Washington Journal., 1942-05-29

When Friedrich Kapp, the German-Amer
lean historian, wrote his authoritative "L1te
of General de Kalb" he deplored our peoples
apparent neglect fifty to commemorate that
brave soldiers share in wining the lndepend-
ence of this country.
At the time Kapp's book was published,
nearly a hundred years after de Kalb came
to America, there was indeed no monument
OF even tablet to his memory as yet. That
was in 1862. His fame was outwardly re-
called only by a hamlet named after him
near the cove in South Carolina where he
and Lafayette landed, when they came to
Join the War Of the American Revolution.
MANY years afterward a simple shaft bear
ling de Kalb's name with a brief inscription
was erected at Camden in North Carolina,
where he fell MORALLY wounded, while try
ing to rally raw American levies overcome
lin battle by Corvallis redcoats. Still later
another monument to de Kalb was reared
bv Congress at Annapolis in Maryland.
Among the untold American naval and
marine officers, who as cadets at the Y. >.
Naval Academy have cast a passing glance
at the inscription on that monument, but few,
/ dare say, were aware how adventurous was
the career of the man there concentrated.
Certainly the inscription on the base OF the
monument gives but the barest mixing OF
de Kalb's exploits.
ANY cadet, seeking further enlightenment
in the Naval Academy's library or IN that
Of Annapolis, would find lite about de kalb.
It was so, anyhow, when this essay was
written.
A Checkered Career
Yet de Kalb's comparatively short life was
checkered with so many heroic deeds, dare
devil exploits, hairbreadth escapes and such
mysterious goings and comings that 1t might
well be worth the while Of a book lover among
the cadets to lay aside the latest detective
story to delve into the long forgotten records
of de Kalb's adventures in war and while on
a secret military mission in America.
The main facts Of our hero's military
career have been well told in Kapp's bio
graphy of General de Kalb. 1t was Knapp,
BY the way, who-tolerantly and without any
p~retense Of sdebunking proved that the
so-called "Baron de Kalb" never had a right
to assume a baronial title, nor to embellish
his German family name Kalb Tor kolb)
with the French noble prefix "de". Still
extant Protestant church records at the vii
Iage Of HIttendorf near Bayreuth in Fran
coma revealed to Kapp that Johannes Kalb,
the subject Of his biography, was baptized
there June 20, 1921, as the son of the peasant
J Johannes Leonhard Kalb and his peasant
wife, Marguerite Seiz. Furthermore the
biographer learned that little Hans boyhood
rearing after going to grammar school at
nearby Kriegendorf was that OF a country
yokel and later swcullion in the village tavern,
until at the age of 16 he ran away from
Huttendorf to take to soldering. No trace
Of him has been found in contemporary
records until several years later, when his
name turns up as Lieutenant Jean de kalb
n the roster Of a German-French infantry
regiment, raised and mustered on September
1 1zAO ~ Gonp+ ouando1 q brilliant Gnr-
man soldier of fortune in France.
Considering the feudal prejudices of the
early 18th century, it was no small feat for
a peasant-born German youth without bene-
fits of higher education to pass himself OIL
in a regiment, exclusively Offered by Ger
man noblemen, as an hereditary baron and
to obtain a royal commission as a lieutenant
in the French Army. 1t must be left to con-
lecture how young Kalb had learned to speak
and write French and how he acquired sui
icient book learning and gentlemanly man
ners to qualify as an officer. All We know
from contemporary records is that de Kalb
wrote dramatically hawless and lucid
French letters, that he learned Flemish,
Dutch and English well enough to pick his
cautious way amid difficult circumstances as
a French secret agent in Holland, England
and America, that he had polished manners
and winning ways.
How the ambitious young soldier came to
invent a title Of nobility for himself is under
standable enough. Without it in the army
Of King Louis XIV. he could never have made
the grade, nor won advancement. Harder
to understand is how the ~newiedged Seigneur
de Kalb-Huttendorf managed to fool his Ger
man fellow officers in the Lowendal regiment
about his lowly origin, since some OF them
must have had first hand knowledge of Fran
CONAN ancestry. Probably he refrained in
France from talking German or otherwise