Cort Adeler

Cort Sivertsen Adeler

Cort Sivertsen Adeler (* December 16 ^July / December 26,  1622 ^greg. As Cort Sivertsen in Brevik , Norway ; † November 5 ^July / November 15,  1675 ^greg. In Copenhagen ; Danish spelling also Coort Sifvertsen Adelaer , German also Curt Sivertsen Adelaer , Dutch Koert Sievertsen Adelaer , Italian Curzio Suffrido Adelborst ) was a Norwegian seaman and later admiral in the Navy of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway , the Dutch fleet and the Navy of the Republic of Venice .

origin

Adeler's father, Sivert Jensen, was initially a bailiff, then a town clerk , administrator of a salt works and finally from 1621 until his death in 1649 a merchant in Brevik, where his mother Dorthe Nielsdatter lived until 1656.

career

Cort Sivertsen went to Hoorn in the Netherlands in 1637 at the age of 15 and was admitted there under Cornelis Tromp as an ensign or midshipman ("Adelborst") for the officer's career. From 1640 he worked on an armed Dutch merchant ship sailing for the Republic of Venice in the Mediterranean, and became its captain in 1645. In 1646 he married Angelica "Engeltje" Sophronia in Hoorn.

Around 1648 he entered the service of Venice to take part in the latter's battles against the Ottoman Empire . For many successful battles he received awards and rewards. At the height of this phase of his career he became lieutenant general of the Venetian fleet in 1660.

In 1661 he resigned and returned to the Netherlands, where his first wife had died. The following year he married the 22-year-old Anna Pelt in Amsterdam , who lived until 1694. He took the name Adeler , which is said to come from the maternal branch of the family, in which Telemark was widespread at the time and could be interpreted as a designation of honor in Dutch due to the similarity to "Adelaar" (dt. "Adler").

In 1663 Friedrich III appointed him . as General Admiral of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway, after the Dutch Admiral de Ruyter had failed as the successor to Ove Godde, who died in 1660. In the meantime, Reichsadmiral Henrik Bjelke was in command of the fleet, but Friedrich was looking for a man with greater international experience. At the end of the year, Adeler returned to the Netherlands to gather new ideas for shipbuilding . From 1664 he directed the construction of new ship types based on the Dutch model in Bergen . In 1664 and again in 1669 he led difficult negotiations, again with the emerging sea power Netherlands, about the delivery of new ships and ship capacities as a basis for payment.

In 1670 Adeler became director of the Danish-Norwegian East India Company. In 1671 he was named the "White Knight " of the Dannebrog Order. He had a house built in the center of Copenhagen, Christianshavn , but also acquired larger properties and values ​​in his native Norway. However, he was able to bother little about them and finally sold them to his brother Niels.

In 1675, when the Northern War (1674–1679) extended to Scania in Sweden, Adeler led the Danish-Norwegian fleet. However, due to storms and disease epidemics raging among both parties , there was no collision with the Swedish fleet in autumn 1675. Instead, Adeler became so ill himself that he had to give up command on November 2, 1675. A few weeks later, on November 25, 1675, he died in Copenhagen.

Web links

• Biography in the store Norske Lexikon