Heinrich Retzmann

Heinrich Friedrich Christian Ludwig Retzmann (born April 27, 1872 in Hanover ; † November 4, 1959 in Bad Salzschlirf ) was a German naval officer , naval attaché and businessman.

Live and act

Early life

Retzmann joined the Imperial Navy as a cadet on April 14, 1890 . In the first years of his career, he was stationed from 1902 to 1904 at the German naval base in Tsingtau , China . As a protégé of the State Secretary of the Reichsmarinamt Alfred Tirpitz , Retzmann became a member of the German delegation at the 2nd Hague Peace Conference in 1907 as a representative for naval affairs .

After he had proven himself as a diplomat in The Hague , Retzmann was sent to the German Embassy in Washington DC on October 1, 1908 with the rank of Corvette Captain as a naval attaché . There he was responsible for maintaining the German Reich's marine political relations with the United States and Mexico . His successor there was Karl Boy-Ed on April 6, 1912. In April and May 1912 he represented the commander of the small cruiser SMS Bremen at the American station.

From October 1, 1912 to January 18, 1913, Retzmann was in command of the small cruiser SMS Mainz . He then commanded the small cruiser SMS Königsberg from January 22 to June 19, 1913 , which represented Mainz in the association of reconnaissance ships during their overhaul of the shipyard. Then he took over Mainz again until November 25, 1913 . In the period from November 26, 1913 to December 14, 1915, Retzmann was in command of the small cruiser SMS Strasbourg . He took part with the cruiser on the journey of the "Detached Division" under Rear Admiral Hubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz . From December 9th it ran with the liner ships SMS Kaiser and SMS König Albert in the South Atlantic, via Togo and Cameroon to German South West Africa (today Namibia), then via St. Helena to Brazil , Argentina , Uruguay , around Cape Horn to to Valparaíso (April 2nd to 11th) in Chile and then back via Argentine and Brazilian ports.

In Santos , the Strasbourg separated from the division under Retzmann and went to the Caribbean to reinforce the American station. Since the SMS Dresden stationed there was mainly busy with the situation in Mexico , it should deal with unrest in the Dominican Republic . She called at Puerto Plata on June 2 , where she found a ship of the line, an armored cruiser and a US Navy gunboat. Retzmann succeeded in ensuring that HAPAG steamers could take up cargo there again. After care in Kingston (Jamaica) he returned to Santo Domingo .

First World War

On July 4th, he met the new station cruiser SMS Karlsruhe at sea . On July 20, 1914, he started his journey home from Saint Thomas , anchored off Horta , Azores from July 27 to 28, and then ran at maximum speed and temporarily dimmed through the English Channel to Germany. On the British side, since it entered the Azores, there were suspicions that the cruiser could sail into the Mediterranean to reinforce the German Mediterranean division . Exactly on the day of mobilization, the Strasbourg under Retzmann returned to Wilhelmshaven alone.

At the beginning of the war he was used with his cruiser in the North Sea in outpost and security service. On August 28, 1914, he took part in the naval battle near Helgoland , fought with the light cruisers HMS Fearless and HMS Arethusa and destroyers, and finally came across the five British battlecruisers he was able to escape with the SMS Cöln . The Strasbourg received a hit and later helped rescue the crew of the small cruiser SMS Ariadne . In November 1914 an advance to the British east coast followed. In the process, Strasbourg came into contact with the old British torpedo cannon boat HMS Halcyon . From March 17, 1915, the ship undertook with the II reconnaissance group forays into the eastern Baltic Sea . In April, the Strasbourg was back in the North Sea. The ship was in the shipyard between July 14th and October 18th. After the reconstruction, the Strasbourg took part with the II reconnaissance group in various advances and in the trade war in the North Sea.

From January to March 1916, Retzmann took over the management of the department for military questions in the General Marine Department of the Reichsmarinamt . In the period from March 1916 to November 1918, Retzmann was finally head of the central department in the Admiral's staff. From August 24 to November 30, 1918, Retzmann was in command of the large-scale ship SMS Baden and was then placed at the disposal of the chief of the North Sea naval station until January 14, 1919 . This is followed by his command to provide information to the Oberprisenhof Berlin. From July 28, 1919 he worked there as Reich Commissioner and was dismissed from active service on November 26, 1919 while being promoted to rear admiral.

Next life

Retzmann went into the private sector. He was also a member of the Provisional Reich Economic Council , the Presidium of the Reich Association of German Industry and the employers' association of the chemical industry. He was also chairman of the Association of Saxon Industrialists.

In 1930, Retzmann took over the management of a study commission sent to China by German industry, which traveled to the Far Eastern state from April to June of that year in order to collect information for the expansion of German-Chinese economic relations and to establish contacts in this regard.

literature

• Hans H. Hildebrand and Ernest Henriot: Germany's Admirals 1849–1945, Volume 3: P – Z (Packroß to Zuckschwerdt) , Osnabrück 1990, ISBN 3-7648-2482-4 , pp. 105–106.
• Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Werner Marx: The Rotary Club Leipzig 1929-1937 , 2004, p. 100.
2. ↑ Hans Hildebrand, Formation History and Staffing of the Imperial Navy Volume 2, Biblio Verlag Osnabrück, 2000
3. ↑ Michael Epkenhans: The eventful life of a Wilhelminer , p. 1220.
4. ^ William C. Kirby: Germany and Republican China , 1984, p. 66.
5. ^ Gerhard Schulz / Ilse Maurer / Udo Wengst: Politics and Economy in the Crisis 1930-1932. Sources for the Brüning era , 1980, p. 1579.