Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck

Germany state institutions Counter-revolutionary forces 1870–1964 ○ Natural causes

Commander of the German East Africa campaign who led the troops that occupied Hamburg in 1919 and joined the Kapp Putsch in 1920

He marched the “Korps Lettow” into Hamburg in July 1919 and deposed the Mecklenburg government during the 1920 Kapp Putsch.

Born in Saarlouis, he became an Imperial Army lieutenant in 1890 and served on Trotha’s staff in South West Africa during the Herero and Nama genocide of 1904–1906. Commanding the East Africa protection force in the First World War, he tied down far larger Allied forces for four years in a campaign that cost at least 100,000 African lives, many of them porters. Back home in 1919, he took over the Marine Division under the Guards Cavalry Rifle Corps and in July marched the 10,000-strong “Korps Lettow” into Hamburg after food riots. In the 1920 Kapp Putsch he detained the Mecklenburg government and was forced out of the army. A German National People’s Party deputy in 1928–1930, he declined to join the Nazis but was celebrated as a symbol of colonial revanchism. He died in 1964.

Also known as: Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck