Military Merit Order (Bavaria)
The Bavarian Military Merit Order (german: Militär-Verdienstorden) was established on 19 July 1866 by King Ludwig II of Bavaria. It was the kingdom's main decoration for bravery and military merit for officers and higher-ranking officials. Civilians acting in support of the army were also made eligible for the decoration. The Military Merit Order ranked below the Military Order of Max Joseph (''Militär-Max-Joseph-Orden''), which was Bavaria's highest military honor for officers (and conferred a patent of non-hereditary nobility on officers who were not already nobles). Description and Wear The design of the order was a Maltese cross of blue enamel with a center medallion. Between the arms of most classes (and all classes after 1905) were golden flames (silver flames for the 4th Class after the 1905 revisions of the order). The obverse of the center medallion had a gold crowned "L" cipher (for the founder King Ludwig II) on the black-enameled center and the word "MERENTI" on a r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Martin Chales De Beaulieu
Franz Martin Chales de Beaulieu (11 November 1857 – 27 April 1945) was a German general in World War I. He was also involved in the Herero Wars as chief of staff to Lothar von Trotha. Life Franz Martin Chales de Beaulieu was born as son of Eduard Chales de Beaulieu on 11 November 1857. In 1877, Beaulieu entered the Prussian Army as a Fahnenjunker in the 2nd Guards Grenadier Regiment. On 12 October 1877, Beaulieu was appointed as Second-Lieutenant. In 1887, Beaulieu was promoted to Premier-Lieutenant. In 1891, Beaulieu became the adjutant of Alfred von Schlieffen, the Chief of the German General Staff. In 1894, Beaulieu was again with the 2nd Guards Grenadier Regiment in Berlin. He then served in the staff of the 2nd Guards Division before becoming a major on 18 November 1897; then serving on the staff of the VI Corps. In 1901, he was once more with the 2nd Guards Grenadier Regiment and in 1902, Beaulieu again became an adjutant of Alfred von Schlieffen. In 1903, Beaulieu s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Max Hoffmann
Carl Adolf Maximilian Hoffmann (25 January 1869 – 8 July 1927) was a German military strategist. As a staff officer at the beginning of World War I, he was Deputy Chief of Staff of the 8th Army, soon promoted Chief of Staff. Hoffmann, along with Hindenburg and Ludendorff, masterminded the devastating defeat of the Russian armies at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes. He then held the position of Chief of Staff of the Eastern Front. At the end of 1917, he negotiated with Russia to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Early life and prewar military career Hoffmann was born in Homberg (Efze), the son of a district court judge. From 1879 to 1887 he studied at the Gymnasium in Nordhausen. After graduation he volunteered for the 72nd Infantry Regiment. One of his comrades affectionately recalled "He was almost the worst athlete, horseman and swordsman of them all. ... he exceeded them in his terrifying appetite." As an ensign he studied at the Kriegsschule (Officer School) in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Franz Von Hipper
Franz Ritter von Hipper (13 September 1863 – 25 May 1932) was an admiral in the German Imperial Navy (''Kaiserliche Marine''). Franz von Hipper joined the German Navy in 1881 as an officer cadet. He commanded several torpedo boat units and served as watch officer aboard several warships, as well as Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht . Hipper commanded several cruisers in the reconnaissance forces before being appointed commander of the I Scouting Group in October 1913. He is most famous for commanding the German battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group during World War I, particularly at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916. During the war, Hipper led the German battlecruisers on several raids of the English coast, for which he was vilified in the English press as a "baby killer". His squadron clashed with the British battlecruiser squadron at the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, where the armored cruiser was lost. At the Battle of Jutland, Hipper's flagship ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kurt Von Hammerstein-Equord
Kurt Gebhard Adolf Philipp Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord (26 September 1878 – 24 April 1943) was a German general (''Generaloberst'') who was the Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr, the Weimar Republic's armed forces. He is regarded as "an undisguised opponent" of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. Early life Hammerstein was born to a noble family, which had already produced several famous officers, in Hinrichshagen, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, German Empire in 1878.Hans Magnus Enzensberger: ''Hammerstein oder Der Eigensinn. Eine deutsche Geschichte.'' Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp 2008, His parents were the head forester (''Oberförster'') of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Heino von Hammerstein, and his wife Ida, née Gustedt (also from a noble family). After his initial schooling, Hammerstein joined the Cadet Corps in Plön in 1888 at the age of ten, followed by the Prussian Cadet Corps Berlin-Lichterfelde in 1893. He officially entered the Imperial German Army o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Franz Halder
Franz Halder (30 June 1884 – 2 April 1972) was a German general and the chief of staff of the Oberkommando des Heeres, Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942. During World War II, he directed the planning and implementation of Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. Halder became instrumental in the radicalisation of warfare on the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front. He had his staff draft both the Commissar Order (issued on 6 June 1941) and the Barbarossa Decree (signed on 13 May 1941) that allowed German soldiers to execute Soviet citizens for any reason without fear of later prosecution, leading to numerous war crimes and atrocities during the campaign. After the war, he had a decisive role in the development of the myth of the clean Wehrmacht, myth of the clean ''Wehrmacht''. Halder began his military service in 1914. In 1937 he met and became a loyal supporter of Adolf Hitler. Halder participated in the strateg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wilhelm Groener
Karl Eduard Wilhelm Groener (; 22 November 1867 – 3 May 1939) was a German general and politician. His organisational and logistical abilities resulted in a successful military career before and during World War I. After a confrontation with Erich Ludendorff the Quartermaster general () of the German Army, Groener was reassigned to a field command. When Ludendorff was dismissed in October 1918, Groener succeeded him. Groener worked with the new Social Democratic president Friedrich Ebert to foil a left-wing take-over during the German Revolution of 1918–19. Under his command, the army bloodily suppressed popular uprisings throughout Germany. Groener tried to integrate the military, which was dominated by an aristocratic and monarchistic officer corps, into the new republic. After resigning from the army in the summer of 1919, Groener served in several governments of the Weimar Republic as minister of transportation, interior and defence. He was pushed out of the govern ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabteilung'' of the Imperial Navy, had been disbanded in May 1920 in accordance with the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles which banned Germany from having any air force. During the interwar period, German pilots were trained secretly in violation of the treaty at Lipetsk Air Base in the Soviet Union. With the rise of the Nazi Party and the repudiation of the Versailles Treaty, the ''Luftwaffe''s existence was publicly acknowledged on 26 February 1935, just over two weeks before open defiance of the Versailles Treaty through German rearmament and conscription would be announced on 16 March. The Condor Legion, a ''Luftwaffe'' detachment sent to aid Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, provided the force with a valuable testing grou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert Ritter Von Greim
Robert ''Ritter'' von Greim (born Robert Greim; 22 June 1892 – 24 May 1945) was a German field marshal and First World War flying ace. In April 1945, in the last days of World War II, Adolf Hitler appointed Greim commander-in-chief of the ''Luftwaffe'' (German Air Force) after Hermann Göring had been dismissed for treason. He is the last person ever promoted to field marshal in the German armed forces. After the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945, Greim was captured by the Allies. He committed suicide in an American-controlled prison on 24 May 1945. Early life and career He was born as Robert Greim on 22 June 1892 in Bayreuth in the Kingdom of Bavaria, a state of the German Empire, the second son of police ''Hauptmann'' Ludwig Greim and his wife Marie. Greim had an older brother Ludwig, named after his father, born 5 October 1888, and a younger sister Marie Barbara born 11 January 1911. From 18 September 1906 to 6 July 1911, Greim attended the () on the Marsfeld in Munic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Erich Von Falkenhayn
General Erich Georg Sebastian Anton von Falkenhayn (11 September 1861 – 8 April 1922) was the second Chief of the German General Staff of the First World War from September 1914 until 29 August 1916. He was removed on 29 August 1916 after the failure at the Battle of Verdun, the opening of the Battle of the Somme, the Brusilov Offensive and the entry of Romania into the war on the Allied side undid his strategy to end the war before 1917. He was later given important field commands in Romania and Syria. His reputation as a war leader was attacked in Germany during and after the war, especially by the faction supporting Paul von Hindenburg. Falkenhayn held that Germany could not win the war by a decisive battle but would have to reach a compromise peace; his enemies said he lacked the resolve necessary to win a decisive victory. Falkenhayn's relations with the Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg were troubled and undercut Falkenhayn's plans. Early life Falkenhayn was b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Max Von Fabeck
Herrmann Gustav Karl Max von Fabeck (6 May 1854 – 16 December 1916) was a Prussian military officer and a German '' General der Infantarie'' during World War I. He commanded the 13th Corps in the 5th Army and took part in the Race to the Sea on the Western Front and also commanded the new 11th Army on the Eastern Front. Subsequently, he commanded several German armies during the war until his evacuation from the front due to illness in 1916 and died on 16 December. A competent and highly decorated commander, von Fabeck is a recipient of the Pour le Mérite, Prussia's and Germany's highest military honor.William E. Hamelman: ''The History of the Prussian Pour le Mérite Order, Volume III (1888–1918)'' Matthäus Publishers, 1986 Life Fabeck was born in Berlin in 1854, when it was the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia. He was the son of Prussian Lieutenant-General Hermann von Fabeck (1816–1873) and wife Bertha, née von dem Borne (1829–1910). By the time he was 17 years o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists (), known as the "Boxers" in English because many of its members had practised Chinese martial arts, which at the time were referred to as "Chinese boxing". After the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, villagers in North China feared the expansion of foreign spheres of influence and resented the extension of privileges to Christian missionaries, who used them to shield their followers. In 1898 Northern China experienced several natural disasters, including the Yellow River flooding and droughts, which Boxers blamed on foreign and Christian influence. Beginning in 1899, Boxers spread violence across Shandong and the North China Plain, destroying foreign property such as railroads and attacking or ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |