Gen. Rüdiger, Graf (Count) von der Goltz

Gen. von der Goltz was a Prussian aristocrat and a soldier. He himself came from a long line of soldiers He had fought against Russia from 1914 to 1918. He fought against the Baltic Bolsheviks in Latvia and Finland, with the Baltic Sea Division. He fought against the Russian Bolsheviks uniting his forces with the White West Russian Volunteer Army led by the colonel prince Avalov-Bermondt. He fought with the Polish against the Soviet Russians. He had a long epistolary with the Polish General Stanislaw de Haller von Hallenburg, himself formerly a top officer in the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Army, both of them aiming to restore the old monarchies of Poland and Russia, and the feudal Baltic States. In a photograph, von der Goltz mounted with elegant pride a fancy horse just next to the more imposing figure of Avalov-Bermondt. He was small and thin. His expression, as from this photographs, was fierce. A manifest will, stronger than the body, stronger than history. All this was von der Goltz. As the light colors delineating his visage, they intendedly stand as a counterpoint to the heavy fabric of his uniform.