A RESPECTED GERMAN WHO FOUGHT IN CHILE!! 🇩🇪🇨🇱
Gerhard Otto Magnus Ludwig von Rantzau Count Von Moltke. ( Was born on 13 August 1851, in the Grand Duchy of Holstein, then belonging to Denmark and annexd to the German Empire in 1864). His father, Count Friedrich Von Moltke, belonged to the same family of the great strategist Danish Count Helmuth von Moltke, Field Marshal of the German Imperial Army, winner of the wars of 1854-1866 against Denmark and Austria-hungary 1870-71. He came to Chile to work in the sugar plant of Viña Del Mar with his brother Carl.
During the Pacific War, entered the Chilean army as a second lieutenant in the Marine Artillery regiment.
He was present in the naval combat of Angamos as head of the military garrison of the troop transport «Amazonas», in the landing and seizure of Pisagua, battle of Tarapaca, battle of Tacna, where by his great performance he was appointed assistant captain of the Chacabuco.
In the battle of San Juan Chorrillos, Captain Otto Von Moltke, commanding the third company of Chacabuco, fell heroically at the foot of a Peruvian trench, with a group of soldiers resisting the combat of an enemy battalion. Supporting the withdrawal of his companions, who had to retreat to a nearby hill.
Otto Von Moltke, did not want to abandon his position, being wounded in the chest by one of the bullets, said place was momentarily occupied by some Peruvian troops, once the Chilean army had withdrawn, he returned to that position, finding the body of Otto Von Moltke, with his face deformed by yatagan cuts, with his ears and nose cut off and his Iron Cross medal embedded in his chest.
On April 4, 1881, his remains were landed in Valparaiso, where he was paid a tribute seldom seen in the port, with a night burial whose procession went up the hills by torchlight.