Udet. Prussian or Bavarian Army?

[leo]

Germany in 1914 was a Federal Nation with each of the kingdoms and other states within the Reich having its own army. Dan-San Abbott wrote an excellent piece on Udet and indicated that in 1914 Udet listed in the German Army in Munich. Bavaria had its own army, but was there also a seperate all-state German Army? Immelmann was in the Saxon Army, where was Udet?

[MrSmith]

Udet started off in the 26 Württembergischen Reserve division as a messenger.

[Cigogne]

Technically, he was neither Prussian nor Bavarian! He was born in Frankfurt am Main which is in Hessen, which would make him by birth Hessisch (or Hessian as we refer to it in English), although he had family ties to Bayern (Bavaria) through his mother and spent his growing up years there. He tried to enlist in the Bavarian Flying Korps but was rejected because of his youth. He then took private flying lessons and presented himself to the Prussians and offered his services to the Luftstreitkräfte and was accepted then and completed the military flying training process with them. His ego was bruised from his rejection by the Bavarians and so he turned his back on them and remained with the non-Bavarian units throughout his wartime career.

As far armies or units from within the German Federal system of the time, they came from virtually every German state. Bavaria, because of her size and strength and different culture, they were able to maintain autonomy within the system.

[MrSmith]

Didn’t the army reject Udet because of his height? He was only 160cm’s tall.
His father gave him a motorcycle and he volunteered to be a messenger.

[frontflieger]

Hi all,

the facts are slightly different: in Germany 1914 there were the Army of the German Reich and separately the Bavarian Army... That has its roots in the German Unification of 1871... when Bavaria (under the reign of Ludwig II. - the man with the fary-tale castles) negociated to keep his regiments separate.

By serving in non-Bavarian units, Udet missed the opportunity to become "Ritter Ernst von Udet"! Bad Luck (?!)

Thorsten

[rammjaeger]

There was - at least on paper - also a Saxon Army and (to my knowledge) also an Army of Württemberg existing. A Ministry of War with own orders, rules, ranking lists etc. of the Royal Saxon Army makes no sense if no own Army exists.

The Bavarians were relatively independent because of their single military success in 1866 and the importance of the kingdom for the unification 1871. The others had this famous double-number system like 1. (Royal-Saxon) Leib-Grenadier-Regiment Nr.100. (the "German" number). So the Saxon Army was amalgamed into the "German" Army. In Fall 1914 the German 3. Army was a nearly pure Saxon Army after some transfer of personnel, but the Prussians used the sickness of Armyleader von Hausen to destroy this unwished political and military fact. General von Einem took over and the Saxon troops were send to very different theatres of war.

Already before WWI some more clear-minded officers realised that this organisation with different armys was only creating bureaucracy and disturbances in the chain of command. Saxons complained often they would not get proper information about new Prussian orders. As well the Prussians did not know or ignored the rules of the other armys.

[Glenn]

Notwithstanding his domicile in München and his earlier messenger service with the 26. Württemberg Reserve-Division he was commissioned into the Prussian Army on the 22nd of January 1917 as a Leutnant der Reserve. Below is an extract from the Militär-Wochenblatt edition of the 27th of January 1917.

Regards
Glenn