Karl Galster (Vice Admiral)

Karl Paul Hans Galster (born November 20, 1851 in Stettin , † March 23, 1931 in Wiesbaden ) was a German naval officer and publicist . After retiring from service in 1907 as Vice Admiral , he went public with an alternative plan to the Tirpitz Plan and advocated small-scale warfare at sea, in which the submarine was given a central role. 1917, he was from the University of Halle-Wittenberg , the honorary doctorate awarded.

Vice Admiral Karl Galster, 1910

Life

family

He was the first of three children of the later Prussian major general à la suite of the army Karl Christian Galster (born January 22, 1818 in Herford , † February 18, 1882 in Hameln ) and his wife Charlotte Pauline Johanne, née Schulze (born August 1 , 1882 in Hameln ) 1824 in Herford; † March 8, 1900 in Kiel). She was the daughter of the Prussian lieutenant colonel and commander of the 8th artillery regiment Ferdinand Hans Robert Schulze. His brother was the future Rear Admiral Max Galster (1852-1928).

Galster attended by Easter 1863 several private schools and then moved on to secondary school 1st order St. Peter and Paul in Gdansk , where he, in January 1868 the school leaving certificate for Prima lacked.

In 1881 he married Anna Eckmann in Kiel . The marriage resulted in three sons and three daughters. While one of the sons died in childhood, the other two sons also became naval officers. Both fell in World War I ; Karl Galster as commander of the torpedo boat S 22 on March 25, 1916 about 30 nautical miles north of Terschelling , Oberleutnant zur See Hans Galster as commander of the submarine SM UC 51 on November 17, 1917 in the English Channel . After the death of his wife Pauline in 1912, he married Helene Geissel in 1917. There were no children from the marriage. His second wife died on April 23, 1943 in Wiesbaden.

Military career

On April 26, 1868, Galster joined the 68 crew of the Navy of the North German Confederation , which consisted of 43 cadets . He received his basic training on the frigate SMS Gefion . In 1868/69 he served on the training ship SMS Niobe . From 1869 to 1872 he made his first trip overseas , u. a. China and Japan , on the Corvette SMS Hertha ; Here he took part in the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. During the voyage, he was promoted to lieutenant at sea in 1871 .

After returning from East Asia , which had been considerably delayed by the Franco-Prussian War , he attended the Kiel Naval School in 1873/74 . After a short auxiliary activity in the Admiralty and further training on the artillery training ship SMS Renown , Galster was promoted to lieutenant in the sea in 1875 . After a short period of service on the brig SMS Musquito , he was transferred to the corvette SMS Freya in 1877 , with which he visited the East Asian station ; In 1879 the ship returned to Wilhelmshaven . From 1879 to 1882 he took part in three courses at the Kiel Naval Academy, which were interrupted by brief on-board commands on the tank frigates SMS Preußen and SMS Friedrich Carl .

After another activity on the tank frigate SMS Kronprinz , he was transferred to the artillery training ship SMS Mars . From this point in time his later specialization in ship artillery crystallized. Until 1887 he was adjutant to the inspector of the naval artillery . In 1887/88 he was employed as first officer on the training ship SMS Stein . On April 17, 1888, he was promoted to corvette captain .

After an intermezzo as commander of the II. Sailor Artillery Department, which was also responsible for mine warfare , in 1890 he switched to the Kiel Naval Academy as a teacher of artillery until 1893. He then took over as commander of the artillery training ship Mars until 1897; on March 21, 1894 he was promoted to sea captain. He was then commander of the liner SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm until 1899 .

From 1900 to 1905 Galster was inspector of the naval artillery; on September 13, 1901, he was promoted to rear admiral . During this time, the first theoretical considerations on coastal protection took place. On March 14, 1905, he was promoted to Vice Admiral. By a General Cabinet Order of 28 September 1906 he was awarded the right to the statutory pension for disposition made and adopted on 9 February 1907th

Galster's plans for naval warfare

In contrast to Tirpitz , Galster saw the basic problem of a possible naval warfare against Great Britain not in a weak German battle fleet, but in the geographic location of the empire. Due to its preferred island location, which in the event of war with the Reich gave the British Empire free access to the Atlantic on the one hand and blockade of German overseas trade on the other , Germany found itself in a strategically extremely unfavorable situation. The Empire was able to seal off the English Channel and the sea ​​route between Scotland and Norway with relatively little effort by means of a remote blockade . The central realization of Galster was that even in the very unlikely event of a German naval victory over the Royal Navy, the strategic location would remain unchanged and Great Britain could continue to use the resources of the world market . Conversely, even a victorious German fleet was unable to block the British Isles.

Galster therefore advocated a defensive strategy and small-scale warfare at sea, without, however, fundamentally wanting to do without a battle fleet. The guerrilla war should be waged with small cruisers , submarines, torpedo boats and sea ​​mines . Although he also advocated a trade war with small cruisers overseas, he was aware of the weakness of this concept, since Germany did not have the logistical possibilities to conduct such operations, as it had neither fortified bases nor coal stores overseas .

Galster therefore considered the submarine to be a useful weapon for achieving partial naval dominance in the southern North Sea, the sole aim of which was to prevent British naval units from penetrating the north-west German estuaries. Under no circumstances had Galster thought of a trade war with submarines, as it would develop relatively quickly after the outbreak of the First World War. The submarines should only be used against opposing naval forces and not against merchant ships and should preferably operate together with torpedo boats at night.

Galster therefore called for a restriction on the cost-intensive battleship building and instead the forced production of submarines, in which all German shipyards should be involved. When building the battle fleet, he also thought of the cost factor, as the rapid technical development of capital ships would prove to be an incalculable cost driver. The units needed for the guerrilla war were in his opinion much cheaper. In addition, Galster called for a strengthening of the coastal protection and the massive use of sea ​​mines .

Politically , Galster always campaigned for an understanding with Great Britain. On the one hand, he fundamentally doubted a possibility of being able to defeat England at sea, since the Empire had much greater resources in warship construction, on the other hand, he considered a confrontation with England generally nonsensical, as he regarded it as a quasi "related" nation. Franken therefore certifies Galster's fundamentally Anglophile attitude, without Galster himself expressing this explicitly.

Reactions and further activity

Galster's considerations and demands fundamentally called the previous fleet plans into question. All supporters of the Tirpitz Plan therefore strictly rejected Galster's considerations. The German Fleet Association also took a stand against Galster, admitting that his option for guerrilla warfare and coastal protection resulted from his official experience. Although Galster enjoyed the support of both the left-wing liberal Free People's Party and the National Liberals , his ideas had no concrete impact on the naval construction.

Regardless of this, he remained active as a journalist, even during the First World War. The outcome of the Skagerrak Battle of 1916 seemed to confirm Galster's earlier considerations:

“We can look forward to the victory, in every direction: for the spirit and as a reward for our fleet, for our prestige, etc., but this does not change the previous naval war situation. The British Isles will remain as a dam in front of the North Sea and we will remain shut off from the oceans as before. "

- Galster to Herman vom Rath on June 5, 1916

Although Galster ultimately accepted the so-called reckless submarine war, because he hoped it would end the war more quickly, he remained skeptical about its effectiveness because the material requirements such as B. large submarines with corresponding ranges were not yet available in sufficient numbers. At his own request, Galster was deleted from the list of officers who had passed away in uniform by AKO on September 11, 1916 . The background to this was the desire for greater independence, especially in terms of journalism.

Galster was also extremely skeptical of the United States' entry into the war , for example in a letter to the military historian Hans Delbrück three days after the United States declared war on the Reich:

“With regard to America, I share the point of view that we have nothing to fear militarily for the time being and that America will hopefully come too late at all. If one imagines that we would act in America's place, one can understand the behavior there ... America is now securing a right of co-determination when the peace is concluded, increasing its military power, demanding more international status and standing before the world as a representative of ideal morals Principles. Of course, words and deeds do not match. "

- Galster to Delbrück on April 9, 1917

On June 21, 1917, Galster was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Halle-Wittenberg ; The applicants were the historians Richard Fester and Albert Werminghoff . In their application to the dean of the faculty, they justified their request with Galster's paper What sea war armor does Germany need from 1907, to which they awarded the quality of a dissertation , since Galster's concept of guerrilla warfare, especially with submarines, was very far-sighted.

On December 4, 1917, Galster joined the People's League for Freedom and Fatherland , presumably on the initiative of Hans Delbrück , in order to deliberately counterbalance the German Fatherland Party of Alfred von Tirpitz. Apparently, however, he was merely a passive member; special activities are not recorded.

After the First World War, Galster became a member of the parliamentary committee of inquiry of the constituent German National Assembly and the German Reichstag , which was supposed to refute the stab-in- the-back legend , but was dominated by German national members who promoted this legend. Galster acted there alongside Hans Delbrück as a further counter-expert against Admiral a. D. Adolf von Trotha on the question "Fleet and submarine warfare". It was also about the evaluation of the proposed thrust of the High Seas Fleet in the North Sea in early November 1918 that ultimately the November Revolution triggered. Galster argued that this advance had no rational prospect of success and was more due to the prestige of the battle fleet and its leaders.

In letters to Delbrück in 1927, Galster also expressed clear criticism of the official writing of war history, both by the army and the navy, which was not objective and, in the navy, was more likely to emphasize the importance of its own institution than to analyze the defeat.

Practically nothing is known about the last years of his life. Galster apparently died after a long illness on March 23, 1931 in Wiesbaden. An estate has not been preserved. A collection of letters from Galster, edited by Franken, exists as an online version .

Publications (selection)

• The ship and coastal guns of the German Navy. Berlin 1885. Reprint Hamburg (Andraeas) 1993.
• The battle of the main squadrons in the battle of Tsushima. Wilhelmshaven 1906.
• Is our coastal defense enough? Wilhelmshaven 1907.
• What naval armament does Germany need? Berlin 1907.
• Readiness for war on the seashore. Berlin 1908.
• England, German fleet and World War I. Berlin 1925.
• Chances of success of a sea battle in world wars. In: Archives for Politics and History. (1926) H. 7/8. Pp. 38-54.

literature

• Dermot Bradley (eds.), Hans H. Hildebrand, Ernest Henriot: Germany's Admirals 1849-1945. The military careers of naval, engineering, medical, weapons and administrative officers with admiral rank. Volume 1: A-G. Biblio Publishing House. Osnabrück 1988. ISBN 3-7648-1499-3 . Pp. 406-407.
• Klaus Franken: Vice Admiral Karl Galster. A critic of the Imperial Navy's battle fleet construction. Publishing house Dr. Dieter Winkler, Bochum, 2011 ( Small series of publications on military and naval history. Vol. 22nd edited by Jens Graul , Jörg Hillmann, Stephan Huck). ISBN 978-3-89911-137-8 .
• Wolfgang Petter: German fleet armor from Wallenstein to Tirpitz. In: German military history in six volumes, 1648–1939. Munich 1983. Vol. VS 13-262.
• Keyword: Vice Admiral Carl Galster. In: Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present. Herford 1979ff. (One-volume reprint of the seven-volume original edition. Ratingen 1984. Vol. IV. Pp. 108f.)

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Galster in the catalog of the German National Library
• Photo by Karl Galster , location and time unknown
• Selected letters from Karl Galster, 1909 to 1929 at the library service center Baden-Württemberg

Individual evidence

1. ^ Kurt von Priesdorff : Soldatisches Führertum . Volume 9, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1941], DNB 986919780 , pp. 42-43, no. 2734.
2. ^ ^{A b c} Klaus Franken: Vice Admiral Karl Galster. A critic of the Imperial Navy's battle fleet construction. Publishing house Dr. Dieter Winkler, Bochum, 2011 ( Small series of publications on military and naval history. Vol. 22nd edited by Jens Graul, Jörg Hillmann, Stephan Huck). ISBN 978-3-89911-137-8 .
3. ↑ Selected letters from Karl Galster, 1909 to 1929
4. ↑ Table of contents (winklerverlag.com)