Austrian-German Lake Constance flotilla

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Airship hangar in Manzell Bay

The Austro-German Lake Constance Flotilla was a civil-military facility during the First World War . It served to secure the open southern border of the German Empire and to protect the airship construction on Lake Constance .

background

With the Battle of the Marne , the First Battle of Flanders and the solidification of the Eastern Front , the prospect of a quick end to the fighting had vanished. Rather, the war extended to the home areas. Espionage and sabotage against military installations, traffic facilities and armaments factories as well as propaganda pamphlets became more common. No one had any experience in air warfare . After attacks on the airship hangar in Dusseldorf and the hydrogen gas plant in Cologne-Ehrenfeld British aircraft flew on 21 November from Belfort on the (neutral) Switzerland and the Bodensee attacking Friedrichshafen . Five bombs did little damage at the Zeppelin airship yard. After French bombing raids on Freiburg resulted in heavy losses, the neglected civil defense in the west and south-west of the German Reich was expanded. As one of the four German arms centers, Friedrichshafen was a sensitive and profitable target. As early as the mobilization , the latest anti- balloon cannons and machine guns were provided for protection against air attacks.

In the nearby Löwental there was a company from Airship Replacement Department 4. Army airshipmen were trained in the associated airship port.

Lineup

  • to bathe

  • Bavaria

  • Austria-Hungary

  • Württemberg

The Deputy General Command of the XIII. (Royal Württemberg Army Corps and the General Staff of the Field Army recognized the threat to Friedrichshafen. The Voluntary (later Imperial) Motorboat Corps (FMK, KMK) in Berlin-Charlottenburg offered vehicles and crews to guard the open German shore of Lake Constance uniformly and comprehensively. The Kingdom of Bavaria did not want to participate.

The chief of the general staff of the field army appointed to the 9/10. December 1914 a conference on counter-espionage in Strasbourg . Bavaria, the Kingdom of Württemberg , the Grand Duchy of Baden and the Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine sent government representatives. The Lake Constance area neighboring Switzerland and the Friedrichshafen Air Armaments Center came to the fore and made a special meeting necessary. Well prepared, Württemberg achieved a quick agreement with Baden and Bavaria:

  1. Establishment of a joint Lake Constance flotilla
  2. Friedrichshafen as the seat of the flotilla command
  3. Captain Karl Frhr. v. Gemmingen-Guttenberg as commander of the flotilla

Only after the conference was informed and asked to cooperate, Austria-Hungary agreed without hesitation. The Deputy General Command of the I. Royal Bavarian Army Corps and the Baden XIV Army Corps stubbornly defended their territorial power; the Gaede Army Department , which was responsible for the operational area on the Upper Rhine , Upper Rhine and Lower Lake (Lake Constance) , resisted the most . On December 30, 1914 ministerial officials of the Prussian , Bavarian , Württemberg and kuk war ministries , the General Staff of the Field Army, the Deputy General Staff , the Deputy General Command of the XIII meted. and XIV. Army Corps and the Gaede Army Department in Friedrichshafen. Württemberg strictly rejected the "coastal protection of Lake Constance" of the Gaede Army Department and was commissioned on February 22, 1915 to oversee the protection of the sea border. The Obersee stood in the foreground . The Überlinger See was cordoned off by the Staad (Konstanz) - Meersburg barrier line , the Untersee was left to the Gaede Army Department.

tasks

Kurgartenhotel Friedrichshafen
  1. Complete and uniform protection of the German and Austrian upper shores to supplement the border guards on land
  2. Assistance in defending against espionage and sabotage
  3. Monitoring of the permitted movement of people and goods as well as the prevention of undesired communication with Switzerland by checking all watercraft with the exception of the cruise ships
  4. Participation with firearms in the defense against air raids on Friedrichshafen and the surrounding area

Baron Gemmingen, nephew of Max von Zeppelins , put the Lake Constance flotilla into service on March 8, 1915 without any military ceremony . The Kurgartenhotel in Friedrichshafen served as quarters.

support

The flotilla was supported by military sea guards who had already been posted on the first day of mobilization (August 2, 1914):

  • Baden Maritime Command in Constance (XIV. AK)
  • Bavarian border guard in Lindau (Bodensee) (I. AK)
  • Württemberg Sea Guard in Friedrichshafen (XIII. AK)
  • Austrian Border Guard Command in Bregenz (kuk National Defense Commander in Tyrol, Innsbruck)

equipment

Most of the 17 boats with about 90 men were dug private boats, operated by their conscripted owners. They were given land storm men from the sea area. The flotilla was initially nothing more than a loose summary of the maritime border protection services. It soon became apparent that it was not up to the challenge. She could not afford to closely guard the 137 km long north bank and the 5 km long barrier line Staad – Meersburg. On the other hand, the sea command in Constance had 65 men enough personnel for a regular changing of the guard in front of the 72 kilometers of the banks of Baden.

Subordination, structure and areas

The flotilla command of the 54th Infantry Brigade of the 27th Division (2nd Royal Württembergische) , to which the flotilla was of course foreign, was subordinate to it. The Deputy General Command in Stuttgart was therefore decisive. The Deputy General Command remained involved in military and the war ministries (for Baden the Prussian) in administrative matters. On December 22nd, Gemmingen-Guttenberg had already drafted the basic lines for the establishment of a Lake Constance flotilla to counter espionage . He issued “General rules of conduct and orders” and “service instructions” for each of the three German groups in May 1915. The total number of daily orders was 140 at last.

The three German states availed themselves of the help of the Voluntary Motorboat Corps, which treated the flotilla as a separate formation. The FMK commander in distant Berlin was in charge of the provision and recall of boats and personnel. Austria did not demand any special rights, but kept its Bregenz group only loosely connected to the flotilla. Nevertheless, it took shape according to Gemmingen's plan. On April 15, 1915, she had 31 boats and 124 men. The sea guards were replaced by four groups:

  1. the Prussian-Baden group in Constance with a subgroup in Meersburg ,
  2. the Württemberg one in Friedrichshafen with a subgroup in Langenargen ,
  3. the Bavarian in Lindau and
  4. Austrian in Bregenz .

The three underperforming boats in Bregenz could not be reinforced with German boats because of the Austrian heavy fuel . Therefore, their area was limited to the Bregenz and Fußach Bay between the mouths of the Leiblach and the Bregenz Achs . The Rohrspitz - Rheinspitz line was neglected because behind it lay an impenetrable swamp .

Flags and uniforms

Reich Service Flag
Austria-Hungary trade flag

28 of the 31 boats carried the Reichsienstflagge , the three Bregenz boats the Austrian trade flag . The FMK members wore the mandatory blue club suits and black-white-red armbands with the imperial eagle, blue or white peaked caps with German cockades , club badges and gaiters. The corps also provided non-commissioned machinists and sailors as men . At the service suits and rank insignia of the club they also wore black-white-red armbands. The Austrians wore their field uniform.

Each boat carried two rifles 88 . The boatmen and the crews were allowed side guns . They were allowed to carry pistols on duty . After Italy entered the war on April 28, 1915 on the side of the Entente , Friedrichshafen was attacked by an aircraft on April 28 and June 27. The bomb damage was minor, but the defenselessness of the flotilla was abundantly clear. During air raids, she stayed in the ports. Headlights were missing for night operations . Flares and tracer ammunition did nothing; In June 1915, however, Gemmingen pushed through with the demand for machine guns for the four boats in Friedrichshafen. They were operated by MG sniper , later by trained Landsturm sailors.

"Boats and crews changed so frequently that the flotilla soon resembled a dovecote." The local escort staff had to adjust to the boats. The monotonous guard duty (not military service) drove the younger ones to the war fronts , especially to the corps flotillas on the Vistula , the Danube , the Dardanelles and in Flanders . The uniform regulations were constantly changing and brought as much color as unrest to the flotilla. Members of the FMK, who had become imperial, had the officer's rank and their need for recognition allowed them to produce fantasy uniforms without being an officer . The native Landsturm men proved to be clumsy and unreliable. Many suffered from seasickness or were too considerate of friends and relatives on land. Therefore, in August 1915, they were replaced by unused naval landsturmmen from northern Germany . They were briefly trained in infantry , contrary to Gemmingen's request, put into army uniforms and distributed to the Bavarian and Württemberg boats. The Baden group held on to their Landsturm men.

Most of the boats had engines that could not cope with the strain. Spare parts could hardly be procured and there was a lack of skilled workers. It was not until March 1916 that the flotilla received a repair shop in the armory of the Luftschiffer Company in Löwental.

crisis

The war year 1916 and especially the consequences of the Battle of Verdun led the Lake Constance flotilla into a creeping decline. The commander of the FMK had to withdraw nine of the best boats and their crews. There was no replacement. The kv (war usable) members of the FMK and the Marine Landsturm were transferred. Those left behind and newcomers were only gvH (able to be used as a garrison in their homeland) or av (able to be used for work). The result was even more downtime. More and more boats had to be entrusted to non-commissioned officers and men who lacked the necessary authority in security and office work. The FMK's initially 17 machinists disappeared; the 20 sailors of the Imperial Navy sent as replacements were overwhelmed. The declining quality of the fuel made the boat engines fail. Discipline deteriorated. As a way out, the conversion of the FMK into an army formation was discussed in the summer of 1916, but not decided. The liquidation of the flotilla, which was being considered at the end of 1916, did not materialize because taking on its duties on land would have been neither easier nor cheaper. The Deputy General Command in Karlsruhe saw the maritime watch service as a simple border protection task for NCOs and corporals and requested that FMK members be waived. The Prussian and Württemberg War Ministries agreed in February 1917, but left unclear how the boats of the FMK should be replaced. Gemmingen therefore advocated transferring the entire maritime border protection to the Imperial Navy and its barges . Out of consideration for neutral Switzerland and the lack of vehicles and men, the Reichsmarineamt and the Prussian War Ministry rejected the proposal.

When the war situation was extremely tense on all fronts and at sea in 1917, the General Staff of the Field Army remembered the ÖDBOF, as it had been called since the spring of 1917. He demanded "the smuggling of pamphlets and money across the Swiss border on Lake Constance to provoke a revolutionary movement in Germany to be prevented and, if necessary, to strengthen border protection" . Nevertheless, the negotiations about a reorganization of the flotilla dragged on for a long time. There were hardly any boatmen left. There were no machinists, sailors or searchlights. A naval nematrose deserted in February 1917.

At the suggestion of Bavaria, the three Deputy General Commands met on November 3, 1917 in Lindau. They found that the Imperial Motorboat Corps had failed and was responsible for the predicament. His further participation was not desired. Supported by Württemberg, Bavaria's proposal to transform the flotilla into a purely military formation under Württemberg command failed. As in 1914 and 1915, Karlsruhe insisted on its territorial sovereignty. At the end of another conference on 25./26. Austrian representatives also appeared in Friedrichshafen on January 1st, 1918 . After a few concessions in centralization, Baden gave in.

Reorganization as an army formation

Without the slightest interruption, the new maritime watch service took over on April 1, 1918. The last boats and members of the KMK were eliminated. They were replaced by army vehicles and army and marines. All wore the field-gray army uniform with the national cockades; because Baden had insisted on the quota. As an immobile motor force, the German flotilla part was under the Deputy General Command of the XIII. Army Corps. The flotilla command received disciplinary penalties and lower jurisdiction. The seat remained in Friedrichshafen. The new commander was Max Frhr from March 15, 1918. v. Gemmingen-Guttenberg, a doctorate lieutenant colonel and younger brother Karl v. Gemmingens.

It took months for the flotilla to break the low of 18 German and 3 Austrian boats. The agreed target of 33 + 5 was never achieved. The vehicles delivered by north-west German shipyards were poorly designed and poorly built with "war material". The Minn'sche shipyard in Reutenen , which was set up for the flotilla, was barely able to cope with the massive losses. The benzene plant, a lack of spare parts and the headlights impaired operational capability. With soldiers and sailors who were at best GvH-patterned, the increase in personnel to 268 + 26 men could be maintained to some extent. Replacing the tattered, faded and lost flags was no small problem either. After the KMK left, it was unclear whether the boats should continue to carry the Reich Service flag or - as a purely military formation - the Reich War flag . Since they were not warships , but border patrol boats, it stayed with the Reich Service flag.

Given these difficult conditions, it was astonishing that Austria placed the Bregenz Group under the German flotilla command on July 26, 1918, as agreed. Reinforced by a German boat, she had been guarding the Nonnenhorn –Rheinspitz route since the beginning of May . Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf and Joseph August von Austria stuck to the quota for the 26 Austrians like Baden. The Deputy General Command of the I. Bavarian Army Corps took care of the replacement of non-Bavarian soldiers in the Lindau group.

effect

Of the four tasks decided on in Strasbourg, the fourth - air defense - had been done. The other three had grown in importance. The General Staff on June 8, 1917, and the Deputy General Staff of the Army on September 20, 1918 and on November 4, 1918, warned that they should be strictly complied with. The enemy powers had set up espionage centers on Swiss territory. Pamphlets and leaflets were smuggled into the Reich and Austria mainly via Lake Constance. The Swiss border guards managed to intercept them on land and water more often than the flotilla and land border guards. Occasionally they picked up (mostly Russian) prisoners of war who wanted to escape to Switzerland on rafts .

Since the Peace of Westphalia and the retirement of the Old Confederation from the Holy Roman Empire , the state borders in Lake Constance have been unclear. Nevertheless, territorial waters in Lake Constance did not play a major role for the flotilla service.

The End

When Germany's defeat in midsummer 1918 was unstoppable, the problems of the flotilla increased. Lack of fuel, supplies and food made the service difficult and the discipline lapsed. The collapse of Austria-Hungary forced the Deputy General Staff of the Army to include the Lake Constance flotilla in new considerations. The Lindau group had to take over the Austrian route Nonnenhorn-Rheinspitz. Since the advance of Italy in Tyrol threatened, a strengthening of the ÖDBOF within the framework of a "Southern Army" was considered.

Restlessness

Domestically, too, things got stormy at Lake Constance. Preparatory measures for the "suppression of internal unrest" had already been ordered for Friedrichshafen in mid-1916 and were tightened in March 1917. The great strike movement of January 1918 passed; but in the summer of 1918 displeasure escalated. 8,000 Friedrichshafeners faced 10,000 armaments workers from all over Germany. They were better cared for than the civilian population, but were housed in mass quarters and had to do a lot. The level of livelihood fell everywhere. Hunger, dissatisfaction and unrest grew. The USPD gained more and more supporters. As technical specialists posted to the armaments factories and with precise knowledge of the military and political situation, the many soldiers and sailors turned to Marxist ideas . At the end of September 1918, they forced the Kurgartenhotel restaurant, the seat of the flotilla command, to be closed for a month. Allegedly, food regulations were disregarded and officers were given preferential treatment. The open rebellion - with only minor excesses - began on October 22nd, 1918. 300 workers from Maybach-Motorenbau demonstrated in front of the town hall and the apartment of the town councilor against the war, for peace and the republic . They were the first harbingers of the November Revolution . Another demonstration two days later was also almost calm; but on October 26th a one-day strike followed . 4,000 to 5,000 workers demanded the emperor's abdication. Alfred Colsman , the general manager of the Zeppelin group, prevented worse. With measures taken by the Stuttgart Ministry of the Interior, things remained rather calm until November 4th. The wave of radicalization emanating from the Kiel sailors' uprising also reached the deepest south. On November 5th, the armaments factories in Friedrichshafen elected a workers 'council and, at the same time, as the revolutionary organ of the detachment soldiers and sailors, a soldiers' council . His executive committee gave the Stuttgart government a massive ultimatum . With the arrest of two Spartakist traveling there and five members of the executive committee, she achieved a brief reprieve. While the great revolutionary decisions were made in Kiel, Braunschweig, Munich, Stuttgart and Berlin, the police and the military did not need to be deployed in Friedrichshafen. The coup was only followed on November 11, 1918.

resolution

The remaining German part of the flotilla was called the German Bodenseeflottille , abbreviated BOF , since November 7th . Despite the tremendous tension and incipient confusion, it did its job. The teams even held out in the unrest center in Friedrichshafen. When the Compiègne armistice came into force, the Lindau and Konstanz groups, under pressure from the soldiers' councils, declared their release from the flotilla command. A general decree from the Stuttgart War Ministry caused the commander to immediately stop the service of the remaining Württemberg group and his staff and to take most of the staff on leave. The Garrison Soldiers' Council sent most of the remaining soldiers home. The demobilization was properly initiated. Max von Gemmingen was dismissed on November 29th, his adjutant Prince Alexander was transferred to Hohenlohe-Langenburg. The teams of all three German groups were also released by the end of November. The settlement center in Friedrichshafen was manned by a minor paymaster and a deputy sergeant and ended its business on January 19, 1919. The boats were handed over to the vehicle recycling center in Untertürkheim , the files of the Deputy 54th Infantry Brigade in Ulm. The cash ledger ended on December 22, 1919.

Aftermath

The memory of the Lake Constance flotilla, which was unique in many respects, quickly faded. No memorial stone reminds of them. The contribution by Friedrich Facius , the basis of this article, is the only historical scientific source . Facius relied on files and documents in the Ludwigsburg State Archives and the Stuttgart State Archives .

literature

  • Tobias Engelsing (Ed.): The border in war. The First World War on Lake Constance . Special exhibition 2014, Rosgarten Museum Konstanz. Constance 2014. ISBN 978-3-929768-31-2 .
  • Jürg Meister : The maritime border protection 1914-1918. In: ders .: Wars on Swiss lakes. European history in Switzerland from Roman times to today. Alfred Bucheli publishing house: Zug / Switzerland 1986, pp. 248–267. ISBN 3-7168-1676-0
  • Friedrich Facius : The Austrian-German Lake Constance Flotilla 1915-1918. Maritime border protection and sovereignty on Lake Constance in the First World War . Journal for Württembergische Landesgeschichte 26 (1967), pp. 432–458 (Festschrift for Walter Grube ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Württemberg Air Force (GenWiki)
  2. ↑ Airship replacement department 4
  3. ^ The city of Friedrichshafen and its politics in the Zeppelin era
  4. ↑ Well-known watch boats of the Lindau group were among others: The passenger motor boats Baden and Konstanz , previously Austria , the motor boat company of the city of Constance . Kormoran , previously a barge on the battleship Moltke and after 1919 the first research ship of the Limnological Institute in Konstanz. Emden , after 1919 service boat Hecht of SBB , 1976-2006 service boat Felix , recently Bodensee enterprises Konstanz. The FMK provided up to 16 boats
  5. ↑ lake level
  6. ↑ Elmar L. Kuhn : Red flags over Upper Swabia. Revolution and councils 1918/19