Background
Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck was born on March 20, 1870, at Saarlouis in the Prussian Rhine Province (now Germany) to a military family.
In 1895 Lettow-Vorbeck passed the entry exam for the Kriegsakademie (The Prussian Staff College). The Prussian Staff College, also Prussian War College was the highest military facility of the Kingdom of Prussia to educate, train, and develop general staff officers.
1904
Captain von Lettow-Vorbeck, stationed in German South-West Africa.
1913
Lettow-Vorbeck
1916
German colonial troops in Africa under General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, possibly during World War I, circa 1916. (Photo by Hulton Archive)
1917
General Paul Von Lettow-Vorbeck (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive)
1918
Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (centre)
1919
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck with Dr. Heinrich Albert Schnee (left), in Berlin 1919. (Photo by Henry Guttmann/Hulton Archive)
1919
The troops coming through the Brandenburg Gate and is welcomed by the people. In the foreground general Paul von Lettow (Photo by Gircke/ullstein bild)
1919
The troops coming through the Brandenburg Gate and is welcomed by the people. In the foreground general Paul von Lettow (Photo by Gircke/ullstein bild)
1930
General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck speaking at an election rally of the conservative People's Party at the Berlin sports palace. (Photo by Imagno)
1930
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
1935
Lettow-Vorbeck (right) as a guest of General Günther von Kluge during army maneuvers.
1956
Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring, General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and Lucie Rommel, the widow of Erwin Rommel. (Photo by Fritz Fischer/picture alliance)
In 1895 Lettow-Vorbeck passed the entry exam for the Kriegsakademie (The Prussian Staff College). The Prussian Staff College, also Prussian War College was the highest military facility of the Kingdom of Prussia to educate, train, and develop general staff officers.
British troops in the bush on the borders of German East Africa, World War I, 1915. East Africa saw sporadic fierce fighting throughout World War I as the British and South Africans strove to combat a guerrilla campaign waged by German and colonial troops commanded by Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector)
(The author of this book was one of the most remarkable co...)
The author of this book was one of the most remarkable commanders in the entire war not only in the East African Campaign, for he was never truly beaten in battle though quite often the odds were decidedly against him. This was a German with a genius for guerrilla warfare whose achievements could rival the exploits of Lawrence of Arabia. Inevitably, his account of his experiences during the First World War, originally published shortly thereafter, make essential and riveting reading for all those interested in the subject.
https://www.amazon.com/My-Reminiscences-East-Africa-Commander/dp/0857064185/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=My+Reminiscences+of+East+Africa&qid=1593633023&s=books&sr=1-1
1920
Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck was born on March 20, 1870, at Saarlouis in the Prussian Rhine Province (now Germany) to a military family.
Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck was educated in boarding schools in Berlin. He attended the Prussian cadet corps before joining one of the prestigious infantry guard regiments in Berlin. In 1895 he passed the entry exam for the Kriegsakademie (The Prussian Staff College), a prerequisite for a career on the Prussian General Staff.
Lettow-Vorbeck joined the Prussian General Staff on probation in 1898. In the summer of 1900, Lettow-Vorbeck volunteered for the Ostasiatisches Expeditionskorps (German East Asian Expedition Corps), which was part of the eight-nation coalition formed to suppress the so-called Boxer Uprising in China. During the Herero and Nama Wars in German South-West Africa, he began as an adjutant to the commander-in-chief of the German forces, Lothar von Trotha, in 1904 - 1905. After von Trotha’s disgrace due to his brutal treatment of the defeated Herero, Lettow-Vorbeck made his name as a successful frontline officer in charge of a company of mounted infantry against the Nama. His tours in China and German South-West Africa qualified him to command the 2. Seebataillon (Second Sea Battalion) in Wilhelmshaven, one of the three German marine battalions, which also served as reinforcements for the colonies in times of emergency.
In January 1914, Lettow-Vorbeck, having recently been promoted to lieutenant colonel, arrived in German East Africa to take over the command of the Schutztruppe (Protective Force), a military unit of approximately 2,500 African soldiers, or askari, and 250 German officers, doctors, and non-commissioned officers. Lettow-Vorbeck wanted to use this unit in the event of European war to attack neighbouring British East Africa, thus forcing the British Empire to redirect forces from the European theatres of war to East Africa. Helped by the successful defence of Tanga against a far superior British-Indian expeditionary force in early November 1914, Lettow-Vorbeck managed to sideline his nominal superior, Governor Heinrich Schnee. The colonial administration, as well as the settlers, had initially hoped for the neutralisation of the colony in the event of a war between Britain and Germany. But Lettow-Vorbeck’s finesse in Tanga (Tanzania) helped win over the sceptics among the officer corps and the German settlers for his offensive strategy against the neighbouring Entente colonies.
Owing to the weapons captured at Tanga and the mobilisation of settlers and two blockade runners that arrived from Germany, Lettow-Vorbeck's Schutztruppe peaked with about 12,000 askari and 3,000 Europeans in the spring of 1916, supported by tens of thousands of Africans carrying the supplies. By then, he had been promoted to colonel. When British, South African, Belgian, and Rhodesian forces began a combined offensive against the German colony in 1916, he initially fought entrenched battles in the north of the colony. Eventually, however, he was forced to retreat into the less accessible southeastern part of German East Africa. There, for many months, the lack of infrastructure, rainy season, poor health, and supply problems made the situation of the Entente troops very difficult and thus protected the Schutztruppe from likely annihilation by superior enemy forces.
When the Entente forces resumed their offensive in summer 1917 and the situation of the Schutztruppe finally became desperate, Lettow-Vorbeck, who had no instructions from and hardly any communication with Germany, decided not to make a last stand in German East Africa. Instead, in late November 1917 he - by now promoted to Major General - ordered the invasion of the poorly defended Portuguese East Africa with the healthiest and most battle-hardened of his remaining soldiers. This relatively small mobile force of approximately 2,000 soldiers would be able to live off the land and still constitute a permanent threat to the enemy colonies.
The last year of the East African campaign thus saw little fighting, but endless marches of the Schutztruppe, pursued by the British, Portuguese, and Rhodesian troops, who were never able to catch it. The Schutztruppe left a trail of scorched earth as it marched through several thousand kilometres of Portuguese East Africa, the southwestern part of German East Africa, and finally, North Rhodesia, which it invaded in October 1918. It also took a devastating human toll, which resulted from the forcible recruitment of African carriers and the deprivation of African civilian populations of food. On 25 November 1918, Lettow-Vorbeck surrendered with the last 150 or so Europeans and 1,100 askari soldiers, several hundred askari wives and children, and some 1,000 carriers in Abercorn, Northern Rhodesia (today Mbala, Zambia).
When Lettow-Vorbeck returned in early March 1919 to Germany, he was celebrated as an undefeated war hero and received many honours over the following years. Owing to his participation in the failed right-wing Kapp-Lüttwitz military coup of March 1920 against the Weimar Republic, he had to take early retirement from the army. Even though he was promoted to the rank of full general at the outbreak of the Second World War, he saw no active service in this conflict. Lettow-Vorbeck remained a popular and public figure in the Federal Republic until his death in 1964. Lettow-Vorbeck’s memoirs of his wartime experiences were subsequently published (in English translation) as My Reminiscences of East Africa.
(The author of this book was one of the most remarkable co...)
1920Lettow-Vorbeck was a deputy to the Reichstag for the monarchist German National People's Party from May 1929 to July 1930. Lettow-Vorbeck then joined the Conservative People's Party. He ran for it in the election of 1930, where he gained the best result of the party in his electoral district of Upper Bavaria, but was not re-elected.
His dislike of Hitler was well-known and cost him much of his reputation in Germany, at the time. At first, Lettow-Vorbeck welcomed the Nazi seizure of power, assuming wrongly that it would be the first step for the restoration of monarchy in Germany and the recreation of a German colonial empire in Africa. Later, though a member of the right wing, he was not a Nazi and unsuccessfully tried to organize a conservative opposition to Hitler. He approached his relative Hans-Jürgen von Blumenthal with an idea to form a coalition with Der Stahlhelm against the Nazis. This resulted in the Vorbeck-Blumenthal Pact. To make the situation worse, Lettow-Vorbe declined the ambassadorship to the Court of St James's, offered to him by Hitler. After his blunt refusal, Lettow "was kept under continual surveillance" and his home office was searched.
Although the general was a known anti-semite, he expressed a thorough distaste for Hitler's racist rhetoric.
Owing to his long and determined resistance in East Africa against far superior enemy forces, Lettow-Vorbeck has occasionally been hailed in Anglo-Saxon historiography as one of the great guerrilla leaders in military history. He was an ambitious officer with courage and sangfroid, and certainly a gifted tactician in mobile warfare who, in the last phase of the war, avoided entrenched battles and preferred instead to outmaneuver and evade the enemy forces.
Physical Characteristics: Lettow-Vorbeck was a capable officer with good health, and the physical stamina necessary to withstand the exhausting campaign in tropical Africa during the First World War.
Quotes from others about the person
Karen Blixen: "He belonged to the olden days, and I have never met another German who has given me so strong an impression of what Imperial Germany was and stood for."
Lettow-Vorbeck married Martha Wallroth in 1919. The marriage produced four children - two sons, Rüdiger and Arnd, and two daughters Heloise and Ursula. Both his two sons, Rüdiger and Arnd von Lettow-Vorbeck, and his stepson Peter Wallroth, were all killed in action serving in the Wehrmacht.