Erwin Wassner

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Lieutenant Erwin Waßner
Grave in the north cemetery in Kiel

Erwin Waßner (born March 1, 1887 in Rendsburg , † August 24, 1937 in The Hague ) was a German rear admiral and naval attaché .

Life

Imperial Navy

Waßner occurred on 1 April 1906 as a midshipman in the Imperial navy one, completed his training ship on the cruiser frigate stone and then came to the Naval Academy. Then place on October 1, 1908 he was transferred to the battleship Wittelsbach and his promotion to lieutenant on 30 September 1909. For two years he knew until September 30, 1912 service on the battleship Posen , became in the meantime the Lieutenant was and then transferred to the German colony of Cameroon until December 1913 . There he served as an officer on watch on the gunboat Eber . When he returned to Germany at the end of 1913, he was employed as a company officer in the II. Torpedo Division. On March 16, 1914, he was assigned to the torpedo boat V 158 as an officer on watch and stayed here after the outbreak of the First World War . From June to the end of August 1915 there was a command for submarine training. He then took over as commander of the U 32 for one month . Then he came to the U-Flotilla Flanders and subsequently commanded the boats UC 3 , UB 38 , UC 69 , UB 59 and UB 117 . As a submarine commander, he sank a total of 90 ships with around 135,500 GRT . After he had already received both classes of the Iron Cross and the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords, he was awarded the Order Pour le Mérite on March 5, 1918 . Waßner , promoted to lieutenant captain on July 13, 1916 , was initially placed at the disposal of the commander of the Flanders submarines on August 16, 1918 and came to inspect the submarines.

Reich and Kriegsmarine

After the end of the war he was taken over by the Reichsmarine . Waßner initially served as a company commander in the IV Marine Artillery Department in Cuxhaven , later in the III. Naval Artillery Department in Swinoujscie . From March 1921 to January 1925 he was a member of the naval command office. After that he was in command of the sailing school ship Niobe . In this position he was promoted to Korvettenkapitän on August 1, 1925 , and was a navigational officer on the old Alsace liner from January 3 to September 23, 1927 . He was then transferred to the Baltic Sea naval station , where he initially served as an adjutant and later as first admiral staff officer. On July 1, 1930 he became a frigate captain and on September 26, 1931, he took over as commander of the light cruiser Karlsruhe . In this position Waßner was promoted to sea captain on October 1, 1932 .

On December 8, 1932, Waßner gave up command of the cruiser Karlsruhe again and from January to March 1933 received instructions for its use as a naval attaché. On April 1, 1933, he took up this post at the German Embassy in London . His notification was made at the same time to the embassy in The Hague. The German ambassador at the time was Leopold von Hoesch (1881–1946) in London and Julius von Zech-Burkersroda (1885–1946) in The Hague . Acting military attaché for both locations was Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg (1886–1974). In June 1935 Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946) was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and sent to London to restart the stalled negotiations with the British government on the future terms of German naval armaments. After the sudden death of Hoeschs, he also took over the office of German ambassador in London. Waßner was promoted to Rear Admiral on October 1, 1936, for his contribution to the achievement of these agreements. Further bilateral agreements between Great Britain and Germany followed in 1937, but they were wisely designed in such a way that they did not first have to pass through the British Parliament in order to take effect.

Waßner died on a business trip on August 24, 1937 in the Netherlands . He was buried in the north cemetery in Kiel .

Honor

In his honor, the Navy put the submarine support ship Erwin Waßner into service on March 29, 1939 .

Awards

literature

  • Klaus-Volker-Giessner: The institution of the naval attaché in the German Empire. Harald Boldt Verlag, Boppard am Rhein 1976.
  • Dermot Bradley (eds.), Hans H. Hildebrand, Ernest Henriot: Germany's Admirals 1849-1945. The military careers of naval, engineering, medical, weapons and administrative officers with admiral rank. Volume 3: P-Z. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1990, ISBN 3-7648-2482-4 , p. 512 f.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ Klaus-Volker-Giessner: The institution of the naval attaché in the empire. Harald Boldt Verlag, Boppard am Rhein 1976.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Reichswehr Ministry (Ed.): Ranking list of the German Reichsmarine. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1929, p. 42.
personal data
SURNAME Wassner, Erwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German rear admiral and naval attaché
DATE OF BIRTH March 1, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Rendsburg
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 1937
Place of death The hague