Carl Richard Linke

Carl Richard Linke (born  November 20, 1889 in Forst (Lausitz) ; †  January 8, 1962 there ) was a locksmith by profession . From 1911 to 1917 he served as a sailor in the high seas of the Imperial Navy. He was part of the first crew of the SMS Helgoland, which was commissioned in 1911 . He kept diaries like Richard Stumpf , who was later on board . An extensive typescript written by himself has been preserved by von Linke's diaries . In contrast to Stumpf, he was reserved about the military. In the course of the naval riots in the summer of 1917 , Linke was sentenced to ten years in prison for alleged political activity, which was reduced to six years and spent this first in Celle and from the beginning of 1918 in Rendsburg. He was liberated in the course of the Kiel sailors' uprising in November 1918. Then he looked for his former comrades from SMS Helgoland and found a part in Bremen. Linke reported in detail on their motives for preventing the planned naval advance in October 1918 . In particular, the team was of the opinion that the advance should torpedo the armistice negotiations, overthrow the Max von Baden government and support the Pan-Germans in their campaign to initiate a “national popular uprising”.

education

The parents were small farmers, but a few years after Carl Linke's birth, the father opened a bicycle shop. After finishing school, Carl Linke completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith, joined a cycling club and made cycling his intensely pursued hobby. He went on a hike and worked in various professions. He was interested in many things. In January 1911 he started working as a toolmaker in the small bicycle factory in Wilh. Noelling to work in Valbert in the Sauerland. There he soon rose to the position of foreman. After his draft he was assigned to the Navy, which he found much better than joining the Army. But he felt the coming period of service as a disruption and hoped to be able to return to his post in the factory soon.

Imperial Navy

In the summer of 1911 Linke had to start his 3-year military service on the SMS Helgoland (after a month of training on land). After various activities on board, he was employed in the fire control of the heavy artillery. In March 1914 he was promoted to chief seaman and hoped to be released in September. But with the outbreak of the First World War , Linke had to stay with the Navy and continued to be part of the crew of SMS Helgoland as a senior seaman.

Ship of the line SMS Helgoland, 1st Squadron, commissioned August 1911, crew 1071 NCOs and men, 42 officers; Home port Wilhelmshaven.

Diaries

Like Richard Stumpf , Linke was well-read and followed events with great interest. He rarely went ashore and spent his time studying, in particular, Reclam booklets . Various passages of his diaries prove a critical view of the development and an independence in his judgments, for example his thoughts about the perceived " encirclement " in Germany , which he, in contrast to his contemporaries, the "merchant spirit" and the "envy" of The English saw it as the cause, interpreted it as a failure of German diplomacy. Linke, however, saw itself as apolitical and had a distant relationship to the authorities, while Stumpf had a conservative worldview.

In the course of his service and prison time, Linke wrote a total of six diaries, of which unfortunately only one copy has survived in the form of a typescript, presumably written by Linke himself, using a uniform typewriter. In total, there are 335 pages reproduced using the matrix method, which Linke kept loosely in a folder and numbered by hand. He made a few handwritten corrections. The sixth diary was unfortunately lost, so that Linke wrote it down from his memory afterwards. The typescript plus other material (see sources) was acquired from Michael Epkenhans and has since been kept in the military history training center of the Mürwik naval school .

Memories until 1917

Although the stump and the left had different perspectives on things, the two memories agree in their basic tendencies:

• Both complained about the monotony and routine on board, caused by the reluctance of the deep-sea fleet.
• Both of them sharply criticized most of their officers, in particular that they were not prepared to share the privations of the crews with regard to food even in part.

However, while Stumpf describes the Skagerrak battle in the early summer of 1916 euphorically, Linke has a sober account that confirms his distanced attitude towards the war.

Carl Richard Linke as a member of the Imperial Navy. Image source: Naval School Mürwik / WGAZ

Particularly interesting about Linke's memories are his descriptions of the unrest in the Navy in the summer of 1917. According to his statements, he was in no way involved in the events that were coming to a head at the time. However, he was arrested and shortly thereafter sentenced to prison. At his request, he had accompanied a member of the menage commission to a meeting in the “ Banter Schlüssel” bar . There an opportunity arose for him, for which he had been working for a long time, to get involved in further training for his comrades. He wanted to counteract the "general stupidity". To do this, he received self-tuition letters using the Rustin method . In the bar he then spoke on the basis of previously made notes on the subject of "Causes of the current war in the Balkans". When he noticed the growing interest of those present, the bar talk turned into a regular lecture. The participants were arrested by plainclothes police shortly afterwards. One of the police officers called Linke a "spokesman". In the interrogations that followed, Judge-Martial Dr. Loesch led in a comradely tone, without any evidence of involvement in an alleged attempt at insurrection. He was then sentenced to ten years in prison, which the fleet chief Reinhard Scheer reduced to six years. He had to serve the sentence in Celle and from spring 1918 until liberation in November in Rendsburg.

Richard Stumpf commented on the drastic sentences, including the death sentences against Reichpietsch and Köbis, with the following words: “I would have declared anyone a fool who would have claimed that in my fatherland a person can be sentenced to prison and to death without being sentenced he did something wrong. I am beginning to realize why some people fight the military and its system with such passion. Poor Karl Liebknecht! How sorry for you today. "

Linke refused to sign his verdict because, in his opinion, it would have recognized all sentences including death sentences and because he hoped to be able to obtain a revision one day. On the other hand, he no longer wanted to "fight for imperial Germany as a soldier [...]." A lawyer commissioned by the family recommended that a pardon be submitted. Left also refused.

Memories of the revolutionary era

On the morning of November 6, 1918, torpedo boats appeared in the Kiel Canal in front of Rendsburg, and their crews demanded that the prison authorities release the members of the navy. Otherwise the officials' houses would be set on fire. The management bowed to the ultimatum. Linke then describes how the leader of a submarine division in the director's office, who is marked with a red armband, gave the released men a brief description of the situation:

"... the admirals [tried] to undertake an offensive advance on their own and without the approval of the Reich leadership, which would have called the prospective armistice and peace negotiations into question. This company would have opposed the crew of the fleet and thereby prevented. The naval officers intervened against the crew without being prevented from doing so by the government, and in order to remedy the situation, the crew resorted to self-help. This movement would have already triumphed in Kiel, and the movement sees the first and foremost task of freeing its comrades in captivity. The comrades would appreciate it if we would join the movement and make them available. "

In the Rendsburg harbor, the liberated were received by the regimental band there and the submariners.

The group first drove to Kiel. Linke then tried to contact his former comrades from SMS Helgoland again. To do this, he drove to Wilhelmshaven, but met parts of the crew in Bremen who had defied the naval orders and had thus prevented the planned "death trip". They had been arrested if they were to be taken to the Munsterlager military training area and were significantly involved in the revolutionary events in Bremen on the way there .

Left comrade told him in detail about the planned naval advance: After the order to the fleet to assemble on the Jade, the crew suspected "that the officers intended to do something with which the Pan-Germans can advertise their national uprising." the observation of some sailors from the skylight as measurements of the English coast were being made on a nautical chart, it was assumed that a naval attack against England was planned. The team was of the opinion that the advance should invalidate the armistice negotiations and overthrow the Max von Baden government. They refused to lift anchor and finally barricaded themselves at the anchor locker. Deck officers sent against them by the ship's command were driven off to the Anna tower with rifle shots. When the sister ship SMS Thuringia surrendered and 600 crew members were captured there, the Helgoland also surrendered. 400 men were disembarked from there. It was the one that Linke had now met again in Bremen. Court judge Loesch, who had already been involved in the interrogations during the riots in the summer of 1917, now also started the investigations, but due to the large number, "his work was completely frozen." In Bremen, after the overthrow, there was a major one During the demonstration, a representative of the soldiers' council emphasized that the operation of the fleet management would not only have sacrificed 80,000 people, but would also have resulted in the unconditional surrender and the occupation of Germany, which would later have been followed by a division of Germany. "If the government of Prince Max von Baden in its short-sightedness does not appreciate this patriotic act, it has judged itself by it."

Linke took over the command of his company. According to his presentation, the activities, in particular the security service and the behavior of the navy members, were expressly praised by the Bremen residents. At the end of November the infantry took over the security service in Bremen and Linke and his comrades drove to their respective hometowns.

Weimar Republic and the time after

At the request of the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the guilt issues of the World War (First World War) , the Left wrote answers to the questions sent to him about the unrest in the Navy in 1917. In the work of the committee of inquiry (WUA) these have apparently not been published. Only a letter from Linkes to Richard Stumpf is documented there, in which he summarized his trial briefly and with bitter humor.

In 1919 Linke married his fiancée Anna Reuter. The couple presumably had a daughter. Linke married again in 1941 with Elsa Anna Martha nee. Fiddler. This marriage remained childless and was divorced six years later. Further information about this time is not yet available. Left died in Forst on January 8, 1962.

reception

In his assessment, Huck comes to the conclusion that the stump and the left, despite their completely different positions, confirm the basic tendency. This increases "the likelihood that their experiences may be read on board the liner and capital ships of the ocean-going fleet on behalf of many other crew ranks."

literature

• Stephan Huck : "A true picture of my experiences and observations". About the memories of the sailors Stumpf and Linke and their authors . In: Jürgen Elvert / Lutz Adam / Heinrich Walle (eds.): The Imperial Navy in War: A Search for Traces , Stuttgart (Franz Steiner Verlag) 2017, pp. 201–218. ISBN 978-3515118248

• Stephan Huck : "A true picture of my experiences and observations". About the memories of the sailors Stumpf and Linke and their authors . In: Stephan Huck, Gorch Pieken , Matthias Rogg : The fleet falls asleep in the port. Everyday life in the war 1914–1918 in sailors' diaries . Dresden 2014, pp. 12–35.

• Stephan Huck , Gorch Pieken , Matthias Rogg : The fleet falls asleep in the port. Everyday life in the war 1914–1918 in sailors' diaries (= Forum MHM. Series of publications by the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr, Volume 6). Sandstein, Dresden 2014, ISBN 978-3-95498-095-6 . [Accompanying volume for the exhibition of the same name]

• Stephan Huck : naval strikes and sailors' uprisings. A sign of the revolution? In: Sonja Kinzler, Doris Tillmann (ed.): 1918 - the hour of the sailors. Darmstadt 2018, pp. 78–83.

• Christoph Regulski: Better to be shot for ideals than to fall for so-called honor. Albin Köbis, Max Reichpietsch and the German Sailor Movement 1917. Wiesbaden 2014.

swell

Bundle of documents by the sailor Carl Richard Linke, Marine School Mürwik / Wehrgeschichtliches Bildungszentrum (MSM / WGAZ) Sign. 22798. The bundle contains the following material:

1. File cover with 335 loose pages titled: "Memories", typewritten, numbered by hand and with a few handwritten corrections.
2. A handwritten summary of his experiences by Carl Linke from 1939.
3. A copy of a letter from the lawyers Ulrich and Pfeffer to Mr. Linke dated August 13, 1918 (two pages).
4. A copy: Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry, 4th Subcommittee, answer of the Upper Government Council Dr. Loesch on questions put to him by the rapporteur, MP Joos, 60 pages.
5. Copy: Expert statement by the expert Dr. Heart to the interrogations in matters of the navy in 1917, 17 pages stapled.
6. Copy: Letter from Berlin-Steglitz dated June 18, 1926 to the chairman of the 4th Committee of Inquiry, Mr. Philipp, MdR, 38 pages attached.
7. Nine postcards, some with group photos, addressed to C. Rud. Linke and Anna Reuter.
8. Copies of 26 postcards and photos.
9. Brochure Wilhelm Dittmanns: The naval justice murders of 1917 and the Admiral Rebellion of 1918. Berlin 1926.

Web links

For links to experiences in Kiel in November 1918, see contemporary witnesses on kurkuhl.de [1] .

Remarks

1. ↑ In contrast to his typescript, Linke gives November 4th as the date in his handwritten summary from 1939. This seems unlikely, however, since the uprising in Kiel did not fully take hold until the evening of November 4th.
2. ^ The Reichstag delegate Wilhelm Dittmann (USPD, later SPD) quoted in the later committee of inquiry into the guilt questions of the world war from the interrogation protocols of 14 arrested sailors. See Albrecht Philipp, Eugen Fischer, Walter Bloch (eds.): The work of the committee of inquiry of the German constitutional assembly and the German Reichstag 1919–1930. Fourth Series (Volumes 1-12), 1925-1929; Section 2: The Internal Breakdown (Volumes 4–12), Volume 9/1: Resolution and Negotiation Report: Navy and Breakdown. 1928, pp. 110-125.
   See also excerpts from Klaus Kuhl: The role of the German naval officers during the events in October / November 1918. Kiel 2018, pp. 32–39.
3. ↑ The comment probably referred to a government leaflet entitled, “Seafarers! Workers! ”. The naval war command and the command of the high seas had destroyed the operational orders, denied any intention to attack and persuaded the government to publish a leaflet in which it was untruthfully spread that the officers of the war fleet obeyed the government. See Kuhl, Maritime Officers, p. 12 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Collection of writings by sailor Carl Richard Linke, Mürwik Naval School / Military History Training Center (MSM / WGAZ) Sign. 22798, No. 2.
2. ↑ Stephan Huck , Gorch Pieken , Matthias Rogg : The fleet falls asleep in the port. Everyday life in the war 1914–1918 in sailors' diaries . Dresden 2014, p. 160.
3. ^ Huck / Pieken / Rogg, Fleet Sleeps in the Harbor, p. 164.
4. ↑ Linke collection of writings, MSM / WGAZ Sign. 22798, No. 1, quoted from an uncorrected transcription by the Military History Research Office (MGFA), 1b, p. 21.
5. ^ Huck / Pieken / Rogg, Fleet Sleeps in the Harbor, p. 161.
6. ↑ Bundle of writings Linke, MSM / WGAZ Sign. 22798
7. ^ Huck / Pieken / Rogg, Fleet sleeps in the harbor, pp. 23, 178.
8. ↑ Bundle of writings Linke, MSM / WGAZ Sign. 22798, No. 1 and 2.
9. ^ Wilhelm Dittman (ed.): Richard Stumpf. Why the Fleet Broke up - Christian Worker's War Diary. Berlin 1927, p. 167.
10. ↑ Bundle of writings Linke, MSM / WGAZ Sign. 22798, No. 1 p. 284.
11. ↑ Bundle of writings Linke, MSM / WGAZ Sign. 22798, No. 1 and 2.
12. ^ Stephan Huck: Naval strikes and sailors' revolts. A sign of the revolution? In: Sonja Kinzler, Doris Tillmann (ed.): 1918 - the hour of the sailors. Darmstadt 2018, pp. 78–83, here p. 82.
13. ↑ Linke collection of writings, MSM / WGAZ Sign. 22798, No. 1, quoted from an uncorrected transcription by the Military History Research Office (MGFA), 1c, pp. 101–114.
14. ↑ Bundle of writings Linke, MSM / WGAZ Sign. 22798, No. 1.
15. ↑ Bundle of writings Linke, MSM / WGAZ Sign. 22798, No. 6.
16. ↑ Albrecht Philipp, Eugen Fischer, Walter Bloch (eds.): The work of the investigative committee of the German constitutional assembly and the German Reichstag 1919–1930. Fourth Series (Volumes 1-12), 1925-1929; Section 2: The Internal Breakdown (Volumes 4–12), Volume 9/1: Resolution and Negotiation Report: Navy and Breakdown. 1928, p. 467 f.
17. ↑ Stephan Huck: "A true picture of my experiences and observations". About the memories of the sailors Stumpf and Linke and their authors . In: Stephan Huck, Gorch Pieken , Matthias Rogg : The fleet falls asleep in the port. Everyday life in the war 1914–1918 in sailors' diaries . Dresden 2014, pp. 12–35, here p. 27.
18. ↑ Huck, picture of my experiences, p. 19.