The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 4, January 23, 2005, Article 22

ON MAX VON BAHRFELDT

Regarding our earlier request for information on Max
von Bahrfeldt, John Kleeberg writes: "I looked in
Degener's Wer Ist's ("Unsere Zeitgenossen") for 1935,
and it states that von Bahrfeldt was sentenced to death
in absentia by a Belgian court for the atrocities of
Charleroi; he was also put on trial by the Reichsgericht
at Leipzig, but he walked. The post World War I war
criminal trials by the Reichsgericht at Leipzig were widely
regarded as far too lax, which is why an International
Military Tribunal was set up after World War II. Von
Bahrfeldt was very right wing in his political sympathies -
he was a member of the Vaterlandspartei, the DNVP,
the Stahlhelm, and then became part of the SA Reserve
(the brown shirts) after the Stahlhelm was merged into
the SA during the Nazi period. His father was the
owner of a knight's estate, but Degener says that the
family is by origin a bourgeois one, so von Bahrfeldt is
not, technically, a Prussian junker, although he did opt
for the military career - the cadet institution in
Berlin-Lichterfelde, and then a gradual rise through
the ranks, peaking out at Generalleutnant. It is
interesting that the Army retired him in 1916,
suggesting that he might have blotted his copybook in
some way. I've been looking for photographs of von
Bahrfeldt in his spiked helmet or in his SA uniform,
but the only photographs I've seen show him in
civilian attire: see Photo

I have heard it said that the reason the British do
not classify their Roman coins not according to von
Bahrfeldt, but according to Sydenham, is because von
Bahrfeldt had Dame Edith Cavell executed. So far as I
can tell, although von Bahrfeldt is accused of some
sort of atrocity in Charleroi, he did not have Nurse
Cavell executed, for her activities were in Brussels,
and von Bahrfeldt was posted elsewhere. The rumor "He
had Edith Cavell executed" is probably just shorthand
for "He was involved in some atrocity in Belgium," and
in Britain, the execution of Edith Cavell is the best
known atrocity. Crawford attacked the British cult of
Sydenham several years ago, saying, "There were three
people who really understood Roman Republican coins,
and Sydenham was not one of them." Crawford was
clearly referring to von Bahrfeldt among the three;
the second is probably Theodor Mommsen, always a good
guess when discussing the Roman Republic; we haven't
figured out yet who was Crawford's number three."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum