About the Principality
At 433 square miles in size and a 1910 population of 61,723, the Principality of Waldeck-
Pyrmont was one of the smallest states of the German Empire. Located in the
central part of what is now the Land of Hesse, Waldeck-Pyrmont
consisted of two enclaves - Waldeck, located along the border of Hesse-Cassel and
Westphalia, and Pyrmont, a tiny (26 sq. mi.) enclave sandwiched between Lippe and Brunswick.
The capital was the town of Arolsen in Waldeck. The terrain is generally high hills and
low mountains and the soil not especially fertile; Waldeck was one of the least densely populated regions in Germany. Except for a period between 1805 and 1812, Waldeck and Pyrmont
had been under the same ruler since 1625. For convenience's sake, Waldeck will be
used as shorthand for the entire state. Waldeck entered the German Confederation in 1815.
In 1866 Waldeck joined the Prussian-led North
German Confederation, but ratification of the federal constitution was held up by the
Waldeck assembly, which demanded that Prince Georg Viktor sign an accession treaty with
Prussia. He agreed in 1867 and the principality went under a 10-year Prussian administration
in 1868, which stayed in place when Waldeck joined the German Empire. The Accession
Treaty was renewed in 1877 for another 10 years and again in 1887 indefinitely.
Prince Georg Viktor died in 1893 and was succeeded by Prince Friedrich II, who ruled
until abdicating in 1918.
As a footnote, Friedrich II's son and heir, Erbprinz Josias
zu Waldeck und Pyrmont, has the distinction of being the only head of a German ruling
house to have been imprisoned for war crimes - he was the Higher SS and Police Leader
(Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer) for the region of Germany which gave him supervision
of Buchenwald concentration camp. An SS-Obergruppenführer, he had also headed the so-called Bureau for the
Germanization of the Eastern Peoples (Büro zur Eindeutschung der Ostvölker). A
defendant in the 1947 Buchenwald trial, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, but was
released in 1950 due to ill health.
The Armed Forces of Waldeck
A "Waldeck Battalion" was founded in 1681 and garrisoned at Arolsen. In the 18th Century,
the Princes of Waldeck began seconding forces as mercenaries for other states. In 1740
the 1st and 2nd Waldeck Battalions were created. In 1752, they were combined to form the
1st Waldeck Regiment. A 3rd Waldeck Battalion had been formed in 1744, and this was expanded to
two battalions, becoming the 2nd Waldeck Regiment, in 1767. These units were in
Dutch service, where the Prince of Waldeck was a Marshal.
In 1776, the 3rd Waldeck Regiment was raised. The regiment entered English service and was deployed to
the rebellious colonies. Leaving Bremerhaven on Dutch ships, it arrived in New York. Of 1,225
soldiers in the regiment, 470 were natives of Waldeck. Some 720 would not return from the Americas, having
been killed, gone missing or deserted (the Continental Congress offered land grants to Hessian deserters).
This loss rate seems typical of England's "Hessian" mercenaries:
| State of origin |
Number of troops |
Losses |
| Hesse-Cassel |
16,992 |
6,500 (of which 2,000 were KIA) |
| Hesse-Hanau |
2,422 |
981 |
| Brunswick |
5,723 |
3,015 |
| Ansbach-Bayreuth |
1,644 |
461 |
| Anhalt-Zerbst |
1160 |
176 |
| Waldeck |
1,225 |
720 |
Sources: Max von Elking, German Allied Troops in the American War of Independence,
B.E. Burgoyne, Waldeck Soldiers of the American Revolutionary War
In the 1777 campaign, the 3rd Waldeck Regiment was garrisoned in Amboy, New Jersey. The
regiment was sent to the Gulf Coast in 1778, and fought the Spanish at Baton Rouge
and Pensacola, among other places. The regiment was captured in 1781 in
Pensacola. The remnants were repatriated to Germany in 1783.
A unit designated the 5th Waldeck Battalion was formed in 1784. It also entered Dutch
service. Some former members of the 3rd Waldeck Regiment, having returned from the US,
served in this battalion. In 1802, it was sent to garrison the Cape of Good Hope in
South Africa. The Waldeckers would (unsuccessfully) defend Capetown from the English in 1806.
In 1806, when Napoleon dissolved the Batavian Republic and made Holland a kingdom under his
brother Louis Napoleon, the regiments were reorganized. The 1st Waldeck Regiment became the 3rd Battalion, 1st
Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Waldeck Regiment became the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Infantry
Regiment. The 5th Waldeck Battalion was dissolved.
At some point, the Waldeck regiments left Dutch service. In 1815, with the formation of the
German Confederation, Waldeck was tasked to contribute one Jäger and
three infantry companies. The unit was reorganized later in the century as a Fusilier
Battalion. In 1862, Waldeck entered into a military convention with Prussia. In 1867, this
was revised and the Waldeck contingent became the 3rd Battalion of Infanterie-Regiment
Nr. 83 (III./IR 83), whose other two battalions were drawn from Hesse-Cassel, which had been
incorporated into Prussia. IR 83 was soon renamed Infanterie-Regiment von Wittich
(3. Kurhessisches) Nr. 83 and the Prince of Waldeck-Pyrmont was named its chief.
In the Franco-Prussian War, the regiment, part of the 22. Division of the XI. Armeekorps,
fought in a number of the war's major battles and suffered heavy casualties. Among these
battles were Wörth, Sedan, Loigny-Poupry, Orléans, Beaugency-Cravant and Le Mans.
When World War One began, IR 83 was still part of the 22. Infanterie-Division, XI. Armeekorps.
Under the command of Oberst Konrad Christian Ludwig Graf von Moltke, it went into action with
the division's 43. Infanterie-Brigade in the assault on the
fortified Belgian city of Liége. It later went to the Eastern Front and returned to the
Western front at the end of 1917, fighting there until the armistice.
Other units connected to Waldeck in the war include Kurhessisches Reserve-Infanterie-
Regiment Nr. 83 (RIR 83), whose regimental staff and 1st Battalion (I./RIR 83) were
based in Arolsen, and Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 370, formed in 1915 from brigade replacement
battalions including the 43rd Infantry Brigade's Brigade-Ersatz-Bataillon Nr. 43. Also
during the course of the war, three Landsturm infantry batallions were mobilized in
Waldeck (Landsturm-Infanterie-Bataillon XI/1 Arolsen, 2.Landsturm-Infanterie-
Ersatz-Bataillon XI/18 Arolsen and 3.Landsturm-Infanterie-Ersatz-Bataillon XI/20 Arolsen)
from older soldiers and performed rear area duties such as headquarters security and POW
handling.
RIR 83 was called up on mobilization and became part of the 50. Reserve-Infanterie-Brigade of
the 25. Reserve-Division, along with three Grand Ducal Hesse reserve infantry regiments.
Oberstleutnant Schollmeyer, chief of staff of IR 83, became RIR 83's first commander, but was
killed in action on September 10, 1914 in the First Battle of the Marne. After the initial campaigns
in France, the 25. Reserve-Division was sent to the Eastern Front in 1915, and returned to the
Western Front in 1916, including fighting at Verdun from July 1916 to August 1917. RIR 83's losses in
World War I were 105 officers and 3,043 NCOs and enlisted men.
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