Franz Strauch

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Franz Strauch as a naval officer, around 1874
Franz Strauch as a midshipman, around 1865
Berlin Africa House

Franz Strauch , with full name Franz Hermann Strauch , (born April 11, 1846 in Greifenhagen , † August 12, 1928 in Berlin ) was a German naval officer , most recently Rear Admiral of the Imperial Navy , and executive vice-president of the German Colonial Society (DKG).

Life

Strauch was born as the son of the factory owner and businessman Carl Franz Strauch and his wife Johanna Marie Juliane Strauch, b. Grubert, born. He married Elise Strauch, born on August 11, 1879 in Greifenhagen. Heyn, with whom he had a son, who later became Corvette Captain Franz Strauch. He was the great-uncle of the phalerist Kurt-Gerhard Klietmann .

Naval service

After joining the Prussian Navy on June 9, 1864 as a cadet aspirant, he was trained on the brig Rover , the training ship Barbarossa , the Vineta , the Gazelle and the Thetis . From August 22, 1868 to April 28, 1870, he served as an officer on watch on the Musquito . He received his patent as lieutenant at sea on June 21, 1873. In 1874 he was promoted to captainleutnant , in 1881 to corvette captain and in 1888 to captain at sea .

From June 1874 to April 1876, Strauch took part in the research trip of the Gazelle , which covered 48,797 nautical miles and from Kiel along the African west coast to the Cape of Good Hope , to the Kerguelen , to Mauritius , into the South Seas, through the Strait of Magellan and across the Azores led back to Kiel.

Strauch was then employed at the imperial shipyards in Danzig , Kiel and Wilhelmshaven , in the latter as equipment director, and in the 1st and 2nd sailor divisions as leader of a department.

After serving as first officer on the Prussia , Strauch took command of the Wolf gunboat on August 18, 1880 . From 1880 to 1882 he served in Shanghai . Later he was in command of the cruiser corvette Olga , with which he was involved in the conflict over Samoa , and the cruiser frigate Leipzig , the flagship of the cruiser squadron deployed off East Africa . There the Leipzig participated under Strauch's command in the suppression of the uprising of the East African coastal population . From July 21, 1888 to August 30, 1888 he was also chief of the East Asia Squadron . His last command was in 1890 on the artillery training ship Mars .

After an illness, Strauch was put up for disposition on September 21, 1891, conferring the character of a rear admiral.

Colonial Political Activities

From the end of the 1880s Strauch was already a member of the German Colonial Society and from May 1892 he was elected member of the board of the DKG. From 1903 to 1927 he was elected its vice-president and from 1917 to 1920 he was executive vice-president. He was the founder, builder and long-time administrator of the Afrikahaus , built in 1910 and inaugurated in 1911 , headquarters of the DKG in Berlin-Mitte , Karlsbad 10 on the Landwehr Canal . For his many years of work for the DKG, Strauch was the first to be awarded the plaque of honor of the German Colonial Society, and on this occasion he himself was referred to as the "Nestor of the German Colonial Society".

In addition, Strauch was also the deputy chairman of the supervisory board of the South-West African Shepherd's Society DKG, based on Friedrichstrasse in Berlin.

Strauch worked as a journalist with contemporary issues of colonialism such as the so-called Völkerschauen .

Ethnological, anthropological and numismatic collecting and research

At least since Strauch's participation in the SMS Gazelle's research trip from 1874 to 1876, which started in Kiel along the African west coast, to the Cape of Good Hope, to the Kerguelen, to Mauritius, to the South Seas, through the Strait of Magellan and across the Azores led back to Kiel, Strauch developed an extensive collecting activity, an interest in anthropology that had lasted his whole life and became the central mediator between the Navy and the Ethnological Museum .

The collection built up during his travels and not least during his assignments in East Asia is partly in the Ethnological Museum and the Berlin Münzkabinett on Berlin's Museum Island.

Strauch's wide-ranging interests are reflected in his membership in numerous societies, such as the Numismatic Society in Berlin since 1894 , which elected him as deputy chairman on November 17, 1905, the German Colonial Society and the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory , as well as an intensive correspondence, parts of which have been preserved in the Berlin State Library and other libraries.

He also served as an expert for the government, for example in the 1920s as a member of the expert commission of the African-Oceanic Collection of the then Museum of Ethnology in the Ministry of Science, Art and Public Education as an advisor to the Reich government.

honors and awards

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.familienarchiv-ebel.de
  2. ^ Volker Hartmann: Medical characteristics during the research trip of the covered corvette SMS Gazelle around the world in the years 1874–1876. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 13, 1995, pp. 371-390; here: p. 371.
  3. ^ Hydrographic Office of the Reich Marine Office (ed.): The research trip SMS "Gazelle" in the years 1874 to 1876: under the command of Captain See Freiherrn von Schleinitz. Volume 1: First part: The travel report. Mittler, Berlin, 1889, p. 11.
  4. ↑ a b DKG: Obituary for Kontreadmiral z. D. shrub. In: The Colonial German . Born in 1928, No. 16 from August 15, 1928, p. 278.
  5. ↑ a b c d High Command of the Navy: Ranking and quarters list of the Imperial German Navy for the year 1891. Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler and Son
  6. ↑ Hans H. Hildebrand / Ernest Henriot: Germany's Admirals 1894-1945. The military careers of naval, engineering, medical, weapons and administrative officers with admiral rank (Volume 3: P – Z). Osnabrück 1990, p. 325 f.
  7. ↑ http://webopac.hwwa.de/PresseMappe20E/Digiview_MID.cfm?mid=F045371
  8. ↑ Afrikahaus GmbH: Obituary notice for Kontreadmiral z. D. Franz Strauch. In: Der Kolonialdeutsche , born 1928, No. 16 of August 15, 1928, p. 280.
  9. ↑ a b Awarded the plaque of honor of the German Colonial Society. In: The Colonial German . Born in 1928, No. 9 from April 1, 1928.
  10. ↑ http://ieg-ego.eu/de/threads/hintergruende/europaeische-begegierungen/anne-dreesbach-kolonialausstellungen-voelkerschauen-und-die-zurschaustellung-des-fremden
  11. ^ Andrew Zimmerman: "Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany", The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2001, p. 155
  12. ↑ See China: 1912–1915 . Interactive catalog of the Münzkabinett Berlin , accessed on December 5, 2018
  13. ^ According to information from the Numismatic Society of December 4, 2018
  14. ↑ Berliner Adressbuch, edition 1926, p. 28 https://digital.zlb.de/viewer/readingmode/34115495_1926/4662/
personal data
SURNAME Strauch, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German admiral
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Greifenhagen
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 1928
Place of death Berlin