Adolf Mensing

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Karl Adolf Alexander Mensing (born May 27, 1845 in Bückeburg , † January 7, 1929 in Berlin ) was a Prussian naval officer and hydrograph .

Life

Mensing entered the Prussian Navy in 1860 at the age of 15 as a "Cadett-Aspirant" . He completed his first nautical internship on the sailing corvette SMS Amazone . As a midshipman , he was on board the SMS Gazelle from 1862–1864 on her voyage to East Asia. On the way home he switched to SMS Victoria in Brest . After the officer examination in 1865 at the Naval Cadet Institute in Berlin , he was briefly commanded on SMS Vineta , then on the artillery ship SMS Gefion . He then served as an officer on watch on Admiral Eduard Jachmann's flagship SMS Arcona .

His older brother Franz, who initially joined the Austrian Navy and came to Kiel with the corvette SMS Archduke Friedrich , joined the Royal Prussian Navy in 1866 with the support of his father . Both Mensing brothers were then second lieutenant at sea . From July 31, 1867, Franz was listed as Mensing I and Adolf as Mensing II in the naval lists.

In the following ten years, ship and land commands alternated for Adolf Mensing. He was adjutant of the shipyard division and leader of a division of the sailors division. On board ships he took part in the test drive of the tank frigate SMS König Wilhelm in July 1874, in the transfer of the smooth-deck corvette Victoria from Kiel to Wilhelmshaven in November / December 1874 and in training trips with sea cadets and ship boys on the brig SMS Musquito in 1867 and on the sailing frigate SMS Niobe 1876. The voyages around the world on the covered corvette SMS Hertha from September 8, 1869 to November 20, 1872 and on the cruiser frigate SMS Leipzig from October 17, 1877 to September 27, 1879 took him back into the waters he was already in as a midshipman on the Gazelle .

After the world tour on Hertha , he said goodbye. On June 25, 1873, he married Marie Geddes Porter in New York . Their first child, Laura, was born in Wilhelmshaven on April 25, 1874 . After a brief stint in a New York bank, Adolf Mensing was employed as a naval agent at the German embassy in Washington . A little later he went back to Germany and rejoined the naval officer corps.

In 1879 Mensing became a teacher at the Naval Academy in Kiel . A short time later, on May 24, 1881, he was assigned to the German legation in Washington as a military or naval representative. After his return from the USA in October 1883, he was appointed to the Admiralty , where he headed the Department for Coastal Surveying, Cartography and Beacons . During this time he made great merits with his improvements to various nautical instruments. Mensing suggested the industrial production of beacon devices and fog sirens .

In 1889 he was promoted to sea captain and worked in the Hydrographic Office of the Reich Navy Office until his retirement . Mensing belonged to the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt as a member of the board of trustees since it was founded . In 1889 he took part in the International Naval Conference in Washington as a delegate of the German Navy . The decisions of the lighting commission are due to his suggestions.

In September 1893 Mensing asked for his departure and then lived as a private citizen in Berlin and Weißenbrunn vorm Wald . In retirement in 1906 he researched the role that his grandfather Johann Conrad Wilhelm Mensing had played in the "Hessian Insurrection" in the winter of 1806/1807. There were all kinds of rumors, including bad ones, in circulation, which Adolf Mensing investigated with scientific accuracy. Wilhelm Mensing's great-granddaughter Cornelia Osius, née Wilhelm Mensing's great-granddaughter Cornelia Osius, used the extensive material that was available to Adolf Mensing in addition to the archives of the Hessian State Archives in Marburg and the State Library and Murhard Library in Kassel . Mensing, to commemorate Mensing's historic act in two articles in regional daily newspapers.

Publications

  • Adolf Mensing: On board the GAZELLE to Yokohama. A Prussian naval officer recalls , ed. vu edit v. Horst Auerbach. Hinstorff, Rostock 2000. ISBN 3-356-00883-8
  • Adolf Mensing: The Hessian Soldiers' Uprising 1806/07 , in: Wilhelm Hopf (Hrsg.): Hessische Blätter , 42nd year, No. 4005, Melsungen , Wednesday, September 17, 1913, and No. 4006, Saturday, September 20, 1913. September 1913.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Adolf Mensing: On board the GAZELLE to Yokohama. A Prussian naval officer recalls , ed. vu edit v. Horst Auerbach. Hinstorff, Rostock 2000, p. 151 f. and p. 178 ff .; see. also: Karl H. Peter : Maritime Officer Candidate. Your education from 1848 until today. Mürwik , 1969. (online at pkgodzik.de) (PDF file; 2.6 MB)
  2. ↑ Horst Auerbach, Introduction, p. 23, in: Adolf Mensing: On board the GAZELLE to Yokohama. A Prussian naval officer recalls , ed. vu edit v. Horst Auerbach. Hinstorff, Rostock 2000.
  3. ↑ Horst Auerbach, Introduction, pp. 30–31, in: Adolf Mensing: On board the GAZELLE to Yokohama. A Prussian naval officer recalls , ed. vu edit v. Horst Auerbach. Hinstorff, Rostock 2000.
  4. ↑ Hans Hildebrand, Formation History and Staffing of the Imperial Navy, Volume 2, Biblio Verlag Osnabrück, 2000
  5. ↑ Adolf Mensing: The Hessian Soldiers' Uprising 1806/07 , in: Wilhelm Hopf (Hrsg.), Hessische Blätter, 42nd volume, No. 4005, Melsungen , Wednesday, September 17, 1913, and No. 4006, Saturday, September 20, 1913 September 1913.
personal data
SURNAME Mensing, Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mensing, Karl Adolf Alexander (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian naval officer and hydrograph
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1845
PLACE OF BIRTH Buckeburg
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 1929
Place of death Berlin