Friedrich Gustav Jaeger - Life

Life

Friedrich Gustav Jaeger – sometimes known as "Fritz" – was born in Kirchberg an der Jagst, a small town in eastern Württemberg (now part of Baden-Württemberg) to the district doctor (later chief doctor), Franz Jaeger and his wife Sofie Katharina (née Schirndinger von Schirnding). In 1906, the family moved to Stuttgart, where Jaeger went to the Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium.

At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Jaeger did the Notabitur (a special, harder wartime version of the Abitur), declared himself a volunteer, and became an ensign in Infantry Regiment 119. During the war, he was deployed in Flanders and France, and also at the Battles of the Isonzo on the Italian Front in Slovenia. Jaeger was wounded six times and received numerous decorations.

After the war's end, he studied agriculture in Tettnang. In 1919, Jaeger's only son, Krafft Werner Jaeger, was born. In the same year, Jaeger joined the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), which later called itself the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). Although he was a leading member of the Munich Freikorps Oberland, Jaeger refused to participate in the Kapp Putsch and quit the NSDAP.

In the years that followed, Jaeger was a resolute opponent of the Nazis. In 1934, he went out of his way to get himself back into the Reichswehr, since he was foreseen as Reichssportführer Hans von Tschammer und Osten's adjutant. He was taken on by Infantry Regiment 29 as a captain. In 1936, he was promoted to major.