Otto von Lossow
| Otto von Lossow | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 15 January 1868 Hof, Kingdom of Bavaria |
| Died | 25 November 1938 (aged 70) Munich, Bavaria, Nazi Germany |
| Allegiance |
 Kingdom of Bavaria Germany
|
| Service/branch |
Bavarian Army Reichswehr
|
| Years of service | 1888-1924 |
| Rank | Generalmajor |
| Commands held | Wehrkreis VII (1923-1924) |
| Battles/wars | Gallipoli |
| Awards | Bavaria: Military Merit Order, 2nd Class with Swords Prussia: Order of the Red Eagle, 2nd Class with Crown and Swords Austria-Hungary: Military Merit Cross, 2nd Class with War Decoration Ottoman Empire: Liakat Medal in Gold with Sabers Ottoman Empire: Order of Osmanieh Ottoman Empire: Order of Medjidie Ottoman Empire: Turkish War Medal (so-called "Gallipoli Star") |
General Otto Hermann von Lossow (January 15, 1868 – November 25, 1938) was a Bavarian Army and then German Army officer who played a prominent role in the events surrounding the attempted Beer Hall Putsch by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in November 1923.
Lossow was born in Hof in the Kingdom of Bavaria. He entered the Bavarian Army in 1888. He served in a variety of assignments, and was trained as a general staff officer. He served with the German contingent of the relief expedition during the Boxer Rebellion.
Immediately prior to World War I, Lossow was a lieutenant colonel and a general staff officer without a specific assignment. On mobilization in August 1914, he was assigned to be the chief of the general staff of the II. Bavarian Reserve Corps. Lossow served with the corps until July 1915, when he became the German military attaché in Istanbul (then still called Constantinople in German records) in the Ottoman Empire, where he assisted the Ottoman Army and the German military mission in planning the ongoing response to Allied landings in Gallipoli. He also provided valuable testimony concerning the Armenian Genocide in its later stages, in which he wrote that "On the basis of all the reports and news coming to me here in Tiflis there hardly can be any doubt that the Turks systematically are aiming at the extermination of the few hundred thousand Armenians whom they left alive until now." He remained in the Ottoman Empire for the rest of the war, becoming in April 1916 the "German Military Plenipotentiary at the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople." Despite the title, he was junior to many of the German officers in the Ottoman Empire serving as advisors to and commanders of Ottoman military formations.
In 1919, Lossow, now a major general (Generalmajor), was part of the transitional force which would become the Reichswehr, the 100,000-man army permitted to Germany under the Treaty of Versailles.
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