Erich Gröner

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Erich Gröner (born March 16, 1901 in Berlin , † June 21, 1965 in Paris ) was a private scholar, expert and non-fiction author in the field of naval and shipping history and shipbuilding.

Apprenticeship and traveling years 1918–1924

Erich Gröner was the son of a barber and healing assistant and grew up in Berlin. From 1910 to 1918 he attended the Königsstädtische Oberrealschule. He developed his professional passion as a teenager and, at the age of 15, put his first treatise on the history of sea trade and naval warfare on paper. In 1918 he enlisted during the First World War as a volunteer for the Navy pilots .

After the war he began studying shipbuilding at the Technical University in Berlin ; then he turned to the field of economics at the University of Kiel and the University of Tübingen . The inflation period of 1923 forced him, like many of his peers, to drop out of his studies. In 1923/1924 he worked as a machine assistant on ships belonging to the HSDG shipping company on the South America route. Due to his knowledge of economics, he then found a job as a processor of international maritime law issues. In 1926 he started his own business as a consultant on economic issues and as an expert for shipping.

The German warships

As an employee of the marine department of the Museum of Oceanography in Berlin, Erich Gröner then began to devote himself fully to his passion: the history of war and merchant shipbuilding as well as the collection and evaluation of ship photos. From 1929/1930 he also worked in this field as a freelancer for the Reichsmarine . In 1931 he brought out his first (small) publication, Die Deutschen Kriegsschiffe , together with Alexander Bredt . The topic continued to occupy him and in 1937, after years of laborious documentation and drawing work, his work The German Warships 1815–1936 was published , which set an example all over the world in its completeness and accuracy of text and sketches. After the war, Gröner extended the period of his processing one last time. The German warships 1815-1945 could no longer be completely locked by himself.

International ship typology

When Alexander Bredt took over the publication of Weyer's pocket book of the war fleets in 1933/34 , Gröner was able to realize his long-cherished plan to unite the previous form of ship representation through sketches or silhouettes in a true-to-scale side elevation, a representation technique that has since found widespread use is adopted in almost all fleet manuals . His reputation as an expert also in international ship typology brought him numerous commissions from the Berlin Oceanography Museum and the Deutsches Museum in Munich to design the collections and special exhibitions, but above all from the Navy and Air Force , who published their manuals and Have him rework boards for the ship identification service.

Merchant fleets in the world

In the second half of the 1930s, Gröner pursued the ambitious goal of putting Weyer's paperback book on the war fleets alongside a book on the merchant fleets with a similar layout . To do this, he excerpted the essential data of all ships over 100 GRT from Lloyd's Register , compressed them into space-saving tables, and thus another indispensable aid for the Navy was created, which was first published in 1940 and from 1941 to 1944 under the title The Merchant Fleets of the World in three different editions as naval service regulation MDv 135 appeared and proved over 30,000 ships with their most important data and with 728 side elevation sketches. For the purpose of ship identification, Gröner developed an encryption of the ship's structure and sorted the drawings according to this system. There was also a search list for ship names , which indexed parts of the names of all ships separately and kept registers for ex names. The paperback of the fleets considered Gröner always considered his real masterpiece.

Post-war years 1945–1954

In preparation for his publications, Gröner had compiled an extensive photo collection (approx. 35,000 photos and 15,000 negatives) and an extensive archive with documents and drawings through acquisitions, exchanges and his own photography. In order to protect the archive from air raids on the Reich capital, the Gröner office and the entire collection were moved to Dahlenberg in January 1944 on the estate of General Field Marshal August von Mackensen . There Gröner saw the end of the war. The library and archive were confiscated by the Soviets in two actions in June 1945 and May 1946. Compensation for this was denied to the owner. It is thanks to his wife Hilda Gröner, to whom he had been married since 1938, that a few items in the archive, including his early work, were saved. Gröner himself was arrested by the Soviet secret service after the war and held in the Waldheim prison for a few years .

After returning to Berlin in 1950, Gröner began to restore his collection from his own resources in the post-war period and to rebuild the broken contacts with friends at home and abroad. In spite of all the difficulties, he published his own magazine, Unimare , as early as 1951 , a small-format monthly magazine with news from shipping and naval history around the world. He brought this into the Marine-Rundschau, which was re-established in 1952/53, and took over the editing of the "News from all over the world". In addition, he worked in collaboration with the Robert Loef publishing house in Magdeburg with the drawing of large-format model plans. In 1961 he translated a cultural history of shipbuilding with the title Das Schiff: From the dugout canoe to the atomic boat. Reconstructions in pictures and Word from Björn Landström from Swedish into German and provided a series of drawings. For the series SOS - Fate of German Ships by the Munich publishing house Moewig , he provided editorial assistance for the stories of many well-known former frontline reporters.

Loss and whereabouts of German ships

A new project arose for Gröner with research and listing of all ships of the German Navy and Air Force 1939-1945 and their whereabouts. The result first appeared as part of Weyer's Flottentaschenbuch edition in 1953, and finally as an independent publication in 1954 by JF Lehmann's. At the same time, Gröner began extensive research to supplement his main work The German Warships , now for the period from 1815 to 1945, which was nearing completion when he died early in 1965. Gröner died on a trip in Paris.

obituary

The large, all over the world spread guild of the “Shiplover” lost one of its most prominent representatives in Erich Gröner. Jürgen Rohwer wrote in 1965 in his memory:

“He was definitely not a comfortable colleague, because he used to express his opinion very clearly - especially when it came to his area of ​​expertise. But behind the rough shell a warm heart beat, and the indestructible humor of the real Berliner always resonated in his words. We want to honor the memory of our friend by bringing his life's work to a close. "

Gröner's extensive library and his collection of construction plans were given to the Library of Contemporary History in Stuttgart after his death . The scientific legacy was taken over by the Berlin Circle of Friends, who had always actively supported Gröner's work and now continued it.

Gröner working group

Gröner died in 1965 while working on his main work. The repatriation of the German naval files from London did not begin until the same year, so that they could not be evaluated for the volumes published in 1966 and 1968. Gröner's work therefore still contained many gaps that could only be closed with a revision.

The completely revised and considerably expanded new edition of this "classic" of German marine literature, created by Dieter Jung and Martin Maass in 30 years, covers a total of around 25,000 units. It is the result of intensive research work, also in the last possible close contacts with many designers, shipyards and naval officers. The basic structure of Gröner's work was retained in the eight-volume new edition. All data were critically checked and corrected using the files that were now accessible. For this purpose, a ship's name register was created as the ninth volume, which simplifies orientation. The Working Group Erich Gröner are two supplementary volumes to remain the ships and boats since 2018 Federal Marine , People's Navy and the German Navy until 2015 out.

List of works by Erich Gröner

  • History of the German sea trade and naval war shipping / Erich Gröner. Manuscript from 1916, c. 88 pages, illustrations
  • The German warships: Complete ship list of the Reichsmarine 1931 with detailed information and plan sketches of all German warships / E [rich] Gröner u. A [Lexander] Bredt. Munich: Lehmann 1931, 16 pp.
  • The German warships 1815–1936; using official sources; with 350 ship sketches / Erich Gröner. Munich [u. a.]: Lehmann 1937, IV, 153 p., 350 sketches - Second, corrected edition 1944
  • The German warships 1815-1945 [Volume 1]; using official sources with over 600 side elevations and deck plans on a scale of 1: 1250 / Erich Gröner. Munich: Lehmann 1966, 446, XXVIII S., Fig.
  • Identification of German auxiliary warships of the 1st World War [1914–1918] / Erich Gröner. Württemberg State Library / Library for Contemporary History, Naval Archive : Capsule 35B / 8
  • Weyers Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten / Bruno Weyer
  • Weyer's Flottentaschenbuch / Bruno Weyer
  • Paperback of the merchant fleets 1940 / Erich Gröner
  • Merchant Fleets of the World , 1941 edition; Edition 1942; 1944 edition / Erich Gröner (BfZ: F 1044) 1942 edition with 716 pages and 728 outline drawings
  • Search list for ship names 1942 / edited by Erich Gröner. Supplementary volume to "The merchant fleets of the world". Munich: Lehmann 1944. 470 pp.
  • Unimare: Universal Maritime Record. Monthly news / Ed .: Erich Gröner. Bremen, Hamburg: Schultheis, 1.1951,1-12; 2.1952.1-3
  • The ships of the German Navy and Air Force 1939–1945 and their whereabouts; with 71 ship sketches / Erich Gröner. In: Weyers Flottentaschenbuch , Bonn: Bernard & Graefe, Volume 37, 1953, pp. 257-317
  • The ships of the German Navy and Air Force 1939–1945 and their whereabouts; with 228 ship sketches / Erich Gröner. Munich: Lehmann 1954. 86 p., Ill.
  • The establishment of the active home associations of the Prussian, North German and German Navy / Erich Gröner. Unpublished manuscript ( Württemberg State Library / Library for Contemporary History, Naval Archive: capsule 70/06)

Editions of the Gröner working group

  • Erich Gröner (†): The German warships 1815–1945 . Volume 2. Munich: JF Lehmann 1968.
  • Hansgeorg Jentschura, Dieter Jung, Peter Mickel: The Japanese warships 1869-1945 . JF Lehmann: Munich 1970.
  • Dieter Jung, Norbert Kelling, Arno Abendroth: Paints and camouflage paints for the Navy . Bernard & Graefe: Munich 1977.
  • Dieter Jung, Bernd Wenzel, Arno Abendroth: Ships and boats of the German sea pilots . Motor book, Stuttgart 1977.
  • Peter Arndt: German barrier breakers: construction, equipment, armament, tasks, use . Motor book, Stuttgart 1979.
  • Dieter Jung, Martin Maass, Berndt Wenzel: Tankers and suppliers of the German fleet: 1900–1980 . Motor book, Stuttgart 1981.
  • Erich Gröner (†), Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . Volume 1/1982 - Volume 8/1993 as well as register of ship names . Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz.
  • Erich Gröner (†), Dieter Jung: The ships of the German Navy and Air Force 1939–1945 and their whereabouts . Bernard & Graefe, Bonn (9th revised edition) 2001.
  • Dieter Jung, Wolfgang Bohlayer: Ships of the Imperial Navy and their whereabouts . Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 2004.
  • Peter Arndt, Peter Schenk: German network blocking associations . Edition Erich Gröner, Berlin 2010.
  • Peter Schenk, Karsten Klein: The German landing craft. Development and technology from 1900 to today . Edition Erich Gröner, Berlin 2011.
  • Eberhard Rößler: The German submarines and submarine designs between the world wars 1922-1939 . Edition Erich Gröner, Berlin 2013.
  • Erich Gröner (†), Peter Schenk, Reinhard Kramer: The German Warships 1815–2015 . Volume 9/1: The ships and boats of the German Navy, their predecessors after 1945 and the German Navy. Edition Erich Gröner, Berlin 2017.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Erich Gröner: History of the German sea trade and sea war shipping . Manuscript from 1916, approx. 88 pages, drawings
  2. ^ The German warships: complete ship list of the Reichsmarine 1931 with detailed information and plan sketches of all German warships / E [rich] Gröner u. A [Lexander] Bredt. Munich: Lehmann 1931, 16 pages
  3. ^ The German warships 1815–1936; using official sources; with 350 ship sketches / Erich Gröner. Munich [u. a.]: Lehmann 1937, IV, 153 pages, illustrations. - Second, corrected edition 1944
  4. ↑ The German warships: 1815–1945; using official sources with over 600 side elevations and deck plans on a scale of 1: 1250 / Erich Göner. Munich: Lehmann 1966, XXVIII, 446 pages, illustrations
  5. ^ Weyer's paperback of war fleets / Bruno Weyer
  6. ↑ Identification of German auxiliary warships of the 1st World War [1914-1918] / Erich Gröner (naval archive of the library for contemporary history  ; capsule 35B / 8)
  7. ↑ Paperback of the merchant fleets 1940 / Erich Gröner
  8. ↑ merchant fleets of the world; Edition 1941; Edition 1942; Edition 1944 / Erich Gröner. Edition 1942 with 716 pages and 728 sketch drawings
  9. ^ Search list for ship names 1942 / edited by Erich Gröner. Supplementary volume to The merchant fleets of the world . Munich: Lehmann 1944. 470 pages
  10. ^ Verlag EDITION Erich Groener. Retrieved May 25, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Unimare: Universal Maritime Record . Monthly news / Ed .: Erich Gröner. Bremen, Hamburg: Schultheis, 1.1951,1-12; 2.1952.1-3 (WLB signature: BZ 3072)
  12. ↑ The ships of the German Navy and Air Force 1939–1945 and their whereabouts; with 71 ship sketches / Erich Gröner. In: Weyers Flottentaschenbuch , Bonn: Bernard & Graefe, Volume 37, 1953, pp. 257-317
  13. ↑ The ships of the German Navy and Air Force 1939–1945 and their whereabouts; with 228 ship sketches / Erich Gröner. Munich: Lehmann 1954. 86 pages, illustrations
  14. ↑ The German warships: 1815–1945; using official sources with over 600 side elevations and deck plans on a scale of 1: 1250 / Erich Göner. Munich: Lehmann 1966, XXVIII, 446 pages, illustrations
  15. ^ Verlag EDITION Erich Groener. Retrieved May 25, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Gröner, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ship historian, expert and non-fiction author
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1965
Place of death Paris