Alexei Aleksandrovich von Lampe
(1885-1967)
Source

Alexei Alexandrovich von Lampe was born on July 18, 1885 in the town of Verzhbolovo (modern Lithuania) in the family of a gendarmerie colonel. The von Lampe family came from Hamburg, and his ancestors moved to Russia after the Napoleonic wars. From 1895 to 1902, Alexei von Lampe studied at the First Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg. In 1904, after graduating from the Nikolaev Military Engineering School, Alexei Alexandrovich took part in the Russo-Japanese War, as part of the 6th engineer battalion. In battles he was wounded and shell-shocked. In 1907, von Lampe entered the service of the Semyonovsky Life Guards Regiment. Three years later, he entered the Imperial Nikolaev Military Academy . Further, von Lampe was assigned to the General Staff. In 1912, Alexei Alexandrovich got married. During the First World War, he became interested in writing memoirs. In 1916, he became acting staff officer for assignments at the headquarters of the 18th Army Corps. In 1917 he came to Kharkov, where he became the editor of the Vozrozhdeniye newspaper..¹

I Alexei von Lampe did not support the Bolsheviks and in early 1918 refused their offer to serve in the newly formed Red Army. During the occupation of Kharkov by German troops in May 1918, von Lampe worked underground and recruited officers for the Volunteer Army on the Don. In August of the same year, he left for Yekaterinoslav with his family . He worked at the headquarters of the Volunteer Army under the leadership of General Alekseev. From September 1918, von Lampe acted as editor of the new newspaper Rossiya, which was later renamed Great Russia. In 1919, Alexei Alexandrovich was awarded the rank of colonel. He served as chief of the operational department of the headquarters of the Caucasian Army , and then the Volunteer Army. At the end of 1919, he was sent to the military representative of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia in Constantinople . In March 1920, von Lampe left Russia forever.

By appointment of General Lukomskii, in April 1920, von Lampe dealt with the affairs of refugees who were left on the Princes' Islands. In May, Alexei von Lampe was appointed by General Wrangel to the military representation in Denmark. In mid-July 1920 he went to Berlin. Von Lampe accepted the post of Military Representative of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army and Head of the Russian Delegation for Prisoners of War and Refugees in Berlin. In 1921, Baron Wrangel sent von Lampe as a military representative to Hungary to negotiate with Regent Miklós Horthy.²

In Hungary, he worked with the cornet of the Life Guards of the Ulansky Regiment, Lev Alexandrovich Kazem -Bek (1876–1952), father of Alexander Lvovich Kazem -Bek, leader of the Mladorosov movement . Von Lampe considered Lev Kazem-Beck an odious figure.³ In the summer of 1922, Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel also appointed Alexei von Lampe as his representative in Berlin. In December 1923 he was promoted to major general. In 1924, von Lampe received the post of head of the Second Department of the Russian All-Military Union. Alexei Alexandrovich in 1926 found funds to start publishing a series of collections “White business. Chronicle of the White Struggle. In Germany, von Lampe supported emigre cinema and acted in films himself. At first he worked as an extra, then he was invited as a consultant. In 1928, the new chairman of the ROVS , General Kutepov , openly criticized von Lampe for supporting Wrangel and stopped funding the department headed by Alexei Aleksandrovich. In 1930, under the leadership of General Miller, funding was restored. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, von Lampe began to cooperate with them. In the fall of 1933, the general was arrested by the Gestapo and charged with espionage. After the intercession of friends, von Lampe was released from prison. In 1938 he created the Organization of Russian Military Unions (ORVS).

From the beginning of World War II, von Lampe was engaged in publishing and organizing departments of the Russian Red Cross in Berlin and in the territories occupied by the Nazis. Since 1943, he repeatedly contacted General Vlasov. In 1944, he joined the “Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia” (KONR) and ended up at Vlasov’s headquarters. On February 1, 1945, von Lampe was enrolled in the Armed Forces of the KONR as a Major General of the Reserve, and on February 27 he was included in the KONR. On February 11, 1945, together with his family, he went to Altenburg , and later to Lindau. There, under the French occupation authorities, he opened an office of the Red Cross for Russian emigrants and potential repatriates. In the autumn of 1945 he was arrested for 42 days, but in March 1946 von Lampe was released and left for Munich. In 1950 he moved to Paris and after 7 years took the post of chairman of the ROVS . Alexei Andreevich von Lampe died in Paris on May 25, 1967.⁴