Prussian Naval Academy
The training of officers for the Prussian Navy began with the establishment of the Navigation School in Danzig in 1817. There were other similar schools in Memel, Königsberg, Stettin and Stralsund in the first half of the nineteenth century.
On June 20, 1817, King Wilhelm III. by cabinet order his Minister of Finance Hans von Bülow with the creation of a school for the nautical training of officers for seagoing ships . This first Prussian school of this kind was established in Danzig (today Gdańsk in Poland) at the former St. Jacob's Church, which was destroyed by a powder explosion, the tower of which was converted into an observatory . It was financed through collections, which were also used to convert the church building into a council library and training building.
.JPG)
The upkeep of the school was covered by the income from the port of Danzig. Supervision was the responsibility of a specially appointed senate made up of merchants, shipowners and ship captains (e.g. Diedrich Johann Longé ).
The first director of the school was the mathematician Ludolph Hermann Tobiesen (1771–1839) from Altona , who only headed the school for a few years and in 1821 became an astronomer for the Russian Navy in Kronstadt. In the first year there were already 40 aspirants who were mainly instructed in navigation . The practical training by Captain Longé took place through occasional trips on the Stralsund war schooner, built in 1816 .
The imminent departure of Tobiesen was a cause of concern for the Ministry of Finance, as it was difficult at the time to find suitable people for the position of director. One felt compelled to look around abroad, where the development of seafaring was more advanced than in continental Prussia. Finally, the ambassador in Copenhagen, Count zu Dohna , suggested the command of the Danish Navy, Michael von Bille . President Theodor von Schön advocated his appointment. He said that a naval officer would be particularly advantageous because he could also be entrusted with "armed observation ships" in the event of war. Except for Schön, only a few thought of this possibility.
Michael Bille got his job as director of the Danzig Navigation School in 1821. Three years later he moved the school to a building at the mouth of the Radaune , as the St. Jacob's Church had proven to be unsuitable.
At that time, the school was assigned the Stralsund war schooner , and from 1825 also the Haff gunboat Danzig . The command was taken over from the Swedish service naval major Diedrich Johann Longé . He and his ships were subordinate to the War Ministry and formed what was understood in the country at the time by the Royal Navy .
Since Longé did not get on particularly well with Bille and was generally striving for more independence for himself and his ships, he declared in 1827 that the Vistula was not salty enough for the necessary conservation and maintenance of the two vehicles, and actually managed to transfer them to Stralsund , where In 1827 a "naval establishment" had been established. As a result, both vehicles there were condemned to inactivity. The schooner only remained in service until 1829, the Danzig until 1838.
.jpg)
Under Bille's direction, the number of navigation students increased very quickly, from 40 in 1827 to 115 to 120 in 1831, although similar schools had also sprung up in Memel , Königsberg , Stettin and Stralsund during this period .
Bille resigned on May 3, 1838, after he had been appointed Rear Admiral by the Danish King the previous year .
“A better leader for this maritime branch could hardly have been found back then. His Danish origins did not prevent him from performing his official duties with enthusiasm and zeal [...] The students were attached to this mentor; and in everything that made the creation of a maritime officer corps possible, he has the greatest share. If ever a foreigner served the Prussian state, it was this Dane; and with the exception of Jan Schröder , the first head of a Prussian naval officer corps, none of his foreign successors came up to him. "
Bille was followed in 1838 by the Norwegian naval lieutenant Lous, who, in addition to his position as director in Danzig, was also appointed "Prussian navigation director", in which capacity he was in charge of all navigation schools in Prussia. However, Lous was soon so anxious to expand his service authority and, in the course of these efforts, made such unfair demands that he resigned as early as 1842 - after his wishes were rejected.
He was replaced by a Dane, the naval captain Baron Frederik Edwin Rudolph Dirckinck-Holmfeld (1802-1896), an officer who fought on the Danish side during the First Schleswig-Holstein War in 1848 and was captured by Germany in 1848. The Corvette Amazone was built in his time .
literature
- Karl Hinrich Peter : aspiring naval officer. Your education from 1848 until today . Mürwik , 1969. (edited in 2009 with some additions from 1973 by Peter Godzik as download: PDF; 2.6 MB; 182 pages; in pkgodzik.de .)
- Norsk forfatter-Lexikon, 1814 to 1880. Paa Grundlag af JE Krafts og Chr. Langes. Norsk forfatter-Lexikon 1814–1856 ( norskforfatterl14kohtgoog_djvu.txt in DjVu on archive.org).
- Michael von Bille: Tankar om och i navigations. Carl Deleen, Stockholm 1840 (see libris.kb.se ).
- Hugo Conwentz , Otto Völkel: Danzig in scientific and medical relation. Reprint of the 1923 edition. Bibliolife, 2009, ISBN 1-115-69433-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klaus Bürger: Tobiesen, Ludolph Hermann in: Biographisches Lexikon für Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck , Volume 11, pp. 357-359
- ↑ Batsch, Marine Rundschau 1897, p. 170 f.
- ↑ Karl-Wilhelm Klahn: Monument complex is being restored. fehmarn24.de, April 4, 2007, accessed on March 10, 2018 .