Service/branch Prussian Army Parents Theodor von Bernhardi Role Author | Name Friedrich Bernhardi Rank General Awards Pour le Merite | |
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Born 22 November 1849
St. Petersburg, Russian Empire ( 1849-11-22 ) Allegiance Prussia
Weimar Republic Battles/wars Franco-Prussian War
World War I Died November 12, 1930, Jelenia Gora, Poland Grandparents August Ferdinand Bernhardi Battles and wars Franco-Prussian War, World War I Books Germany and the Next War, Cavalry in Future Wars, Cavalry in war and peace, The war of the future in the ligh, Vom Kriege der Zukunft | ||
Friedrich von Bernhardi
Friedrich Adolf Julius von Bernhardi (November 22, 1849 – December 11, 1930) was a Prussian general and military historian. He was a best-selling author prior to World War I. A militarist, he is perhaps best known for his bellicose book Deutschland und der Nächste Krieg (Germany and the Next War), printed in 1911. He advocated a policy of ruthless aggression and complete disregard of treaties and regarded war as a "divine business".
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Biography
Bernhardi was born in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire. His family immigrated to Schöpstal, Silesia in 1851.
During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), Bernhardi was a cavalry lieutenant in the 14th Hussars of the Prussian Army, and at the end of that conflict had the honor of being the first German to ride through the Arc de Triomphe when the Germans entered Paris.
From 1891 to 1894, he was German military attaché at Bern and was subsequently head of the military history department of the Grand General Staff in Berlin. He was appointed general in command of the VII Army Corps at Münster in Westphalia in 1907, but retired two years later and busied himself as a military writer. Widespread attention was excited by the memoirs of his father, the diplomatist and historian Theodor von Bernhardi, which he published, and still more by his book Germany and the Next War. In Germany and the Next War, 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."
Bernhardi served during World War I as a general. He fought with success first in the Eastern Front on the Stochod, where he stormed the bridgehead of Tsarecze, and afterwards on the Western Front, in particular at Armentières. He was awarded the Pour le Mérite on 20 August 1916, for his participation in the German defense against the Brusilov Offensive.