Who Was General Friedrich von Bernhardi?

General Bernhardi About 1910

Answer: General der Kavallerie Friedrich von Bernhardi (1849–1930)  was an intellectual, a capable general, and the ultimate German militarist.

Imperial German General der Kavallerie Friedrich von Bernhardi served during the Great War as a divisional and corps-level commander. He was also an internationally respected military historian. Born in St. Petersburg of Estonian-German parents, his family moved from Russia to Germany when he was two years old. His father, Theodor, was a diplomat and Prussian historian with close connections at the highest levels of Prussia's military and political elite. Friedrich's mother was the daughter of Russian Admiral Krusenstern. 

General von Bernhardi began his military career as a Prussian cavalry officer serving in the 14th Husar-Regiment in Kassel. With that unit, he later saw action in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, and was reputed to be the first German to ride through the Arc de Triomphe when the Prussians entered Paris. He served on the general staff as head of war history section (1898–1901). Still during peacetime, General von Bernhardi commanded both at the division and corps level and then in 1909 went on inactive reserve status. Bernhardi took this opportunity to travel the world, chronicling his visits to Egypt, Asia, and the Americas.

He is perhaps best known for his best-selling book Deutschland und der Nächste Krieg (Germany and the Next War), printed in 1911.  The general also opened the book with an examination of “the aspirations for peace, which seem to dominate our age and threaten to poison the soul of the German people, according to their true moral significance.” Describing war as a "divine business," he proposed that Germany should pursue an aggressive stance and ignore treaties. Bernhardi stated that war "is a biological necessity" and that it was in accordance with "the natural law, upon which all the laws of Nature rest, the law of the struggle for existence." 

A commentator in the British Saturday Review noted after having read a copy “that those who distrust the Teuton have here some very tangible justification for their attitude.” As a description of German perfidy, and of Germany’s apparent quest to conquer their neighbors with brute force, the book was understood by some in Britain as a roadmap to war—a conclusion that became all the more convincing when conflict broke out in the summer of 1914. A reviewer in The Academy in September 1914, at which point Bernhardi’s work had been reissued in English in a cheaper format, saw the work as illustrative of German militarism, and argued that Britain’s aim in the First World War should be “the breaking of the military incubus.” In pursuing military prowess, it seemed Germany had placed itself outside of civilization.

As Germany mobilized for war, General der Kavallerie von Bernhardi was reactivated to function initially as Hermann von Strantz's acting commander at V. Army Corps Headquarters in Posen. In September 1915, he was transferred to the Eastern Front to head up 49th Reserve Division engaged at Slonim. In the summer of 1916, he was urgently called to the Austro-Hungarian front near Volhynia to lead a multi-national force defending against the Brusilov Offensive. Under his leadership, German and Austrian troops were able to fend off the Russians in the area of the Styr and Stochid rivers, earning Bernhardi the Pour le Mérite medal. His "Korps Bernhardi" was reformed in October 1916 into Generalkommando z.b.V. Nr. 55, remaining on the Eastern Front until early 1918. They deployed west in February and were engaged at Armentières. As the Germans retreated, General von Bernhardi ultimately had a physical breakdown and was forced to retire from active duty to his family estate in Cunnersdorf near Hirschberg, Silesia (present-day Poland). He died in 1930.

Sources: The Prussian Machine; Wikipedia; 1914-1918 Online