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Hans Karl von Winterfeldt

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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Accession he was promoted major and appointed aide-de-camp to the new sovereign.

When the first Silesian War broke out Winterfeldt was sent on a mission to St Petersburg, which, however, failed. He then commanded a grenadier battalion with great distinction at Mollwitz, and won further glory in the celebrated minor combat of Rothschloss, where the Prussian hussars defeated the Austrians (May 17, 1741). One month from this day Winterfeldt was made a colonel, as also was Zieten (q.v.), the cavalry leader who had actually commanded at Rothschloss, though the latter, as the older in years and service, bitterly resented the rapid promotion of his junior. After this Frederick chiefly employed Winterfeldt as a confidential staff officer to represent his views to the generals, a position in which he needed extraordinary tact and knowledge of men and affairs, and as a matter of course made many enemies.

In the short peace before the outbreak of the second war he was constantly in attendance upon the king, who employed him again, when the war was resumed, in the same capacity as before, and, after he had been instrumental in winning a series of successful minor engagements, promoted him (1745) major-general, to date from January 1743.

For his great services at Hohenfriedberg Frederick gave him the captaincy of Tatiau, which carried with it a salary of 50o thalers a year. At Katholisch-Hennersdorf, where the sudden and unexpected invasion of the Austro-Saxons was checked by the vigour of Zieten, Winterfeldt arrived on the field in time to take a decisive share. Once again the rivals had to share their laurels, and Zieten actually wrote to the king in disparagement of Winterfeldt, receiving in reply a full and generous recognition of his own worth and services, coupled with the curt remark that the king intended to employ General von Winterfeldt in anyway that he thought fit. During the ten years' peace that preceded the next great war, Winterfeldt was in constant attendance upon the king, except when employed on confidential missions in the provinces or abroad. In 1756 he was made a lieutenantgeneral and received the order of the Black Eagle.

In this year he was feverishly active in collecting information as to the coalition that was secretly preparing to crush Prussia, and in preparing for the war. He took a leading part in the discussions which eventuated in Frederick's decision to strike the first blow. He was at Pirna with the king, and advised him against absorbing the Saxon prisoners into his own army. He accompanied Schwerin in the advance on Prague in 1757 and took a conspicuous part in the battle there. After the defeat of Kolin, however, Winterfeldt, whom Frederick seems to have regarded as the only man of character whom he could trust to conduct the more delicate and difficult operations of the retreat, found himself obliged to work in close contact with the king's brother, Prince William, the duke of Brunswick-Bevern, Zieten and others of his enemies. The operations which followed may be summarized by the phrase "everything went wrong"; after an angry scene with his brother, the prince of Prussia retired from the army, and when Frederick gave Winterfeldt renewed marks of his confidence, the general animosity reached its height. As it chanced, however, Winterfeldt fell a victim to his own bravery in the skirmish of Moys near GOrlitz on the 7th of September. His wound, the first serious wound he had ever received, proved fatal and he died on the 8th. The court enmities provoked by his twenty years' unbroken intimacy and influence with the king, and the denigration of less gifted or less fortunate soldiers, followed him beyond death. Prince William expressed the bitterness of his hatred in almost his last words, and Prince Henry's memoirs give a wholly incredible portrait of Winterfeldt's arrogance, dishonesty, immorality and incapacity. Frederick, however, was not apt to encourage incompetence in his most trusted officers, and as for the rest, Winterfeldt stood first amongst the very few to whom the king gave his friendship and his entire confidence. On hearing of Winterfeldt's death he said, "Einen Winterfeldt finde ich nie wieder," and a little later, "Er war ein guter Mensch, ein Seelenmensch, er war mein Freund." Winterfeldt was buried at his estate of Barschau, whence, a hundred years later, his body was transferred to the Invaliden Kirchhof at Berlin. A statue was erected to his memory, which stands in the Wilhelmsplatz there, and another forms part of the memorial to Frederick the Great in Unter den Linden.

See Hans Karl v. Winterfeldt and der Tag von Moys (GSrlitz, 1857); and K. W. v. SchOning, Winterfeldts Beisetzung; eine biographische Skizze (Berlin, 1857).