Alexander von Kluck
Alexander Heinrich Rudolph von Kluck (20 May 1846 – 19 October 1934) was a German general during World War I.
Alexander von Kluck
20 May 1846
Münster, Kingdom of Prussia, German Confederation
19 October 1934 (aged 88)
Berlin, Nazi Germany
1866-1916
Author
Early life[edit]
Kluck was born in Münster, Westphalia on 20 May 1846.
He was the son of architect Karl von Kluck and his wife Elisabeth, née Tiedemann.[1] He was a pupil at a school called Paulinum in his hometown of Münster.[2]
In 1874 he married Fanny von Donop (1850–1938); they had three sons and one daughter.
Retirement and later life[edit]
Toward the end of March 1915, while inspecting an advanced portion of his troops, he was struck by shrapnel, which caused seven wounds and seriously injured his leg. Shortly afterward, he received the Order Pour le Mérite at the hospital.[9] In October 1916 the Militär Wochenblatt announced that von Kluck had been placed on half-pay, in accordance with his request to be allowed to retire. His son, Lieutenant Egon von Kluck, was killed early in 1915.[4]
General von Kluck wrote of his participation in the War in the volume entitled Führung und Taten der Erste (1920).[10] His post war memoirs, The March on Paris and the Battle of the Marne,[11] were published in 1920. Kluck died in Berlin in October 1934 and was buried at the Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery.