Rüdiger von der Goltz

Gustav Adolf Joachim Rüdiger Graf von der Goltz (8 December 1865 – 4 November 1946) was a German army general during the First World War. He commanded the Baltic Sea Division, which intervened decisively in the Finnish Civil War in the spring of 1918, landing at Hanko and capturing Helsinki. After the armistice Goltz remained in Finland until December 1918, exercising significant political influence; the Quartermaster General of the White Army, Hannes Ignatius, described him as the "true regent of Finland". In 1919 he commanded German and Baltic German forces in Latvia, defeating the Bolsheviks and capturing Riga, before being recalled under Allied pressure in October 1919. After the war he was active in right-wing nationalist politics in Germany, participating in the Kapp Putsch and later the Harzburg Front.

Early life Born into the Goltz noble family in Züllichau, Brandenburg, he was the son of Count Gustav Albrecht von der Goltz (1831–1909) and his wife, Cäcilie von Perbandt (1839–1871).

Military career

First World War After training at the war academy, Goltz served at the general staff of the Imperial German Army. He was seriously wounded at the Battle of the Marne in 1914, subsequently commanded a brigade, served on the Eastern Front, and returned to the Western Front, taking part in the battles of the Somme and Chemin des Dames. By the summer of 1917 he had been promoted to command the 37th Infantry Division. Von der Goltz and his remaining troops left Finland on 6 December 1918. first occupying Windau (Ventspils), the major port of Courland, and then advancing south and east to retake Riga on 23 May 1919.

After the Bolsheviks had been driven out from most of Latvia, the Allies ordered the German government to withdraw its troops from the Baltic region. Goltz resisted, and with the assistance of the local German population deposed the Latvian nationalist government while Freikorps, Latvian and White Russian units captured Riga on 23 May 1919. The Latvian nationalists sought assistance from the Estonian army, which had been occupying northern Latvia since earlier that year.

In June 1919, Goltz ordered his troops to advance not east against the Red Army, as the Allies had expected, but north against the Estonians. On 19 June, the Iron Division and Landeswehr units attacked around Wenden (Cēsis), but were defeated by the 3rd Estonian Division under Ernst Põdder in the Battle of Cēsis. Under Allied pressure, a ceasefire was imposed when Estonian and Latvian forces were advancing on Riga. Goltz turned his troops over to the West Russian Volunteer Army in the Mitau mutiny of August 1919 and was recalled by the German government in October 1919.

In his memoirs, Goltz claimed that his principal strategic goal had been to march on St. Petersburg in cooperation with White Russian forces and install a pro-German anti-Bolshevist government in Russia — an ambition the Allies had frustrated.

Later career After leaving military service, Goltz participated in the Kapp Putsch in March 1920. He then devoted himself to nationalist politics, heading the youth organisation from 1924 to 1930 and serving as President of the (United Patriotic Associations of Germany). In 1931 he joined the Harzburg Front, the nationalist alliance led by the National Socialists.

Works Goltz, Rüdiger von der: Meine Sendung in Finnland und im Baltikum (Leipzig, 1920)