SMS Möve (1914)

SMS Möve , photographed by a member of the Appam crew

Construction data
Ship type	Auxiliary cruiser
Ship class	freighter
Shipyard	Joh. C. Tecklenborg , Geestemünde
Build number	258
Launch	1914
Shipping company	F. Laeisz
Original name	Pungo
Commissioning	November 1, 1915
Whereabouts	Sunk by an air raid on April 7, 1945 in Vadheim am Sognefjord / Norway as Oldenburg .
Technical specifications
Volume	4,788 GRT
displacement	9,800 t
length	over everything: 123.7 m
width	14.4 m
Draft	7.2 m
Propulsion system	5 steam boilers 1 3-cylinder compound steam engine 1 screw 1 rudder
Machine performance	3,200 PSi
speed	13.3 kn
Driving range	8,700 nautical miles at 12 knots
Sea endurance	23 days
Armament	4 × 15 cm Sk 1 × 10.5 cm Sk 2 torpedo tubes 50 cm, from 1916 4 torpedo tubes ${\displaystyle \varnothing }$ 500 mines
crew	235 men

SMS Möve was an auxiliary cruiser of the Imperial Navy of the German Empire . The ship was one of two units of the pioneer class and was launched in 1914 under the name Pungo for the African Fruit Compagnie , whichmaintained banana plantations in the German colony of Cameroon . The Pungo was named after a locality in Fako . She was initially managed by the F. Laeisz companyand taken over by the Imperial Navy in 1915. On two trips in the Atlantic in 1916/1917 under the command of Korvettenkapitän Nikolaus Graf zu Dohna-Schlodien , the auxiliary cruiser brought up a total of 39 allied merchant ships or sank them. As a result, on the Anglo-American side, it became the ultimate symbol of the cruiser war.

The name of the ship is often given in the literature as a seagull , but the official seal proves that the name was officially written with v .

The two journeys of the Möve were used both literarily and in film for propaganda purposes by the German side. Count Dohna's books SMS Möwe (1916) and The Seagull Second Journey (1917) achieved print runs of 150,000 and 250,000 copies respectively.

Basics and role model

Model of the seagull , ex Pungo of the shipping company F. Laeisz

The German cruiser war or trade war with warships, auxiliary cruisers and submarines had been ineffective at the beginning of the First World War. The cruiser squadron ( East Asia Squadron ) retired due to its sinking on December 8, 1914 off the Falkland Islands . Shortly after the outbreak of war, some large and fast passenger steamers that were unsuitable for the cruiser war were used as auxiliary cruisers. A few months after the outbreak of war, they were either placed and sunk by Allied naval units or had to be interned in neutral ports due to a lack of coal or food. With SMS Meteor , a normal cargo steamer was used for the first time in the mine and cruiser war in the spring of 1915. Due to the success of the Meteor , the staff of the deep sea fleet decided to equip another vehicle based on its model, which, however, was supposed to wage cruiser warfare far into the South Atlantic.

Origin and technical data

Corvette captain Burggraf and Count Nikolaus zu Dohna-Schlodien in 1916

The choice of the ship was left to the future commander of the auxiliary cruiser. From the acceptance of the command in September 1915, Count Dohna was looking for an inconspicuous merchant ship that should, however, be faster than normal steamers. According to Count Dohna, after a lengthy, fruitless search, Albert Ballin , the General Director of HAPAG , finally gave him the decisive tip. It was the at the shipyard until May 9, 1914 Joh. C. Tecklenborg in Geestemünde spilled from the stack Pungo . This ship was a banana steamer that had been built for the African Fruit Compagnie and was managed by F. Laeisz in Hamburg. The Pungo was originally intended to be used in freight traffic from Cameroon to Germany, but was now in Bremen due to the war . From there she was transferred to Wilhelmshaven and converted into an auxiliary cruiser and was first given the designation auxiliary steamer 10 (HD 10). She had a size of 4788 GRT, a length of 123.7 m, a width of 14.44 m and a draft of 7.2 m. The triple expansion steam engine generated an output of 3200 PSi, which gave the ship a speed of 13.3 knots. The armament consisted of four 15 cm rapid loading guns, a 10.5 cm rapid loading gun, two 50 cm torpedo tubes (from 1916 four torpedo tubes) and 500 mines. The crew consisted of 16 officers and 223 men.

Arming the gull with torpedoes and mines (model)

Rear view of the seagull (model)

First voyage, December 1915 to March 1916

Auxiliary cruiser SMS MÖVE 1916. Field postcard from Georg Cording, Hulk LEIPZIG dated June 26, 1916 to Mariechen Westerholt, Easter castle in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg

On December 29, 1915, the Möve from Wilhelmshaven started her departure. Count Dohna had the idea for the ship's name from a seagull that had settled on the ship. First she drove under the mask of the Swedish freighter Sagoland . The ship was covered by U 68 and UC 30 when sailing . At the beginning of January 1916 ten mine barriers were laid near Cape Wrath north of Scotland , on which the British standard liner HMS King Edward VII ran aground and sank a few days later . The rest of the mines were laid off the Loire and Gironde estuaries .

Crew members of SMS MÖVE in March 1916. Illustrirte Zeitung 1916

From January 10, 1916, the seagull began the trade war in the Atlantic. As a mask she used either the British steamer Sutton Hall from Liverpool and the French steamer Theodore Monte from Marseille with the alleged route to Buenos Aires . Within the next few weeks she brought up 14 opposing steamers and a sailing ship. Among the steamers were the Farringford with 3146 BRT, the Corbridge , the Dromonby with 3627 BRT, the Author with 3496 BRT, the Trader with 3608 BRT, the Appam with 7781 BRT, the Ariadne with 3000 BRT and the Clan Mac Tavish . There was a brief battle with the British steamer Clan MacTavish , in which a total of 20 crew members of the steamer were killed. Two prizes , the Appam passenger steamer and the Westburn steamer , were released to the neutral USA with prize crews and the civilian prisoners. Another prize was the Corbridge coal steamer , which was supposed to serve as the coal supplier for the Möve . At the beginning of March 1916, the Möve arrived back in Wilhelmshaven. In total, the Möve sank 63,000 GRT on its first patrol .

Operation in the Baltic Sea, summer 1916

From March 6th to May 6th, 1916, the Möve was in repair work at the Imperial Shipyard in Wilhelmshaven. Apparently already at this point in time it was renamed Vineta for camouflage reasons and after the repairs were completed it was relocated to the Baltic Sea via the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal .

From June 12 to June 16, 1916 and from July 25 to 29, 1916, the Vineta made two trips to the Kattegat . On the second voyage, the British steamer Eskimo was brought in , which was brought to Swinoujscie as a prize . A third trip took place from August 20th to 23rd, but it was uneventful.

Second trip, November 1916 to March 1917

On November 22, 1916, the seagull began her second voyage in the Atlantic . It was secured over a large area by U 58 , UC 29 and UC 30 as far as Norway .

In total, the seagull brought up 21 steamers and three sailing ships on the second voyage, which led to the Brazilian and South African coasts. A prize, the British steamer St. Theodore , temporarily served as an auxiliary ship and auxiliary cruiser under the name SMS Geier and brought up two sailing ships. Since her coal supplies ran out, she was sunk on February 14, 1917. On March 10, the seagull met the British steamer Otaki , which had a 12.0 cm rear gun and a gun crew from the Royal Navy . Your commanding officer, Captain Archibald Bissett-Smith, decided to record the battle. In the ensuing battle, the Otaki was set on fire and capsized, but except for six of its crew members, including Bissett-Smith, the gull was able to save the relatives of the steamer. There were five dead and ten wounded on the Möve .

The prize Yarrowdale was brought to Swinoujscie by the prize crew together with the survivors of the merchant ship Mount Temple , which was sunk on December 6, 1916 , and was later converted into the auxiliary cruiser SMS Leopard , which was destroyed on its departure.

On March 14, 1917, there was a fight with the British steamer Governor , who also tried to escape the seagull with the help of his rear gun . Four British sailors died in the process; the crew was completely taken over by the Möve and the governor was sunk by a torpedo shot. Since there were now 800 prisoners on board the Möve , Count Dohna broke off the cruiser war and decided to travel home. She arrived in Kiel on March 22, 1917 .

Propagandist use

The two Möve trips were used extensively for propaganda purposes. The documentary Graf Dohna und seine Möwe in particular became the most successful German propaganda film of the First World War. Sequences of the film that have been preserved are still used today for documentaries about the First World War. The actual film is considered lost. Count Dohna's book: The "Seagull" Second Voyage appeared in 1917 in both a Spanish and a Hungarian edition.

Another fate

Transport ship Oldenburg in Gdynia (1939) unloading an artillery unit

After her return, the Möve was used as a barrier breaker 10 in the Baltic Sea until the end of the war. It went to Great Britain as spoils of war in 1920 and was operated as a Greenbrier by a London shipping company.

In 1933 the Greenbrier was sold to the Deutsche Seeverkehrs-AG “Midgard” in Nordenham and renamed Oldenburg . On April 7, 1945, the Oldenburg in Vadheim, Norway, was sunk in the Sognefjord by an Allied air raid. Contrary to reports to the contrary - that the wreck was lifted in 1953 and then scrapped - it is still at the dump site.

Todays situation

Today the wreck lies near the shore (61 ° 12'29 "N. 5 ° 49'02" E) at a depth of 28 m (bow) to 80 m (stern) with a turn of approx. 110 degrees on the starboard side and can - esp. by technical divers - to be dived. The hull and the superstructure are still in good intact condition as of 2017. A special feature of the wreck is the free-standing propeller with rudder system at a depth of approx. 75 m.

Commanders

November 1915 to March 1917	Corvette Captain to Dohna-Schlodien
March to December 1917	Lieutenant Wolf
January to November 1918	Captain Julius Lauterbach

swell

literature

• Nikolaus zu Dohna-Schlodien: SMS "Möwe" . Gotha 1916.
• Nikolaus zu Dohna-Schlodien: The "Seagull" second trip . Gotha 1917.
• Nikolaus zu Dohna-Schlodien: El Moewe. Relato de la prim. campaña de este crucero alem. en el Atlantico, por su comand., el Cap. de corbeta Conde de Dohna-Schlodien . Ciudad Mexico around 1917.
• Conde Nicolas De Dohna Schlodien: LAS HAZAÑAS DEL "MOEWE" , Madrid (Editorial Blass) 1917.
• Conde de Dohna-Schlodien: El Moewe . Buenos Aires 1917.
• Nikolaus zu Dohna-Schlodien: A "Seagull" kalandjai . Budapest 1917.
• Nikolaus zu Dohna-Schlodien: SMS Möwe. Două călătorii in Marea Nordului şi Oceanul Atlantic , Bucharest (Regele Carol) 1917.
• Reinhard Roehle (ed.): Count Dohnas Heldenfahrt on SMS "Möwe". Shown according to reports from participants. With 4 switch-on pictures, 4 text illustrations and 1 map sketch . Stuttgart / Berlin / Leipzig 1916.
• Hans E. Schlueter: SMS "Seagull": your hero's journey and happy homecoming. According to eyewitness reports and other reports . Leipzig 1916.
• Graf Dohna: The "Seagull" Rides and Adventure . Stuttgart / Gotha 1927.
• Sea captain a. D. Hugo von Waldeyer-Hartz : The cruiser war 1914-1918. The cruiser squadron. Emden, Koenigsberg, Karlsruhe. The auxiliary cruisers . Oldenburg i. O. 1931.
• Chapter: First trip SM auxiliary cruiser "Möwe" , the use of the SM auxiliary cruiser "Möwe" during the time between his two trips abroad and the second trip SM auxiliary cruiser "Möwe" in: Eberhard von Mantey : The cruiser war in the foreign waters , Bd. 3: The German auxiliary cruisers , Berlin (Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn) 1937, pp. 143–168, 169–170, 171–210.
• John Walter: The emperor's pirates. German trade destroyers 1914–1918 . Stuttgart 1994 (original edition: THE KAISER`S PIRATES, London 1994), pp. 140–154. ISBN 3-613-01729-6
• Albert Semsrott : The breakthrough of the "Seagull". Self-experienced deeds and journeys by Captain Albert Semsrott . Stuttgart 1928.
• Albert Semsrott: The privateer seagull. The Bremer helmsman Albert Semsrott tells of the other acts of the auxiliary cruiser. Stuttgart 1928, Thienemann.
• Heinrich Liersemann: We from the "Möwe"! . Fock, Leipzig 1915.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Schmalenbach, Paul: The German auxiliary cruisers 1895-1945 . Gerhard Stalling AG, Oldenburg and Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-7979-1877-1 , p. 46 .
2. ^ John Walter: Pirates of the Emperor - German trade troublemakers 1914-1918. Stuttgart: Motorbuch Verlag, 1994, ISBN 3-613-01729-6 , p. 142.
3. ↑ Otto Mielke: SM auxiliary cruiser "Möwe" - the first breakthrough in the blockade . SOS fates of German ships, No. 125, Munich: Arthur Moewig Verlag, 1957, p. 8
4. ↑ https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?59027

Web links

Commons : SMS Möve (1914)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Die Möve at german-navy.de