Ernst Köstring

Ernst-August Köstring (20 June 1876 – 20 November 1953) was a German diplomat, officer and General of Cavalry in World War II.

Early life

Born in Imperial Russia, son of German booksellers grew up in St Petersburg becoming fluent in Russian at an early age.

Prussian Army

Köstring joined the Prussian army on 1 October 1895 as a one-year volunteer in the 4th Uhlan Regiment "Schmidt" (1st Pomeranian) at Thorn. He was discharged to the reserve on 1 October 1896.

He spent three consecutive years as a reserve with the regiment until he was detached for service with the 5th Cuirassier Regiment "Duke Friedrich Eugen of Württemberg". This lasted from 1 July 1900 to 5 September 1901. He was reactivated from the reserve to serve with the regiment again from 5 September 1901 to 1 October 1913. He was regimental adjutant from 1 April 1904 to 30 September 1909.

During his service with the 5th Cuirassiers he held many appointments outside the regiment. He was detached to the staff of the Military Riding Institute on 1 October 1909 till 31 August 1911. He was promoted to Oberleutnant on 27 January 1910. From here he was detached to the Instruction course at the Infantry Riding School.

For the final months of peace he served as the Adjutant and Tactics Instructor at the Officers Riding School in Paderborn from 1 October 1913 to the outbreak of the First World War. On 18 December 1913 he was promoted to the rank of Rittmeister.

First World War

He began his service in this conflict as Ordinance Officer with the General Command of XX. Army Corps at Allenstein in East Prussia. He spent the 1915 to June 1916 as an Adjutant in various units until he was transferred to serve under Major General Hans von Seeckt on the Eastern Front in Galicia where von Seeckt was commanding the Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army. He was wounded in October 1916 and spent the next year in hospitals convalescing at Stryj, near Lublin and Neisse. Neisse was a specialist head injury hospital.

After his recovery in December 1917, he followed von Seeckt to Turkey where he served in the military mission there. On 17 January 1918 he was made First Adjutant of the Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish field army, under Major General Hans von Seeckt.

He then served with the Prussian War Ministry for two months before being transferred again in September 1918 to the newly independent Ukraine, in the War Ministry, as the German Liaison Officer. A post he held until the end of the First World War.

Inter-War period

After the war he remained in the army commanding the 76th Landwehr Infantry Regiment from November 1918 to 3 March 1919. From 1919 he was back in the Prussian War Ministry and then detached to the Reichswehrministerium in 1919 when that ministry was established. He spent the rest of the decade alternating between spells in regiments, riding schools and positions at the Reichswehrministerium finally ending up in Moscow as secret special military attaché.

He retired from the army on 31 March 1933.

Wehrmacht

On 1 August 1935 he was returned to active service as a military attaché to Russia and Lithuania and sent back to Moscow. During his diplomatic activity there, he was promoted to Lieutenant General (1 August 1937) and finally to General of the cavalry (1 October 1940).

On 8 August 1940 Köstring was warned by General Halder that "he would have to answer a lot of questions soon". Making him one of a few people who knew what would happen with Russia despite the Non-aggression pact. With the beginning of the Russian campaign where he had been involved in the intrigue leading up to Operation Barbarossa his position in Moscow was untenable and was repatriated under diplomatic immunity and assigned to the Führerreserve awaiting the next assignment.

Before his next assignment time was spent with Friedrich Werner von Schulenburg touring prisoner of war camps selecting Russian volunteers for the army.

The next assignment came on 1 September 1942 when he was ordered to be the "General Officer attached to Army Group A for Caucasian Questions" (allegedly assigned due to the influence of his friend Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg) under General Eduard Wagner.

In this role work was primarily aimed at the creating national legions among the indigenous people of the Caucasus, among them the Muslim Karachai. Trying to get them autonomy however, could be in direct confrontation with the policy of the Office of the Four Year Plan. He arranged for Armenian, Georgian and mixed Caucasian tribes to fight at the front after training in Poland. Most of the Armenians deserted, as they were fighting fellow countrymen.

The Karachai had formed an anti-Bolshevik committee under Kaki Baieramukov before the Germans arrived. Köstring invited them to a Bairam feast on 11 October. He was so well received he was carried shoulder high in celebration as was the custom. Unfortunately, members of a Four Year Plan mission were also at the feast and a speech was made informing them that although they had been liberated they now served the Fuhrer. An eyewitness states that the speech was not translated this way but was explained that they would be left in peace!

At some time in November Köstring fell ill (he was 66 at the time) and the area started to be evacuated by the Germans after the defeat at Stalingrad.

In the spring of 1943 he was back in the Führerreserve. In mid-June 1943, he was appointed Inspector of the German commanded Turkic associations, on 1 January 1944 appointed the General of the "volunteer" organizations in the Army High Command. Throughout this period he spent most of his time helping with the creation of Vlasov's army.

He surrendered on 4 May 1945 Bad Aibling to the U.S. Army, he was kept in captivity until he was discharged in 1947.

He co-authored the book The Peoples of the Soviet Union for the U.S. Army in 1948.