Maximilian von Prittwitz

Maximillian von Prittwitz (27 November 1848 – 29 March 1917) was an Imperial German general. He fought in the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian War, and briefly in World War I.

Family
Prittwitz came from an extremely old aristocratic Silesian family in Bernstadt. His father was Gustav von Prittwitz, a Prussian general, and his mother was Elizabeth von Klass.

He married Olga von Dewitz (30 August 1848 – 9 January 1938), the daughter of a landowner, Kurt von Dewitz on 19 May 1874.

Military career
After attending school in Oels, he joined an infantry regiment and fought in the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War. He rose steadily through the ranks of the German military for the next forty years, until he was appointed Generaloberst (‘4 star’ or full general) in 1913.

On 2 August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, he was appointed commander of the German Eighth Army, and assigned to defend East Prussia from an expected Russian attack.

When the Russian advance threatened his rear, Prittwitz suggested a retreat to the west of the Vistula River. This meant abandoning East Prussia, which the German General Staff found unacceptable. Prittwitz was promptly replaced as Eighth Army commander by Paul von Hindenburg on 23 August 1914. Hindenburg, and his chief of staff Erich Ludendorff, then destroyed the two invading Russian armies at the Battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes.

Prittwitz retired to Berlin, where he lived for three years before dying of a heart attack. He was buried in the Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin.