Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein
Friedrich Siegmund Georg Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein (also German: Kreß; 24 April 1870 – 16 October 1948) was a German general from Nuremberg. He was a member of the group of German officers who assisted in the direction of the Ottoman Army during World War I. Kress von Kressenstein was part of the military mission of Otto Liman von Sanders to the Ottoman Empire, which arrived shortly before World War I broke out. He was also the main leader for the Ottoman Desert Command Force (DCF).
Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein
24 April 1870
Nuremberg, Kingdom of Bavaria
16 October 1948 (aged 78)
Munich, Allied-occupied Germany
1888–1929
Pour le Mérite, Iron Cross First class
Early life[edit]
Kress came from a patrician family in Nuremberg. His father, Georg Kress von Kressenstein (1840–1911), was a high court judge. Kress von Kressenstein joined the Bavarian army as an ensign in the artillery in 1888. He was appointed as Second Lieutenant on 6 March 1890. On 1 October 1895, he joined the Bavarian War Academy and graduated in September 1898. He continued his general staff education until 1914.[1] With Otto Liman von Sanders, Kressenstein was sent to Ottoman Empire and served as the commander of the Ottoman field artillery school.[2]
Later life[edit]
Kress von Kressenstein retired from the German army in 1929 and died in Munich in 1948.
He wrote in several articles about his experiences in Palestine and the Caucasus, and published in 1938 a full book about the war in the Sinai and Palestine.
At least two of his articles have been translated to English. 'The Campaign in Palestine from the Enemy's Side', published in the Royal United Services Institute Journal, and his 1936 article about the 'war in the desert', in which he discussed also the use of poison gas in the war, both in the Sinai Desert during WW1 and in the Italian conquest of Ethiopia (called Abyssinia at the time). His memoirs My Mission in Caucasus were published posthumously in 2001 in Tbilisi, Georgia.
In popular culture[edit]
He was played by Ralph Cotterill in the film The Lighthorsemen (1987).
