Duke Ernst and his unwanted daughter-in-law

Duke Ernst of Bavaria-Munich was very worried about his son and heir, Albert. He wanted to make sure that Albert would make a good marriage, which meant, back in 1435, that his wife had to belong to another ducal or royal family with whom Bavaria-Munich sought an alliance. That was just the way that things were done.

However, Duke Ernst was hearing alarming tales about Albert’s close friendship with Agnes Bernauer, who most certainly did not belong to foreign royalty or aristocracy. She was the daughter of a baker, and she worked at a bathhouse in Munich. Her job was to carry jugs of hot water to the male clients of the establishment who spent time soaking in large wooden tubs. Did she provide any “extra services”? Maybe!

Duke Ernst was told that Albert was one of the bathhouse clients, and that he had struck up a friendship with Agnes. The reports became even more alarming when they suggested that the friendship had become particularly close. Could he actually have married the girl in a secret ceremony?

As it happened, Albert had indeed married Agnes, but Duke Ernst did not know this. Even so, he reckoned that something had to be done whether this was true or not. He therefore contrived a plot to get rid of Agnes.

This took the form of a tournament at which Albert would be able to show off his manly skills as a fighter and horseman, which were considerable. With his mind and body fully engaged on jousting and wrestling, he was in no position to look after Agnes, who mysteriously “disappeared” during the festivities.

Agnes was put on trial for witchcraft, found guilty, and drowned in the River Danube.

Duke Ernst did at least feel a pang of remorse for his action and paid for a fine church to be built over Agnes’s tomb. Albert fled Bavaria and thought about raising an army to challenge his father, but eventually made peace with his family.

In the end, Albert did make the sort of marriage that met with his father’s approval, marrying a rich and respectable princess from a powerful north German state.

© John Welford

Frederick Barbarossa: his death and boiling

On 10^th June 1190 Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor (i.e. the ruler of German-speaking Europe) died in a river in Turkey. The circumstances of his death have never been established with certainty.

Barbarossa had responded to calls from Rome for another Crusade to conquer Jerusalem and save the “holy places” for Christianity. Saladin, the leader of the Muslim armies, had recaptured the city three years previously, and Christendom felt obliged to put things right, as they saw it.

Frederick I (Barbarossa was a nickname meaning “red beard”) was born in 1122 and became King of Germany in 1152 and Holy Roman Emperor in 1155. As a young man he had distinguished himself on the Second Crusade of 1147-49, and the call to arms in 1188 for a Third Crusade had a ready response from a man who, although now in his late sixties, presumably saw this as just one more campaign after a lifetime of military adventures.

Barbarossa headed an army of probably around 15,000 men, which marched overland towards Turkey. The Crusade was also joined in 1189 by the new English King, Richard I, who took the sea route.

On 18^th May 1190 Barbarossa defeated the Turks at Iconium and the route towards Jerusalem was wide open. However, things went terribly wrong when Barbarossa reached Silifke in southern Turkey.

There are various accounts of what actually happened in the River Saleph (known as the Goksu River today). One story is that Barbarossa took a dip in the river at the end of a hot day. Another is that his horse slipped as he was crossing the river and threw him into the water. Did he drown after hitting his head on a rock? Did he suffer a heart attack as a result of shock from plunging into very cold water? We shall never know for certain.

What is known is that the army proceeded on its journey, led by Barbarossa’s son, also named Frederick, but with little enthusiasm for the task. Many soldiers deserted and turned for home, while others fell victim to disease.

Barbarossa`s body was given an unusual, not to say revolting, treatment. At Antioch it was boiled so that all the flesh fell off the bones. The flesh was buried in the Cathedral of St Peter, with the idea that the bones would find their final resting place in Jerusalem when the Crusade reached its goal and defeated Saladin.

However, this did not happen, so the bones were buried at Tyre instead.

© John Welford

Ernst Röhm, rival to Adolf Hitler

Everyone knows the name of Adolf Hitler, but that of Ernst Röhm is far less familiar. However, had things worked out differently, the reverse might well have been the case.

Ernst Röhm was born in Munich (Bavaria) in 1887 (making him two years older than Hitler). Coming from an aristocratic and military background he joined the German army in 1906 and was seriously wounded by shrapnel shortly after World War I broke out. His facial injuries could only be repaired to the extent allowed by the standards of plastic surgery at that time, with the result that he remained severely scarred for the rest of his life. He returned to the front and was wounded on two further occasions, eventually being invalided to an office job.

Adolf Hitler, whose origins were more middle-class, was also a soldier during World War I, and, like Ernst Röhm, he suffered injuries at the western front, although his were not as serious as Röhm’s.

The outcome of the war horrified both men, who regarded the settlement imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, in Hitler’s words, as “the greatest villainy of the century”. They both saw a need to fight on and not let the German military spirit die. Hitler remained a member of the Reichswehr (the much reduced German army as permitted by the Versailles treaty) while Röhm became the commander-in-chief of the Munich Freikorps, a loosely structured organisation consisting of various groups, the members of which harboured a grudge against the new order and were particularly opposed to the growing menace of Bolshevism in southern Germany.

Both Hitler and Röhm became members of a political organisation called the German Workers Party (the Deutsche Arbeitspartei or DAP). Hitler had originally been sent as a spy to infiltrate the DAP, but he found its ethos to be much to his liking and, instead of disrupting the DAP, he joined it and left the army. He was soon to rise to the top of the DAP and transform it into the National Socialist German Workers Party, which the world would come to know as the Nazi Party.

The two men probably first met towards the end of 1919, and it soon became apparent to Hitler how useful Röhm could be to him. Röhm had all sorts of connections in the seedy underworld of paramilitary groups that had comprised the Freikorps, and he was able to get hold of weapons. Once armed, the Nazis could clearly become a force to be reckoned with.

Hitler and Röhm became close friends, as they shared a common world view and the same hatreds, namely of Jews, Marxists and weak German politicians.

Hitler’s skills were clearly in politicking and speech-making, whereas Röhm was a man of action who knew how to use violence to support the politics. He recruited a gang of thugs whom he dressed in brown shirts and gave the name “Sturmabteilung” (Stormtroopers), generally shortened to SA. These became Hitler’s enforcers who were adept at creating mayhem and beating up anyone who appeared to dissent from the ranting offered by the man on the platform, namely Adolf Hitler.

In 1923 the Nazis attempted to seize power in Bavaria but the “Beer Hall Putsch” failed and both Hitler and Röhm were arrested and sentenced to jail terms in Landsberg Prison (where Hitler used his time to write “Mein Kampf”). Both were released early, in 1924.

Hitler now decided on a change of tactics, which was to use the political process to gain power. This marked the first breach between Hitler and Röhm, as the latter was much keener on using force. Hitler was afraid of further arrests as a result of the SA’s violence and wanted to restrict it to being a recruiting agency for the Nazi Party. That did not suit Röhm at all, and in 1925 he quit Germany altogether and spent the next five years in South America as an advisor to the army of Bolivia.

Hitler’s strategy of pursuing a political route to power started to pay dividends in the late 1920s as increasing numbers of Nazis won seats in the Reichstag (Germany’s parliament). However, he was troubled by the fact that the SA, without Röhm’s leadership, was getting progressively out of hand. He now had another group to act as his bodyguard, the highly disciplined Schutzstaffel (SS) led by Heinrich Himmler, and he wanted the SA to perform a different role. Only Ernst Röhm would have the authority to drum them into shape, so Hitler invited Röhm to return to Germany, which he did in January 1931.

Hitler’s idea was that the SA could be used to exert less than gentle pressure on people to make them vote for the Nazis, but its image would have to change for this to happen. Röhm accepted this new role and began cleaning up the SA, groups of whom now went on church parades on Sundays rather than smashing up beer halls on Saturdays. The SA also increased hugely in size, growing from 88,000 to 260,000 members within the first year of Röhm’s return. By 1934 its size exceeded three million.

Röhm’s big mistake was to have a different point of view from that of Adolf Hitler. He insisted on what he called “The primacy of the soldier”, and did not want the SA to be under political control. This was completely counter to Adolf’s Hitler’s thinking.

However, Hitler was slow to realise that his action of recalling his old friend from Bolivia could have been a serious mistake on his own part. The SA was now a rapidly growing armed force, far more disciplined than before, and its members were loyal firstly to Ernst Röhm and only secondly to Adolf Hitler.

Röhm, for his part, was making enemies of other powerful members of the Nazi Party, particularly Heinrich Himmler of the SS, who had risen from nowhere during Röhm’s absence and now saw himself as being under threat. Himmler clearly despised Röhm, despite the latter’s aristocratic pedigree, because he regarded Röhm as the leader of a working-class rabble of bully-boys, unlike his own elite force of hand-picked SS guards who came from a different class of German society.

One tactic used by Himmler, with the assistance of Hermann Göring, was to smear Ernst Röhm’s character. There was little doubt that Röhm was a homosexual, as were other leading members of the SA. His behaviour was far from discreet, and rumours of gay orgies involving SA officers were rife. However, this did not bother Hitler at first, as he still regarded Röhm as a valuable ally whose private life was his own affair.

But Röhm went too far by boasting that his SA was the real force in Germany and that Hitler could not touch him. He was quoted as saying: “Hitler can’t walk over me as he might have done a year ago. I’ve seen to that. I have three million men, with every key position in the hands of my own people”.

Hitler was only persuaded to turn against his old friend when he was eventually convinced that Röhm was plotting to overthrow him. Himmler and Göring invented a story to the effect that Röhm’s SA was going to seize power in a coup, having been offered money by the French government. Fake dossiers were produced to provide “evidence” against the leaders of the SA, and Hitler believed what he was told.

Hitler’s revenge came on 30^th June 1934. He had ordered the SA leaders to a meeting at a hotel in Bavaria, but early in the morning of the day on which it was supposed to take place he arrived at the hotel in person, accompanied by armed SS members, and burst into Röhm’s room, where he was still in bed, to accuse him of treachery.

The events of the next 24 hours have been given the name “The Night of the Long Knives”. Suspected SA plotters were rounded up and executed, possibly as many as 200 people. Hitler’s sentence on Ernst Röhm was that he be made to take his own life, possibly so that Hitler would be spared the personal guilt of having ordered the killing of his old comrade-in-arms. However, Röhm refused to play along with this ploy and, having been left alone in a room with a pistol for ten minutes without shooting himself, was shot by the three SS guards who had been sent by Hitler to carry out his orders.

The death of Ernst Röhm and his fellow SA leaders made it abundantly clear that there was only one Führer in Germany, and that was Adolf Hitler. With his one serious rival out of the way, albeit by foul means rather than fair, the Hitler dictatorship was firmly entrenched. On the other hand, there were few who mourned the passing of Ernst Röhm.

© John Welford

Frederick the Great

24^th January 1712 was the birth-date of King Frederick II of Prussia, known to history as Frederick the Great.

He is known primarily as a military genius who established Prussia’s influence as a leading power in Europe and laid the foundation for this northern German territory to become the dominant force in what eventually become united Germany.

When he became king in 1740 the Prussian army numbered 83,000 men; by the time of his death in 1786 that figure had risen to 190,000 out of a total population of 2.5 million. Military might was the foremost consideration of Frederick’s foreign policy – it has been estimated that during the Seven Years War of 1756-63 Prussian losses amounted to 15% of the entire male population. However, despite this casualty rate Frederick managed to inflict defeats on all his enemies, most notably Austria and France.

However, Frederick was also one of the most cultured European rulers. He composed music, played the flute, wrote poetry and collected art. He was a patron and friend of Voltaire, with whom he shared a sceptical view of life. He was also an enlightened ruler, albeit an autocrat, who abolished the use of torture within the Prussian judicial system.

Despite his nationalism and aggression towards his European neighbours, Frederick rarely spoke German, preferring to write and speak mostly in French.

© John Welford

The coronation of Kaiser Wilhelm I, 1871

At noon on 18^th January 1871 King Wilhelm of Prussia was crowned as the first Emperor of a united Germany, although the coronation took place in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles near Paris.

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 had been engineered by the Prussian Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, as a means of uniting all the German states, which had previously been independent, to fight against a common foe and recognise the leadership of Prussia, which was by far the largest and most powerful of those states.

Bismarck’s policy worked, although he did have a few problems getting King Ludwig of Bavaria to fall into line. Mad King Ludwig had spent much of his time building extravagant castles all over the place (a good reason for visiting Bavaria today!) but these had cost a fortune and Bavaria was deeply in debt. Bismarck had to agree to settle those debts before Bavaria would agree to join the German Empire.

By staging a magnificent German ceremony in France’s most opulent palace, Bismarck was rubbing French noses in the dirt, and the snub was remembered years later when Germany was defeated after World War I and the boot was on the other foot as far as France was concerned. The heavy reparations demanded by France were a major cause of the ill-feeling that led to the rise of the Nazis and World War II, so it could be said that the consequences of the 1871 coronation had reverberations that lasted for many years to come.

As it was, Kaiser Wilhelm, then aged 73, became the first German emperor and lived to the age of 90, guided in all matters by his wily Chancellor, Bismarck. On his death he was succeeded by his son Frederick, who might well have instituted a more liberal regime in Germany. However, he died from cancer after only 99 days as Kaiser, passing the throne on to his militaristic son Wilhelm, whose actions were to be partly responsible for the events leading to the outbreak of war in 1914.

After Germany’s defeat in 1918 the German monarchy was abolished, having lasted for only 47 years.

© John Welford

The death of Erwin Rommel, 1944

On 14^th October 1944 Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox”, was forced to commit suicide, having fallen foul of Adolf Hitler.

Erwin Rommel had a distinguished record as an infantry soldier and officer during World War I, winning two Iron Crosses and the “Pour le Merite” medal, which was the highest gallantry award offered by the German Imperial Army.

In 1937 he published a military textbook which brought him to the attention of Adolf Hitler, who put him in charge of the Führer’s bodyguard, with the rank of major general.

Rommel was active in the invasion of Poland in 1939 and became impressed by the effect that tanks could have in waging war. With Hitler’s support he was able to take charge of the 7^th Panzer Division for the invasion of the Low Countries and France.

However, it was the North Africa campaign for which Erwin Rommel is best known. He proved to be a master tactician in desert warfare, but was eventually defeated in October 1942 by the British under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery at El Alamein.

That defeat began the downward slide for Erwin Rommel. Apart from being defeated for the first time, he disobeyed a direct command from Hitler to fight to the last man. However, this did not prevent him from being regarded as a national hero when he returned to Germany.

When the Allied invasion of France was imminent in 1944 Rommel was entrusted with the defence of Normandy. His advice was to send a force of 1500 tanks to defend the beaches but he was overruled, with the result that the D-Day invasion succeeded in its aim. Rommel himself was injured when his staff car was strafed by the RAF, thus taking him away from having direct command over unfolding events.

In July 1944 an internal plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, by placing a bomb in his headquarters, was mounted but failed. Hitler responded by demanding the deaths of anyone who was even remotely connected with the plot. Unfortunately for Erwin Rommel, his name was on the list.

It is almost certain that Rommel was entirely innocent of being a member of the plot. The closest he got to it was being approached by the plotters but refusing to participate. However, the question then arises of whether Rommel should have done more to prevent the plot from going ahead, seeing that he then knew that something of this nature was on the cards.

It would have been bad politics for Hitler to have had one of his best field marshals executed by firing squad, so the old “loaded pistol” tactic was employed – the condemned man would be left alone in a room with a loaded pistol and be expected to use it on himself. However, when the execution squad of generals arrived at his house, Rommel’s family was also there, so, to spare them the trauma, he left with the generals and took poison in the staff car.

Rommel was given a full state funeral, with the public being told that he had died of war wounds. Hitler refused to attend and top Nazis, including Goering and Goebbels, sent messages of condolence full of weasel words, knowing as they did that Rommel had been executed.

It was a sad end for someone who made the mistake of being defeated, and of serving a man who could not tolerate failure.

© John Welford