Incomparable collection of letters from the pen... Lot 31

Incomparable collection of letters from the pen of the Ottoman-Prussian Marshal Otto Liman von Sanders Otto Viktor Karl Liman von Sanders (1855-1929) was a former Prussian General of the Cavalry and Imperial German Army who served as a military advisor to the Ottoman Army during World War I, where he was deployed as Ottoman Marshal and Commander-in-Chief in the defense of the Dardanelles around 1915. On this he published "Five Years of Turkey. By General of the Cavalry Liman von Sanders". Published by August Scherl, Berlin 1920, he was instrumental in turning the Ottoman Army into an effective fighting force in World War I and achieving victory over the Allies at Gallipoli. After the armistice, he organized the return home of German soldiers who had served in Turkey during the war. Back in Germany and after disposition in 1919, he settled in Munich with his second wife Elisabeth and kept up a lively correspondence with his aide-de-camp and friendly companion Lieutenant Colonel and later Major Erich Richard Julius Prigge (1878-1955), who had been assigned to him in the Ottoman Empire. Erich Prigge - mostly known as a military memoirist with his work "Der Kampf um die Dardanellen" (Verlag Gustav Kiepenheuer: Weimar 1916) or "Gallipoli, der Kampf um den Orient" - found his assignment under the staff of Marshal von Sanders, temporarily also as deputy chief of staff of the Yildirim Army Group. He also returned to Germany/Berlin in 1919, married and continued to maintain political-military contacts with the diplomatic circles of the Republic of Turkey and the Balkan countries. During World War II, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a reserve officer for various administrative functions in Baden. After the war, he became executive director of the Badisches Hilfswerk and then of the Red Cross in Baden. The private letters are contemporary witnesses to the close relationship between Liman von Sanders and Prigge. This collection contains mostly letters penned by Sanders, including a few letters written around 1917 while he was in what is now Bandirma, Turkey. The letters contain mainly words of thanks, polite-moral praise, congratulations on various occasions, travel reports, health conditions, etc. A small peculiarity in this collection is formed by the unique letter of Prigge to the widow Elisabeth von Sanders, marked as a draft, one month after the anniversary of the death of Liman von Sanders. In this letter, Prigge describes his friend in the following words: "Admired by many, loved by few, understood by only a few, a great man, a lonely man, has departed from life. From a life that, despite all successes, all fame, all splendor, was always so infinitely difficult for him, because it was not made for the great, but for the average. How little the little ones have recognized his great qualities! His successes could not be overlooked, but to investigate their sources was too laborious for the masses.(...)" A reply from the widow with words of thanks is also included in the collection, as well as some photographs with recorded impressions of the stay in the Ottoman Empire with unclear attribution.