Raimund Weisbach

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Raimund Weisbach (* 16th September 1886 in Glogau ; † 16th June 1970 in Hamburg ) was a German U-boat - commander in the First World War . He was best known for firing the fateful torpedo on the Lusitania on May 7, 1915 as an officer on watch on U 20 . As submarine commander, he later sank 36 ships with U 19 and U 81 .

Military career

Weisbach resigned after the High School in the Imperial Navy and was on September 28, 1908. Ensign and on January 27, 1911. Lieutenant promoted.

He was a watch and torpedo officer on U 20 when it was operating off the Irish south coast in May 1915 and on May 7th sighted the Lusitania and, on the orders of his commander, Lieutenant Captain Walther Schwieger , shot down the torpedo that led to the sinking of the large passenger liner and thus led to the death of almost 1200 people.

On March 16, 1916 Weisbach became the commander of U 19 , with whom he soon left for an unusual mission. In Heligoland , the Irish revolutionary Roger Casement and two companions came on board who wanted to fight for Ireland's independence from Great Britain (see: Easter Rising ). They were on 12 April 1916 in Wilhelmshaven on U 20 entered under Lieutenant-law, but a half days after leaving suffered U 20 an accident at the hydroplane , forced the law to start off Helgoland, where the three passengers on U 19 umstiegen. U 19 arrived on the south-west Irish coast off County Kerry on the night of April 21, but did not meet the freighter Libau , disguised as the Norwegian ship Aud , which had weapons on board for the Irish rebels, and touched Casement and his companions their wish with a dinghy ashore in Ballyheige Bay . The next morning Casement was arrested by the Royal Irish Constabulary .

In the following days Weisbach waged a trade war and sank six ships with a total of 18,280 GRT. During this voyage he was promoted to lieutenant captain on April 24th.

On August 10, 1916, after two more patrols in the North Sea without success in scuttling, he gave up command of the U 19 , which was laying in the Baltic Sea , and on August 22 he put the new U 81 into service. With this he undertook five enemy voyages in the North Sea and in the eastern North Atlantic . 31 merchant ships with a total tonnage of 89,005  GRT were sunk.

On May 1, 1917, U 81 sank the British tanker San Urbano west of Ireland and was about to sink another ship by gunfire. The nearby British submarine E 54 attacked submerged. While U 81 was surfacing around the stern of the ship in order to determine its name before sinking , E 54 diving circled the bow of the ship and then fired two torpedoes from about 400 meters away at U 81 . The boat sank so quickly, approximately to position 51 ° 25 '  N , 13 ° 5'  W , that only Weisbach and the six men who were on the bridge and on deck by the gun survived. 24 men of the crew were killed.

Weisbach spent the remainder of the war in British captivity.

In 1966 he was a guest of the Irish government at the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising.

Movie and TV

Footnotes

  1. ↑ He was convicted of high treason and executed on August 3, 1916 in London .
  2. ↑ Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966 . Karl Müller, Erlangen, 1993, p. 68
  3. ↑ According to uboat.net, 30 ships with a total of 88,483 GRT were sunk.

Web links

literature

  • Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966 . Karl Müller, Erlangen, 1993
  • Obituary in The Irish Times , July 28, 1970, p. 10.
personal data
SURNAME Weisbach, Raimund
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer and submarine commander
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Glogau
DATE OF DEATH June 16, 1970
Place of death Hamburg