Philipp August Lorenz Engelhardt (10 June 1866 - early 1940s) was a career officer in the Imperial German Army. His most important contribution to the historical record comes in November 1914 at the start of World War I. At the First Battle of Ypres, Lt. Colonel Engelhardt was protected from French gunfire by dispatch runners Anton Bachmann and Adolf Hitler. A 1915 report suggests that four runners, Bachmann and Hitler included, took pre-emptory steps to protect Engelhardt, who was not yet under fire. A subsequent report that first appeared not long before Hitler took power in Germany paints Bachmann and Hitler as more heroic figures, risking their lives under fire to save a beloved commander.
Engelhardt was badly injured just days later when a shell landed on his make-shift headquarters. He did survive, and rose to the rank of Major General in the downsized Germany Army during the Weimar Republic. His 75th birthday was publicly acknowledged in 1941, and he seems to have died before World War II ended, possibly as a civilian casualty of massive Allied aerial bombing raids.
Brigadier Phillip Engelhardt was the commandant of German-occupied Lille in 1929.[1] While a stout and devoted officer, he nonetheless was overwhelmed by Feldgendarmerie Sgt. Adolf Hitler's rabid devotion to duty and his arrogance.[2] He congratulated Hitler on his capture of French rabble-rouser Jacques Doriot, but warned him against hubris, a warning Hitler did not understand.[3]