Alexander von Linsingen

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Alexander Adolf August Karl von Linsingen (1850-1935) was one of the best German field commanders during World War I.

Linsingen joined the Prussian Army in 1868 and rose to Corps Commander in 1909. He was one of the very few top German generals not to have served on the general staff.

At the beginning of World War I, Linsingen was a Corps commander in the First Battle of the Marne. Transferred to the Eastern Front where German and Austrian armies were threatened by a Russian offensive in Galicia, Linsingen took command of Army Group South (1915). He defeated the Russian armies in the Battle of Stryi in 1915, capturing 60,000 Russian prisoners. He was awarded the Pour le Mérite. In 1916 he faced the Brusilov offensive. After an initial retreat, he checked the Russian advance near Kovel. He was promoted to Colonel-General, the highest rank for a general in the German Army. In 1917-1918 he led the German offense to Ukraine. After the end of the war with Russia, he became the Military Governor of Berlin (1918). Under the Nazis, outraged by their racist policies, Linsingen who was a Christian but of Jewish descent, demonstratively joined the Union of Jewish War Veterans.