs. One Oberlander who didn’t fit the description was Frederich Gustav Jaeger, future army colonel and early Nazi party member. He reached the rank of Army Colonel, receiving the Knight’s Cross in the process (1940). He then turned against Hitler, and was executed by the Nazis in August 1944 for his part in Stauffenberg’s failed putsch.
The Oberland’s military commander had visited the headquarters of the Selbstschutz Oberschleisen on 7 May and had been visibly unimpressed. Housed in lavish quarters the place was a shambolic mess of confused orders, lack of direction and disorganised administration. The Freikorps and Selbstschutz were placed under the overall command of General von Hoefer, a World War I veteran. He was ready to launch an immediate counterattack, but was being held back on orders from Berlin, which in turn was waiting for a ruling from the Allied Commission on the situation in Upper Silesia. Von Hoefer made his feelings known to a journalist of the New York Times when he angrily declared: “What a rotten humiliating position for a general to be in. For a German general! My men will follow me and I can’t lead them to the attack. Because of policy … bah! … politics has fallen into my anus and blocked me.”9 His deputy, General Lieutenant Bernhard von Hulsen, after some prodding from Major Horadarm, the Oberland commander, decided to override his superior and attack the Annaberg.10
The Poles outnumbered the Germans but lacked combat experience, as a large proportion of them were civilians, although some had fought in the war.11 They had French officers acting as unofficial advisers, as the French actively supported the Poles, while the British and Italians stationed in Upper Silesia supported the Germans, although only morally. The Polish forces were dug in around the approaches to the mountain as well as on the hill itself, and were prepared to make a fight of it. Their main force consisted of a regiment of volunteers from Katowice as well as Polish Silesians from Gross Strehlitz and Tor, and a brigade of regulars, who were located at the edge of the mountain. On the mountain itself were more miners from Katowice and a number of other troops.
The German attack commenced at 2:30 a.m. on 21 May against the Poles’ outlying positions. It was spearheaded by the Bavarian Oberlanders and the Selbstschutz Oberschleisen where Graf von Strachwitz was serving as an Oberleutnant (1st Lieutenant). The German force consisted of 900 men divided into two columns for a left and right flanking attack.
The Polish artillery opened up unexpectedly, causing casualties with its first salvoes. The Germans went to ground, but with encouragement from their officers resumed their attack using fire and movement. The Poles fought back valiantly but against the greater skill of the Germans were forced to give ground, losing two artillery pieces in the process. These were turned around and used by the Germans against the Annaberg itself.
The Poles counterattacked with great valour but little effect. The Germans stood their ground and their machine guns cut the attackers down. Polish enthusiasm was no match for sustained machine-gun and rifle fire. However, the Germans did not escape lightly, losing eight dead and 50 wounded. It was von Strachwitz’s first real taste of infantry warfare from fixed positions. The Oberland commander Horadam now prepared for the assault on the Annaberg itself. Taking some of his staff with him to a vantage point to scout the terrain, he found it occupied by some 30 Poles. After a brief fire-fight he drove the Poles off and later deployed his captured guns on the height.
On 23 May the German attack began. One battalion attacked through the woods in front of Annaberg while another went around to the rear of Annaberg village, thus surrounding the mountain. Supported by their captured artillery, the Germans stormed forward against the dug-in Poles. Using stormtrooper tactics perfected in World War I, they cleared the Polish trenches. Hand grenades, bayonets, rifle butts, knives and fists were used in vicious hand-to-hand combat. After some twenty minutes it was over; the shocked Poles fled in disarray leaving behind 100 men as prisoners. The Germans lost two dead and 20 wounded. The Poles were still not prepared to give up and launched a counterattack, but it was repulsed, causing them heavy casualties.
Hyazinth von Strachwitz fought well at Annaberg, and his efforts there were always a source of pride for him, irrespective of his later, far greater achievements. His brother Manfred also fought with some distinction, being badly wounded in action at Krizova. Sepp Dietrich also distinguished himself at the Annaberg. Von Strachwitz may well have made his acquaintance, but given his aristocratic outlook it was unlikely that he would have considered the rough former NCO as a friend or close comrade in arms.
The Allies stepped in once more to stop the fighting in Silesia. They pressured the German government to initiate peace talks, which they did by insisting that the Selbstschutz commence negotiations with the Poles. This was done on 25 May and succeeded, apart from the odd skirmish, in ending the fighting. Allied troops then moved in, including four battalions of British troops moved from occupation duties in the Ruhr, and the Germans and Poles withdrew to their respective lines as drawn up from the plebiscite.
No recognition was accorded to von Strachwitz and the other fighters in the Silesian campaign by the Weimar Republic. This caused a great deal of resentment as they were defending German soil, which the Weimar could not, or would not, do. However von Strachwitz and others were awarded the Order of the Silesian Eagle, in his case, in the 1st Class, with Wreath and Swords, a private decoration instituted by General Leutnant Friedrich Friedeburg, commander of the VI Army Corps on 16 June 1919. It was one that was especially dear to him, and the only Freikorps decoration officially permitted to be worn on one’s uniform during the Third Reich. Von Strachwitz would always wear his. With peace restored, Graf von Strachwitz could resume acclimatising to civilian life.
NOTES
1. The newly independent state of Lithuania drove the occupying French troops out and annexed the territory in order to obtain a seaport. The League of Nations ratified the annexure, but the Germans were loathe to accept it and Hitler took it back with the threat of force in 1934.
2. D. J. Goodspeed, The German Wars (Bonanza Books, NY, 1985), p.274.
3. The Germans held similar views in 1945, hoping the British and Americans would join them in fighting the Russians in order to prevent Eastern Europe and Germany falling to communism.
4. Nigel H. Jones, Hitler’s Heralds. The Story of the Freikorps 1918–1923 (John Murray Publishing, 1987).
5. Jones, Hitler’s Heralds.
6. Ibid. Pabst always denied the beatings but eyewitnesses contradicted him.
7. Jones, Hitler’s Heralds.
8. Lloyd George could have saved a good deal of bloodshed and trouble had he left well enough alone, as Upper Silesia ended up becoming part of Poland in 1945.
9. New York Times (June 1921), p.13.
10. Charles Messenger, Sepp Dietrich: Hitler’s Gladiator (Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1988), p.31.
11. During World War I, Poles fought as legions or units for the Allies (Russia) and also for the Germans and Austrians, depending on their domicile and political beliefs, future independence being their main aim.