Mine clearance association Cuxhaven
The Cuxhaven Mine Clearing Association (MRVC), also known as the Cuxhaven Customs Border Guard's mine clearing association , was a German minesweeping association under British supervision. The vehicles carried the flag of the British Control Commission for Germany .
Duties and subordination
On January 1, 1948, the MRVC took over the tasks of the German Mine Clearance Service (DMRD), which was dissolved at the end of 1947 and which had cleared sea mines in German coastal waters from the time of World War II from 1945 to 1947 . The main task of the MRVC was to clear ground mines that had not yet been cleared. According to the requirements of the International Mine Clearance Board, the area of operation extended along the German North Sea coast from Borkum to Sylt . The focus was on the Elbe - Esbjerg -Weg, the Borkum-Weg, the Weser - and the mouth of the Ems . In the Baltic Sea have been Eckernförde Bay , the path from Kiel to Korsör and the ferry route Großenbrode - Gedser cleared on the 1951 traffic was resumed.
The MRVC was initially under the British Frontier Control Service / Frontier Inspection Service and from the end of March 1951 the Royal Navy . After the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany, the power of disposal over the association was partially transferred to the Federal Ministry of Transport , while British authorities remained responsible for the overall coordination of the clearance work. The association was initially financed through the general occupation costs, before the states of Hamburg and Lower Saxony took over the costs on April 1, 1950 . The subordination was not clearly regulated, which led to considerable difficulties in the so-called Helgoland incident at the end of 1950 . It was not until the Royal Navy took over British responsibilities on April 1, 1951 that the questions of subordination could be clarified.
Personnel and vehicles
The follow-up organization, considerably smaller than the DMRD, with civilian clothes and its home port of Cuxhaven , had twelve mine clearance boats (from the former 13th clearing flotilla (former 13th clearing boat flotilla of the Navy) of the 2nd mine clearing division came R 132 to R 138, R 140, R 142, R 144 and from the former 8th clearing flotilla (former 8th clearing boat flotilla of the Navy) of the 1st mine clearing division came R 146 and R 147), some auxiliary vehicles (such as KFK 409, KFK 531 and KFK 616) and initially about 600 men. The clearing boats were formally owned by the US Navy and were only available on loan. The remaining vehicles were British spoils of war.
From the beginning until the middle of March 1948, the former frigate captain of the Navy and former commander of the 2nd mine clearing division Herbert Max Schulz, followed by frigate captain Adalbert von Blanc (former commander of the 1st mine clearing division ). Of the 600 members, 55 were officers, 511 non-commissioned officers and men and around 35 civil servants, employees and wage earners. The number of members varied and was temporarily up to 700. All were voluntary and had the status of civilian employees after Heuer tariff for Great ride were paid.
Three relatives were killed during the clearance work. The former naval ferry F-212 used as a river lock breaker sank in July 1949 after a mine hit off the Jade estuary, injuring seven people.
The Heligoland incident
In December 1950 the head of the association was asked by the liaison officer of the Frontier Control Service to pick up two German pacifists from Helgoland who were staying there, contrary to a British ban, in order to prevent the island from being destroyed by bombing. Captain von Blanc refused to comply with this request. Thereupon considerable pressure was built up from the British side, as they did not have suitable vehicles for the task themselves and did not want to show that to the outside world. Blanc made several compromise proposals and in the end refused to carry out this assignment. He was then threatened with suspension from his job and a court martial . In view of the unclear subordination, Blanc turned directly to Chancellor Adenauer with a request for support. He took up the subject with the Allied High Commissioners , albeit initially without any tangible success. The British occupying power then recognized the public impact of the incident. She lifted Blanc's suspension after a short time, waived measures against the association and finally released Heligoland again later.
The great attention and commitment to the rescue of Heligoland, which is seen as a national matter, led for the first time after the war to a certain public solidarity with the German mine clearance forces, who were previously viewed either as old militarists or as collaborators with the occupying power.
The relationship with the British occupying power
The relationship between the German members of the MRVC, and here in particular the leadership, to the British occupying power was consistently very formal and characterized by mutual distrust. Neither side saw the association as a forerunner of the new German naval forces. The Heligoland incident was symptomatic of the stiff relationship. The dispute between Captain von Blanc and his British superiors culminated in the fact that he contradicted their orders on the grounds that they had learned from the British during the Nuremberg trials that there were circumstances in which one should not obey.
The dissolution of the association
After the beginning of the Korean War in 1950, the attitude of the Western powers changed with regard to a West German defense contribution. The USA began to strengthen its service groups in Germany and in this way to prepare for the establishment of German armed forces. Therefore, they asked Great Britain to return the mine clearance boats used in the MRVC, which should form the core of a new service group.
The Federal Ministry of Transport had already endeavored since the spring of 1950 to transfer the association entirely under German control and in November 1950 had reached an agreement with the Federal Ministry of Finance to assume the costs. The Ministry of Transport wanted to keep the only intact mine sweeping association in the Federal Republic of Germany. The Blank Office joined in this concern, as it was foreseeable that the staff of the association could not be transferred completely to American management and the association would significantly lose its operational capability.
The staff of the MRVC had strong reservations about the handover because they had to expect social decline. Instead of the previous employment relationship in the German public service, an employment relationship with the USA should take place. The contract of employment also contained a clause that allowed the Americans to deploy the workers to any location in their European command.
Interventions by German agencies, the head of the association and the Vice Admiral a. Who works in the Naval Historical Team for American agencies. D. Ruge remained unsuccessful. On June 30, 1951, the MRVC was dissolved. The twelve clearing boats were transferred to Bremerhaven and formed an essential element of the American-run Labor Service Unit (B) (LSU (B)). With them, 18 officers and 220 men moved there. Another 18 officers and 81 men joined the newly emerging maritime border protection , including the head of the association. Two officers and eleven men switched to the British Baltic Fishery Protection Service , the so-called Schnellbootgruppe Klose . 124 relatives were looking for new jobs in other professional fields.
78 members stayed in Cuxhaven and formed the newly established British naval service group , which continued to be responsible for coordinating the mine clearance. She also kept the five vehicles that were not to be handed over to the LSU (B). These were the escort ship Weser , the tanker Dievenow and three war fish cutters .
References
Web links
literature
- Hartmut Klüver. The mine clearance association of the Cuxhaven Customs Border Guard. In: Hartmut Klüver (ed.); German Maritime Associations 1945–1956; Düsseldorf 2001. ISSN 1438-907X . ISBN 3-935091-08-7
- Douglas C. Peifer. Three German Marines - Dissolution, Transitions and New Beginnings, p. 109 ff. Bochum 2007. ISBN 978-3-89911-101-9
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Hartmut Klüver. The mine clearance association of the Cuxhaven Customs Border Guard. In: Hartmut Klüver (ed.); German maritime associations 1945–1956; Düsseldorf 2001, p. 40ff. ISSN 1438-907X . ISBN 3-935091-08-7
- ↑ a b c d e f g Douglas C. Peifer. Three German Marines - Dissolution, Transitions and New Beginnings, p. 109 ff. Bochum 2007. ISBN 978-3-89911-101-9
- ↑ a b Oct. 31, 1950 . Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-145278-4 , p. 74 ( google.de [accessed on July 24, 2020]).
- ↑ a b c German Naval Archives
- ↑ mandors.de ( Memento from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b Heinz-Ludger Borgert, Walter Stürm, Norbert Wiggershaus. Service groups and West German defense contribution - preliminary considerations for arming the Federal Republic of Germany. Boppard am Rhein 1982. ISBN 3-7646-1807-8