Paul König (captain)

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Paul König, autograph card from 1916

Paul Lebrecht König (born March 20, 1867 in Rohr , † September 8, 1933 in Gnadau ) was a captain of the North German Lloyd (NDL) in Bremen and a naval officer.

biography

King was the son of a pastor. From 1878 to 1883 he attended the Latin grammar school in Halle (Saale) . At the age of 16 he went to sea as a cabin boy and received his nautical training. He then attended the navigation school in Bremerhaven - Geestemünde , drove as a helmsman and finally got his captain's license in 1894 .

In 1896, König began his seafaring days with North German Lloyd. First he drove as an officer, from 1911 as a captain. After the outbreak of World War I , König was drafted into the Imperial Navy as a lieutenant captain in the reserve . It was used first as a watch officer and later as first officer aboard for coastal protection, especially in the Jade - and Wesermündung employed Brandenburg .

Paul König (center) with the crew of U-Germany, Baltimore 1916
The crew of the merchant submarine "Deutschland" on August 24, 1916 in Bremen after returning from the USA
Memorial plaque at the entrance to Bremen town hall
Figure plaque by Hoetger at the House of the Glockenspiel in Bremen

After he was taken out of active naval service at the end of 1915, he attended the submarine school from January 1916. In the spring of 1916 he was given leave of absence from the navy, in June he was given command of the first commercial submarine U-Deutschland of the German Ocean Shipping Company , in which the North German Lloyd held the majority. In the same year, the submarine made two trips to the USA that were not yet involved in the war at the time. After the US entered the war on the Entente side in 1917 , the voyages were discontinued.

In 1917, König led a group of lock breakers until the end of the war and was active in the naval command after the end of the war. In 1920 he left the navy as a corvette captain .

Until 1931 he worked again at Norddeutscher Lloyd, a. a. as a nautical officer on board the passenger ship Columbus , later as a department head and as an authorized signatory.

After leaving North German Lloyd, he went to Gnadau in 1932, where he died a year later at the age of 66.

Paul König had been married to Muriel Pennington, born in 1878 as the daughter of a London clergyman , since September 5, 1901 . With her he had a son and a daughter.

honors and awards

Fonts

  • Paul König: The journey of Germany . Publishing house Ullstein & Co, Berlin 1916

literature

  • Jan Heitmann : Underwater into the new world. Commercial submarines and imperial submarine cruisers in the field of tension between politics and warfare . Spitz, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-87061-788-8 ( University Series - History ), (Dissertation University of Hamburg, 1996, 365 pages).
  • Bodo Herzog:  King, Paul. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 347 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen (Ed.): Yearbook 1916/1917. The war and the shipping with special consideration of the North German Lloyd . III. Part. Welt-Reise-Verlag, Berlin 1917, ZDB -ID 217886-2
  • Eberhard Rössler: The German submarines and transport submarines . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-7637-6246-9 .
  • Hartmut Schwerdfeger, Erik Herlyn: The merchant submarines "Germany" and "Bremen". The adventure of sensational ocean crossings. (A forgotten chapter in seafaring) . Kurz-Schönholtz and Ziesemer Verlag, Bremen 1997, ISBN 3-931148-99-8 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME King, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES King, Paul Lebrecht
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German captain
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH pipe
DATE OF DEATH September 8, 1933
Place of death Gnadau