Joachim Nettelbeck (seaman)

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Joachim Nettelbeck with the Medal of Honor ; Portrait from the edition of his autobiography by Brockhaus, 1821–1823

Joachim Christian Nettelbeck (born September 20, 1738 in Kolberg ; † January 29, 1824 there ) was a former seafarer who became a folk hero during his lifetime thanks to his role in the defense of Kolberg in 1807 and his autobiography .

Life

Joachim Nettelbeck grew up in the port city of Kolberg in the Prussian part of Pomerania . He was the first child of Johann David Nettelbeck, who was promoted from master shoemaker to brewer class in 1751 , and his wife Katharina Sophia, née. Griff. The couple, who had become wealthy, had seven more children, five of whom grew up.

The outlier

At the age of eleven, Nettelbeck was allowed to travel to Amsterdam on his uncle's ship as an exception . There he snuck aboard a Dutch ocean sailor in the harbor and only reappeared on the open sea. The ship turned out to be a slave ship , sailing the route Western Europe - West Africa - West India - Western Europe in the triangle . At the helmsman's request, two black sailors brought Nettelbeck a variant of the pidgin on the voyage to Africa , in which slaves were bought on the African coast . After twenty-one months, Nettelbeck returned to Kolberg and attended school again until confirmation.

On different seas

Dutch and English ships in front of St. Eustatius, a center of the slave trade, 1763

In 1752 Nettelbeck began training as a seaman, initially as a cabin boy on sailors from the East and North Seas. Two years later he drove from Amsterdam to Suriname as an understeer on a Dutch ship . In his memoirs, when he reported on this trip, he made a relevant statement in terms of the history of the links , which provides information about the German participation in Dutch colonialism : "Surinam could have been called a German rather than a Dutch colony at that time: because on the plantations, as in Paramaribo, one always found out of a hundred whites, perhaps nine and ninety, who had flowed here from all parts of Germany. " Immediately after returning to Amsterdam, the next trip to the Dutch Caribbean followed in 1756 , this time to Curaçao , on the return trip with a stopover at Sint Eustatius .

In the meantime the Seven Years War had broken out and at the request of his father, Nettelbeck returned to Kolberg in April 1758 because of an imminent siege by the Russians. Because he wanted to evade the press for the Prussian flotilla in Stettin , he fled, pursued as a deserter on the way , to Königsberg in East Prussia annexed by Russia .

During the war, from 1758 to 1762, Nettelbeck undertook trips under the Danzig flag from Königsberg to Western European waters, such as Irvine and Noirmoutier-en-l'Île . On Dutch ships in 1759 and 1760 he made two more trips to the Dutch Caribbean, to Surinam and Sint Eustatius. The memoirs of my stay in Surinam say: I thank the "unlimited hospitality" of the "plantation directeurs [...] for the happiest days of my life, which undoubtedly fell within this eight-month stay in this colony." In 1762 Nettelbeck married Regina Charlotte Meller in Königsberg, with whom he had several children. At the end of the war, Nettelbeck was his own captain as a shipowner in Königsberg and sailed the Baltic Sea.

For economic reasons he had to give up his self-employment in 1769, but had such a good reputation as a seaman that he became the Royal Prussian ship's captain in Stettin in 1770 . Nettelbeck lost this promising position after a few months because of a conflict with a representative of the crown, a Prussian infantry officer, whom he had refused recognition.

Chief helmsman on slave ships

Then Nettelbeck moved his residence to Kolberg. He did not get a captaincy. Having become unemployed, Nettelbeck was hired as head helmsman on a Dutch slave ship in Amsterdam in 1771. In triangular trade it traveled the route Europe - Guinea - Suriname - Europe, which he later reported in detail and vividly in his memoirs. Nettelbeck commanded a large dinghy that drove close to the African coast to negotiate slaves with local vendors for weapons, gunpowder, tobacco, schnapps, textiles and odds and ends. He used the chief helmsman's privilege to enrich himself by trading gold dust. He made the same trip again on an Englishman until 1774.

In his memoirs, written half a century later - Great Britain had banned the slave trade in 1807 - Nettelbeck distanced himself from the violent abduction of people, whereby the distancing contains a qualification: "50 years ago this evil trafficking in human beings was and was considered a trade, like others, without pondering much about its rightfulness or unlawfulness. Whoever was used for this had the prospect of hard and arduous service, but also of tolerable gain. Barbaric cruelty against the purchased human cargo was not necessarily connected with it and found it also probably only in individual cases; also, for my part, I have never advised or helped. "

On his return Nettelbeck recommended in a memorandum to his King Frederick the Great to take possession of a not yet colonized coastal strip on the Corantijn between Berbice and Surinam. Sugar and coffee plantations based on slave labor were to be established there so that the import of these products would no longer worsen Prussia's foreign trade balance. Friedrich gave Nettelbeck no answer.

Settled in Kolberg

Probably in order to be closer to his family, Nettelbeck started his own business in 1775 as the owner of a Quatze and in 1776 acquired Kolberger citizenship. But he did not succeed, the marriage failed and he was fined for a commercial offense. When lightning hit the tower of St. Mary's Church on April 26, 1777 , Nettelbeck, supported by his ten-year-old son, was the only one who dared to go up to extinguish the source of the fire. Without this act, the fire would have spread in the huge roof structure of the church, flying sparks and falling debris could have caused Kolberg to go up in flames. The city honored him, although it did not waive his punishment.

The punishment had destroyed Nettelbeck's existence and he had to become a seaman again in 1777, but no longer sailed the oceans. This time he succeeded, became a captain again, made good money and finally owned a ship. When he lost it in a shipwreck in 1783, he was still a wealthy man.

He now gave up the life of a seaman and finally settled in Kolberg as a brewer and schnapps distiller with his own bar. When Friedrich Wilhelm II ascended the Prussian throne in 1786 , Nettelbeck tried to use him for his colonial plan. On the occasion of his Pomeranian homage in Köslin, he presented the king with a revised memorandum. Now a branch for the procurement of slaves for plantation work was also to be acquired in West Africa, whereby Nettelbeck put his plan in the tradition of the Brandenburg-Prussian colony Groß Friedrichsburg . The King referred the letter to the Prussian Sea Trade , whereupon the Pomeranian War and Domain Chamber immediately reported to Nettelbeck: "Since His Royal Majesty would have deigned not to accept those suggestions, the Sea Trade could not agree to them either."

Over the years, Nettelbeck was considered a respected citizen in Kolberg, despite his tendency to quarrel and a second divorce. In 1805 he was elected to represent the brewers and distillers as a member of the Ten Men , a council with city administration functions. He was responsible for the supervision of the fire extinguishing stations, the city wells, the pipe system and the water art . Since 1805 he was also a member of the sailing house elders , a maritime court , as a royal ship surveyor .

As a citizen adjutant in besieged Kolberg

When, in 1806, Kolberg was one of the few Prussian fortresses that did not surrender to Napoleon Bonaparte , Nettelbeck, as representative of the citizens, was the leader of the opposition to the commandant Ludwig Moritz von Lucadou , whom he viewed as a potential traitor, at least as a misfortune for Kolberg. After the fighting began in March 1807, Nettelbeck risked his head by being at the head of like-minded citizens and officials conspiratorially with King Friedrich Wilhelm III. the deposition of Lucadou operated. The successor Major Gneisenau succeeded in winning the Nettelbeck party for cooperation by appointing Nettelbeck, whose office was already of the greatest importance for the defense of the fortress because of the artificial floods around Kolberg, to record and control tasks within the citizenry and as an expert recognized. Without the driving force of Nettelbeck, who also made sacrifices personally, the successful defense against the besiegers would not have come about. Nettelbeck also did not shrink from threatening all those willing to surrender with execution: "Gentlemen, Kolberg can and must remain with the king; it costs what it may! [...] We are citizens, all for one man, determined, and when even all our houses would be turned to rubble not to let the fortress surrender. And if I ever heard my ears that someone - he was a citizen or a military man - was talking about surrender: by man's word! I ran (sic!) on the Put this sword of mine through my body and should I have to drill it through my chest in the next minute! "

With the reports on the successful resistance of the Kolberg Fortress, Nettelbeck also became famous. He permitted the publication of a large part of his diaries from the siege period. In the journalism that began during the siege of Kolberg, Nettelbeck was praised as a model of a citizen and patriot: "Live [...] long, your contemporaries an example of courage, activity, patriotism. Reflect on it, you Germans! " Nettelbeck received a golden version of the medal of honor of the Prussian military honor and later a pension from the king with a personal letter of recognition . His political stance was characterized by a monarchist nationalism, as it was to be formative for Wilhelmine Germany : "Cursed be who is not loyal to his king and fatherland!"

Last years

In interviews about the siege, Nettelbeck had made critical statements about individual incidents and people, including several officers. After their publication, they led to libel trials, all of which Nettelbeck lost. He had misinterpreted, confused, or distorted various things. But the king pardoned him for his merits. The already tense relationship between Kolberg's citizens and the military was, however, poisoned for years.

In the following years Nettelbeck also held public offices and did not avoid conflicts. He was resented to the end of his life for arrogantly bringing his special relationships with the king into play even on everyday occasions. So he arranged for the king to dissolve the elected Kolberger Citizens' Assembly, as this had bypassed Nettelbeck in the candidate selection and opposed his private interests.

Nettelbeck's family life, on the other hand, was no longer unhappy. Of his two grown-up children, his son, who had already become a citizen , died in 1794 and he cast out his daughter from his first marriage. At the age of 75, Nettelbeck married for the third time in 1814 and had a daughter.

In view of the impending victory over France in 1814, Nettelbeck made a third and final attempt to reach the top with his colonial plans. This time he did not turn to the king directly, but to his new and influential patron Gneisenau. As compensation for its war costs, Prussia was to receive, with British approval, a "colony already under culture" in the West Indies in order to produce colonial goods there. Nettelbeck suggested French Guiana , Dominica or Grenada . Gneisenau instructed him, however, that it was the "system" of the Prussian state not to have colonies in order not to become dependent on the sea powers.

The memories

In old age, Nettelbeck began to write down his memoirs. The editor of the Pomeranian Provincial Papers and Superintendent in Treptow an der Rega , Johann Christian Ludwig Haken , heard about it and persuaded Nettelbeck to allow him to edit it and publish it in his magazine. Several fragments appeared in 1820 and 1821. Because of the great success, he urged Nettelbeck to complete the work, but this did not finish. The first two volumes came out in 1821, describing life until the end of his seafaring days. The third volume, which dealt mainly with the siege, appeared in 1823. It was based on the parts of Nettelbeck's diary published in 1808 and other publications at the time, as well as on notes by Hakens, who had visited Nettelbeck several times in Kolberg, about this important one Let the rest of the life story be told. Hooks made a lot of mistakes and Nettelbeck also had trouble remembering. The point against the Prussian officer corps, especially against Lucadou, cannot be overlooked. The insulting representations, for which Nettelbeck came to court in 1808 and which were rejected as untrue, can be found in the book, but now without naming the names.

Joachim Nettelbeck died on January 29, 1824 in Kolberg at the age of 85. After an elaborate funeral, he was quickly forgotten. He received no honorary grave or memorial, and his memoirs were deliberately ignored by the city for a long time.

Afterlife

In the dispute about the Prussian reforms, especially about the failure to keep the constitutional promise, Nettelbeck was initially seen as a key witness for the citizens' right to shape public affairs due to his life story. As a literary figure, he has become the hero of a myriad of patriotic works. In a large-scale publication in the Vormärz and during the revolution of 1848 he appeared alongside Friedrich Ludwig Weidig , Benjamin Franklin and Thaddäus Kosciuszko as a man of the people .

In the further 19th century, Nettelbeck's life as a seaman became a model for the young people who were pushing for seafaring in view of the desired German sea ​​sailing. Because he had reported autobiographically about his idea, which had failed three times, to acquire colonies based on the example of the Great Elector , Nettelbeck also counted as an early advocate for German colonial efforts .

In 1868 Paul Heyse's national drama Colberg celebrated the unity of citizens and army as one people in arms with Nettelbeck in a leading role. After it was not allowed to be performed on state stages for decades due to democratic tendencies , it became school material in Prussia at the turn of the 20th century.

Kolberg: The Gneisenau-Nettelbeck monument, destroyed after 1945

Kolberg himself thought of Nettelbeck in honor late. The city with a nationally significant history had become one of the largest German Baltic seaside resorts around 1880. The first highlight of the season was the folk festival on July 2nd, the anniversary of the city's rescue . The day off from school began with a pageant, followed by an outdoor performance of the play Colberg , the author of which the city had made an honorary citizen in 1890, and an evening fireworks display at the seaside ended it. The last time was July 2, 1944. From 1887, the citizens of Kolberg collected for a Gneisenau-Nettelbeck memorial. In 1901 the sculptor Georg Meyer-Steglitz was commissioned and on July 2, 1903, the monument at St. Mary's Church was unveiled in the presence of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia . There was a Nettelbeck Museum.

During the time of National Socialism , the Reich Ministry of Finance had maintained the customs cruiser Nettelbeck since 1935 . After its requisition for the Navy at the beginning of the Second World War as a submarine , it was renamed UJ 171 , as the Navy had had a clearing boat accompanying ship called Nettelbeck since May 1939 .

A high point in Nettelbeck's instrumentalization was the endurance film Kolberg at the end of the Second World War , which showed Nettelbeck as a fighter and a prophet of victory, embodied by Heinrich George . He was quoted as saying that the Kolbergers would "rather let themselves be buried under rubble than hand over their city".

After the flight and expulsion of the entire population Kolberg was the war in Kolobrzeg renamed and Poland settled. Kolberg's past was not part of Poland's past. But in recent years there has been an increasing interest in the city in history up to 1945 and thus also in the person of Nettelbeck.

In the Germany of the 21st century, Nettelbeck is coming into the public eye as a street name giver. In a dossier of the association berlin-postkolonial on street names with references to colonialism in Berlin , the Pomeranian seaman Nettelbeck appeared in November 2008 as an “ East Prussian merchant” who “participated in human trafficking in his function as captain of Dutch slave ships” and “has been active as a colonial lobbyist for decades "Was and was honored in the empire" for the defense of his hometown Kolberg "(with the wrong year" 1806 ").

Under the heading: Named after slave traders and murderers. These are Hamburg's Streets of Shame , in April 2011, the Hamburger Morgenpost named Nettelbeck as one of the "men who have achieved dubious fame through their atrocities in distant lands" and their names on street signs cynically advertise "Africans living in Hamburg every day." remembered the suffering of their ancestors ”.

In September 2014, the Ruhr Nachrichten asked its Dortmund readers: Should streets with a Nazi past be renamed? Nettelbeck is considered to be such a "burdened namesake". When asked about the reasons for the renaming, the deputy head of the city archives referred to Nettelbeck as the “captain of Dutch slave ships”, who had “worked as a colonial propagandist for decades” and who was highly honored during the Nazi era.

Works

literature

  • Peter Jancke (Ed.): Joachim Nettelbeck. Hamburg 1988 (with extensive bibliography).
  • Hermann Klaje : Joachim Nettelbeck. Post, Kolberg 1927.
  • Nettelbeck booklet. [The sea attendant. Nautical magazine of the Deutsche Seewarte Hamburg. 7th year [1938]; Issue 9]. Hamburg-Altona, Hammerich & Lesser, 1938.
  • Martin Vogt:  Nettelbeck, Joachim. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 83 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Jürgen Manthey : Entrepreneur and adventurer (Joachim Nettelbeck) , in other words: Königsberg. History of a world citizenship republic . Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-423-34318-3 , pp. 296-303.

Web links

Wikisource: Joachim Christian Nettelbeck  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography, Vol. 1 (Lit), p. 36
  2. ↑ Biography, vol. 1 (lit), p. 94 f.
  3. ↑ Biography, vol. 1 (lit), p. 107 f.
  4. ↑ Klaje, p. 44 f.
  5. ↑ Biography, Vol. 2 (Lit), p. 2
  6. ↑ Biography, Vol. 3 (Lit), p. 64
  7. ↑ Königlich Preussische Staats-, Kriegs- und Friedenszeitung, June 1, 1807, quoted from Klaje, pp. 139f.
  8. ↑ Biography, Vol. 3 (Lit), p. 204
  9. ↑ Klaje, p. 166ff.
  10. ↑ Eduard Duller (ed.): The men of the people represented by friends of the people , 8 volumes, Meidinger, Frankfurt 1847-1850. Therein Vol. VI. (Author: Duller) to Nettelbeck.
  11. ↑ Street names with references to colonialism in Berlin ( Memento from July 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ Hamburger Morgenpost of April 5, 2011 .
  13. ^ Ruhr Nachrichten of September 11, 2014 .
  14. ↑ http://www.cbgnetwork.org/downloads/Stellungnahme_Stadtarchiv_Dortmund.pdf .
personal data
SURNAME Nettelbeck, Joachim
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nettelbeck, Joachim Christian (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German seaman, "Kolberg's savior", autobiographer
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1738
PLACE OF BIRTH Kolberg
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 1824
Place of death Kolberg