Rüdiger von der Goltz

Born Dec. 8. 1865, in Zül-lichau, now Sulechow, Poland; died Nov. 4, 1946. in Kin-segg, Bavaria. Count. German general.

During World War I (1914–18), Goltz commanded a Land-wehr division. In April 1918 his troops landed on the Hangö Peninsula and with White Finnish forces put down the revolution in Finland. In January 1919 he was named commander of the German troops in the Baltic region, and in Libau (Liepāja) he organized a counterrevolutionary army, composed of Germans, Latvian bourgeois nationalists, and Russian White Guards. He occupied Courland and in May 1919 took Riga. In June 1919 he was defeated by the Estonian and Latvian troops of the bourgeois governments, which favored the Entente. In October 1919 he evacuated his troops to East Prussia. He participated in the Kapp military putsch in 1920. He helped organize militaristic revanchist unions and from 1934 to 1939 headed the Reserve Officers’ Union.