Abstract
This volume presents a diverse, eclectic, and ultimately useful collection of articles on the history of the Imperial German Navy before, during, and after the Great War. It represents the proceedings of an eponymous historical colloquium sponsored by the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Schiffahrts- und Marinegeschichte (DGSM) in November 2014 to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the outbreak of World War I. Editor Heinrich Walle notes (p. 7) that the original DGSM program ‘had designed a varied, as well as informative and exciting program on this event from the perspective of naval history.’ The organisers deliberately avoided operational issues – with only an occasional and incidental reference to Tirpitz and his Risk Fleet, the Battle of Jutland, or unrestricted submarine warfare – with the intent to focus instead on less well known but nonetheless significant and compelling issues. This well-edited collection fully echoes that original purpose. Its fourteen selections include articles on strategic doctrine, naval literature and historiography, photography and documentary filmmaking, and naval museums and architecture as the authors implement their ‘search for clues’ (Spurensuche).
A single article compares the theoretical origins of the pre-war strategic ideas of both Britain and Germany. The author provides a brief but succinct description and analysis of strategists Philip Colomb, Alfred T. Mahan, Julian Corbett, Alfred von Tirpitz, and the French Jeune Ecole. Although the article does not particularly break new ground, it does concludes aptly with a Moltke-like conclusion that no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. As evidence, for example, the author cites the British switch from ‘Blue Water School’ to strategic defence with the Royal Navy’s distant blockade in the North Sea. One conclusion might disappoint American readers: ‘Mahan’s ideas played no major role in the strategy of either the Imperial Navy or the Royal Navy’ (p. 81).
The literary articles well reflect the collection’s eclectic content while adding a strong sociological focus. No collection worthy of the name would be complete without the requisite paean to fisherman-turned-seaman Gorch Fock (pseudonym for author Johann Kinau, best known for his poetry and prose in Low German). This article examines the metamorphosis of Fock from Everyman to war hero under the colourful title ‘Between Herring and Hero’.’ As the author notes (p. 136), ‘With the death of Johann Kinau, the myth of Gorch Fock was born.’
The Kiel Mutiny of 1918, which helped end the Kaiserreich and launch the Weimar Republic, provides a common link between several sailors who wrote valuable accounts of their naval experiences. For example, Hans Bötticher, who first went to sea at the age of eleven as a ‘ship’s boy’ (Schiffsjunge), secured a reserve commission and then commanded a minesweeper during the Great War. Writing under the pen name Joachim Ringelnatz, he wrote (and later painted) satirical works describing both the mundane and the radical aspects of life aboard an anchored fleet. Bötticher’s work, both in print and on canvas, earned him the ultimate sobriquet in interwar Germany: denunciation of his work by the National Socialists as ‘degenerate’. A second article compares the diaries of Richard Stumpf and Carl Linke, two enlisted seaman who wrote lengthy and detailed accounts of their shipboard service and their active roles in the November mutiny. (Stumpf famously testified at the Reichstag’s investigation of the revolt in 1926; Linke’s diary only recently surfaced, discovered by historian Michael Epkenhas in 2010). Another article analyses an autobiographical novel, Der Kaisers Kulis, by Theodor Plievier, which describes his compelled service – he had to choose between prison or enlistment (‘Shanghaied!’) – and his active participation in the mutiny. His political partisanship – he initially supported the Independent Social Democrats before joining the German Communist Party – made it difficult for him to find a publisher (until 1931) and earned him persecution by the Nazis.
The editors did not neglect British literature in their quest for clues. A final literary article studies the role of invasion literature which produced Hunnenangst in British public opinion. The author particularly credits Erskine Childers’ classic espionage novel The Riddle of the Sands (1903), which frightened its readers into demanding greater naval spending and construction, and William Le Queux’s The Invasion of 1910 (1906), whose fictional reference to the alleged presence of more than 5000 German spies in Britain accelerated the development of the counter-intelligence bureau MI-5.
Several historiographical articles chart the role of early still photography and film in recording the history of the Imperial Navy. One example describes the photography collection held by the Wehrgeschichtliches Museum in Rastatt (an extraordinary institution that every naval historian needs to visit). Another provides a useful index of feature documentary and feature films produced between 1916 and 1935 with an emphasis on U-boats as ‘undersea heroes’ (Helden der Untersee).
The collection does not neglect architectural representations of the Navy’s history. One article describes the initial establishment of the Naval Monument at Laboe on the twentieth anniversary of the Battle of Jutland, an ironically difficult task with the designers attempting to honour the veterans of the war while staving off the National Socialist regime which sought to use the event for propaganda purposes. The volume’s final article provides an architectural analysis of the Navy’s magnificent and monumental Marineschule in Mürwik, Flensburg, which balanced aesthetics with functionality corresponding to the Navy’s ‘contemporary Zeitgeist’ (p. 239).
In sum, this volume fulfils its eclectic and diverse intent. Other collections elsewhere can review the continuing – sometimes interminable –discussions of the war’s origins, the arguments over ‘risk’ vs. ‘luxury’ fleet, the naval major battles. This collection fills in the gaps with satisfying results.