Ravenstein

By Rowland Ryder

Subjects: Biography, Generals, Germany, Germany. Heer, Germany, biography

Description: (From dust jacket) The life of Johann Theodor von Ravenstein is a remarkable mosaic of many different stones. Born of ancient Prussian junker stock in 1889, and an officer-gentlemen of the old school, von Ravenstein served with brilliance and distinction in both world wars. Page to Kaiser Wilhelm II before the outbreak of the First World War, he was one of those rare spirits who won the Pour le Merite for outstanding courage as a subaltern on the western front. In the battle of France in 1940, he led an attack that captured the entire staff of the French Ninth Army. He trained paratroops for the assault on Gibraltar; it was Franco who canceled the project.Tank general in the western desert where he was captured, he wrote in 1942 to General 'Jock' Campbell, who had fought against him at the battle of Sidi Rezegh, to congratulate him upon his VC. When he was torpedoed by his own countrymen as a prisoner of war on the Chakdina, he strove desperately to save an English soldier from drowning. He was a friend of Stauffenberg and Witzleben, conspirators of the Bomb Plot of 20 July against Hitler. Aboard the Pasteur, he was involved in the famous attempt by German prisoners of war to seize the ship. After the war, he was asked by King Farouk to command the Egyptian army; but declined 'owing to Egypt's unfriendly attitude to Britain.' Instead, he initiated a friendship link between Duisburg and Portsmouth which flourishes to this day. An active Lutheran happily married for forty-four years to a Catholic wife, he died at the age of seventy-three, while making a speech in which he was pleading the cause of ecumenism. This book, the first biography of von Ravenstein, relates the life of an extraordinary man who combined great courage and leadership in war with a passionate belief in world peace and Christian harmony.