Karl August Nerger
Karl-August Nerger (born February 25, 1875 in Rostock ; † January 12, 1947 in special camp No. 7 Sachsenhausen ) was a German rear admiral .
Life
Karl was the eldest of three sons of the Rostock high school teacher and linguist Karl Friedrich Ludwig Nerger (1841-1913) and his wife Klara, née Hagemeister.
Imperial Navy
Nerger joined the Imperial Navy in 1893 as a midshipman , in 1900 he was a first lieutenant at sea on the gunboat SMS Iltis and in China during the Boxer Rebellion he was involved in the "fighting down of the Taku forts ". In 1914 he became the commander of the small cruiser SMS Stettin , which was built between 1906 and 1907 , and took part in the 1914 sea battle with the cruiser off Heligoland . In 1916, Nerger became the commander of the auxiliary cruiser SMS Wolf in the rank of corvette captain , which successfully waged trade wars in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific for 451 days. Enemy ships were identified and brought up using the on-board seaplane "Wölfchen" , and coal and food were taken on board to supplement the supplies. The crews were captured. Nerger sank 35 merchant ships and two warships with a total of 110,000 GRT . In February 1918 the Wolf broke through the British blockade again undetected and returned to the home port of Kiel . Nerger received the Pour le Mérite in February 1918 for his performance . He then became the commander of the outpost boats in the North Sea.
Between the wars and the Second World War
In 1919 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in medicine from the University of Rostock , and he was made an honorary citizen of the Hanseatic City of Rostock , and a year later he achieved "civil servant status" as an employee of the Siemens-Schuckert-Werke. From 1929 he was a member of the board of directors of Siemens-Schuckertwerke , Berlin .
On August 19, 1939 Nerger was given the character of Rear Admiral in the Navy . Nothing is known about an active role in World War II. After the end of the Second World War , he was arrested on August 15, 1945 by the Soviet occupying forces as a "member of the Abwehr " (reason for arrest according to the camp protocol) and interned in special camp No. 7 , which the Soviets had set up on the site of the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp. where he died in January 1947.
Karl-August Nerger was married to Marie Annie Katharine Friedrichsen (1886–1945), who was eleven years his junior and with whom he had three sons and two daughters. His wife died four weeks after he was arrested.
Awards
- Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class
- Pour le Mérite on February 24, 1918
- Knight's Cross of the Military Order of St. Henry on February 25, 1918
- Military Max Joseph Order on March 28, 1918
References
Web links
- Literature by and about Karl August Nerger in the catalog of the German National Library
- Report on the voyage of the Wolf
- Five Months on A German Raider The Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the "Wolf" by Frederic George Trayes, Headley Bros. Publishers, Ltd., London; 1919 (downloadable as e-book)
- "This is the story of the Wolf's voyage, one of the most remarkable but least-known episodes of the First World War"
literature
- Peter Hohnen & Richard Guilliatt, THE WOLF - The true story of an epic voyage of destruction in World War One, 2009, Bantam Press, ISBN 059306075X .
- Gerhard Beckmann, Klaus-Ulrich Keubke, Ralf Mumm: Naval officers from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 1849–1990. Schwerin 2006 ISBN 3-00-019944-6 .
- Richard Guilliatt & Peter Hohnen: The Wolf. William Heinemann Publ., Australia.
- Edwin P. Hoyt, Raider Wolf, The Voyage of Captain Nerger, 1916-1918 , New York 1974, ISBN 0-8397-7067-7 .
- Karl August Nerger, SMS Wolf , Scherl Verlag Berlin, 1916.
- Fritz Witschetzky : The black ship , Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Stuttgart / Berlin / Leipzig 1920.
- Roy Alexander: The Cruise of the Raider Wolf , Yale University Press, 1939.
- Theodor Plievier: Des Kaisers Kulis , Malik-Verlag: Berlin 1930.
- Entry: auxiliary cruiser "Wolf" , in: Kapitän zur See a. D. Hugo von Waldeyer-Hartz: The cruiser war 1914-1918. The cruiser squadron. Emden, Koenigsberg, Karlsruhe. The auxiliary cruiser , Oldenburg i. O. 1931, pp. 205f.
Documentation
- Ancestors wanted (part 1): was grandfather a Nazi? WDR 2007 - Produced by Orangefilm GmbH, Cologne, on behalf of WDR. Director: Frank Wegerhoff, book: Heiko Schäfer
- Terra X : Buccaneers of the Seas: Pirates of the Emperor. ZDF 2015 - Loopfilm, Munich on behalf of ZDF. Producer and director: Michael Halmburger
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Royal Saxon Military St. Heinrichs Order 1736-1918. An honor sheet of the Saxon Army. Wilhelm and Bertha von Baensch Foundation, Dresden 1937, p. 485.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Nerger, Karl August |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Nerger, Karl-August (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German rear admiral and knight of the order Pour le Mérite |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 25, 1875 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rostock |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 12, 1947 |
| Place of death | Special camp No. 7 Sachsenhausen |