Ernst-August Köstring (20 June 1876 – 20 November 1953) was a German diplomat and officer who served during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Life

Born in Imperial Russia in 1876, Ernst August Köstring grew up in St Petersburg (or MoscowVladimir Vinokurov.
The role of German military diplomacy in adopting decision to attack USSR (Роль немецкой военной дипломатии в принятии решения о нападении на СССР)
'. VPK-News. 6 August 2008) and was fluent in Russian. He left Russia just before the

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

as many other Germans. He took part in

and served under Major General

Hans von Seeckt Johannes "Hans" Friedrich Leopold von Seeckt (22 April 1866 – 27 December 1936) was a German military officer who served as Chief of Staff to August von Mackensen and was a central figure in planning the victories Mackensen achieved for Germany ...

in the Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army. After the war, he was retained in the

Reichsheer ''Reichswehr'' () was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first years of the Third Reich. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army () was dissolved in order to be reshaped ...

. From 1919, he was back in the Prussian War Ministry and then detached to the

Ministry of the Reichswehr The Ministry of the Reichswehr or Reich Ministry of Defence (german: Reichswehrministerium) was the defence ministry of the Weimar Republic and the early Third Reich. The 1919 Weimar Constitution provided for a unified, national ministry of defen ...

in 1919 the latter was established. On 1 August 1935, he was returned to active service as a military attaché to Russia and Lithuania and sent back to Moscow. During the

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

, as a German military attaché in Moscow Köstring played a key role in co-ordination between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union. In September 1939 he was involved in the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact negotiations The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was an August 23, 1939, agreement between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany colloquially named after Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. The treaty renounced ...

, along with Colonel Heinrich Aschenbrenner. On 8 August 1940, Köstring was warned by General Franz Halder that "he would have to answer a lot of questions soon", which made him one of a few people who knew of the invasion of the Soviet Union despite the non-aggression pact. With the planned

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...

, his position in Moscow was untenable; he was repatriated under diplomatic immunity and assigned to the ''

Führerreserve The (“Leaders Reserve” or "Reserve for Leaders") was set up in the German Armed Forces during World War II in 1939 as a pool of temporarily unoccupied high-ranking military officers awaiting new assignments. The various military branches an ...

''. He visited, together with Friedrich Werner von Schulenburg, prisoner-of-war camps to recruit Soviet prisoners-of-war for the German war effort. On 1 May 1941, German military delegation, headed by Köstring, attended the Soviet

military parade A military parade is a formation of soldiers whose movement is restricted by close-order manoeuvering known as drilling or marching. The military parade is now almost entirely ceremonial, though soldiers from time immemorial up until the la ...

in Moscow in honour of International Workers' Day. On 1 September 1942, when he was appointed "General Officer attached to

Army Group A Army Group A (Heeresgruppe A) was the name of several German Army Groups during World War II. During the Battle of France, the army group named Army Group A was composed of 45½ divisions, including 7 armored panzer divisions. It was responsibl ...

for Caucasian Questions" under General

Eduard Wagner Eduard Wagner (1 April 1894 – 23 July 1944) was a general in the Army of Nazi Germany who served as quartermaster-general in World War II. He had the overall responsibility for security in the Army Group Rear Areas, and thus bore responsibil ...

. In that role, he worked on creating national legions among the indigenous people of the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (country), Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range ...

, among them the Muslim Karachai. He arranged for Armenians, Georgians and other Caucasian populations to fight at the front after training in Poland. Most of the Armenians deserted. The Karachai had formed an anti-Soviet committee under Qadi Bayramukov( ru) before the Germans arrived. Köstring invited them to the Bairam feast on 11 October. He was exceptionally well received and was carried shoulder-high in celebration, as was the custom. In the spring of 1943 Köstring put into the ''Führerreserve''. In mid-June 1943, he was appointed Inspector of the German commanded Turkic associations. On 1 January 1944, he was appointed the General of the "volunteer" organizations in the Army High Command. Throughout that period, he spent most of his time helping with the creation of Andrey Vlasov's Russian Liberation Army. He surrendered on 4 May 1945 to the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

and he was released in 1947. He co-authored the 1946 book ''The Peoples of the Soviet Union'', which was later used by the U.S. Army.Corliss Lamont
''United States Army had included my book, The Peoples of the Soviet Union, in a bibliography. The listing had appeared, without my knowing about it, in an Army manual entitled Psychological and Cultural Traits of Soviet Siberia, published in 1953 by the Intelligence Section of the U.S. General Staff.''
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References

Sources

* Mitcham, Samuel W. (2009) ''Men of Barbarossa: Commanders of the German Invasion of Russia'' 1941. Casemate. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kostring, Ernst August 1876 births 1953 deaths People from Serebryano-Prudsky District People from Venyovsky Uyezd German Army generals of World War II Generals of Cavalry (Wehrmacht) Major generals of the Reichswehr German military attachés German Army personnel of World War I