Karl Galster (naval officer)

Karl Galster

Karl Friedrich Hans Galster (born March 29, 1886 in Kiel , † March 25, 1916 at sea) was a German naval officer. As a lieutenant captain, he commanded the S 22 torpedo boat of the Imperial Navy during the First World War .

Life

Karl Galster was born as the first child of Vice Admiral of the Imperial Navy Karl Galster . Galster came in 1903 at the age of 17 years as a midshipman of the Imperial Navy in 1904 and was Midshipman . In 1906 he was promoted to lieutenant at sea and in 1908 to first lieutenant at sea . He served in the torpedo weapon from 1909 and was promoted to lieutenant captain on December 16, 1914. Galster was married and had two children.

On March 25, 1916 around 9:30 was carried out an attack British destroyer on the German outpost in List , while aircraft of the British Seeflugzeugträgers HMS Vindex the airship hangars of Tonder should attack. German planes then flew a counterattack from the Naval Air Base List. The evasive British destroyer HMS Lavrock rammed the destroyer HMS Medusa , which then had to be towed and later abandoned because of the stormy weather.

The British action provoked a German reaction. The high seas fleet set out to counterattack the retreating British ships. During this company the torpedo boat was S 22 under Galster 21.30 pm at a mine about 30 nautical miles north of Terschelling at 53 ° 46 '  N , 5 ° 4'  O . The boat broke apart amidships. While the front half immediately sank, the stern remained afloat for about five minutes. The torpedo boat S 18 , which was in the vicinity, could not provide any help due to the extremely bad weather conditions. Only seventeen crew members were saved. The commander went down with his ship.

Honor

The German Navy named its destroyer Z 20 Karl Galster after him.

Web links

• Reinhard Scheer: Germany's deep sea fleet in the world war. Scherl, 1920, chapter 9a, (English translation)
• New York Times newspaper clipping , March 27, 1916, English
• Report on the events of March 25, 1916 in "Flight" (Daily Telegraph), English

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships give as the sinking point west of the lightship Borkumriff .
2. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from August 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ The coordinates (55 ° 45'N, 5 ° 10'E, northeast of Sylt) given in "Reinhard Scheer - Germany's High Seas Fleet in World War I" (Scherl, 1920) are unlikely in view of the chronological and geographical sequence of events. The records of the father, Admiral Karl Galster, indicate a place "in front of Ameland", which corresponds to the coordinates given here. Scheer had probably mistaken the boat for the G 194 , which was lost on the same day due to a ram from HMS Cleopatra .