SMS Emden (1908)

Emden

Ship data flag  German Empire Ship type Small cruiser class Dresden class Shipyard Imperial Shipyard , Danzig building-costs 5,960,000 marks Keel laying November 1, 1906 Launch May 26, 1908 Commissioning July 10, 1909 Whereabouts Stranded on November 9, 1914

Ship dimensions and crew length 118.3 m ( Lüa ) 117.9 m ( KWL ) width 13.5 m Draft Max. 5.54 m displacement Construction: 3,664 t Maximum: 4,268 t   crew 361 men

Machine system machine 12 marine boilers, 2 3-cylinder compound machines Machine performance 16,350 hp (12,025 kW) Top speed 24.0 kn (44 km / h) propeller 2 four-leaf ⌀ 4.3 m

Armament 10 × Sk 10.5 cm L / 40 (1500 shots) 8 × Sk 5,2 cm L / 55 (4000 shots) 2 × torpedo tube ø 45 cm (5 shots) Armor Deck: 20-80 mm Coam: 100 mm Command tower 20–100 mm Shields: 50 mm

The SMS Emden was a small cruiser of the German Imperial Navy . She was named after the city of Emden and was the second ship in the Dresden class .

Their area of ​​operation was predominantly in the Far East . At the beginning of the First World War , Emden was sent to the Indian Ocean for an independent trade war . There it sank or brought up 23 enemy merchant ships and two warships within two months . On November 9, 1914, she was defeated in a battle with the Australian cruiser Sydney near the Cocos Islands . The Emden was the most successful German cruiser in overseas waters and is one of the most famous warships of the Imperial Navy.

construction

Side view of the small cruiser Emden (1908–1914)

The small cruiser Emden was commissioned in 1905 from the Imperial Shipyard in Danzig to replace the outdated Aviso Pfeil . The keel was laid on November 1st, 1906. According to reports at the time, this construction went without any problems. The Emden was the last small cruiser of the Imperial Navy that was still equipped with piston engines. Her sister ship Dresden had a turbine drive .

On May 26, 1908, the ship was launched . The baptism was carried out by the then Mayor of Emden, Leo Fürbringer . After completion, the ship was tested in the Baltic Sea until September 30, 1909 . During this time, in August 1909, it served as the escort ship for the Imperial Yacht Hohenzollern . After all tests were successfully completed, the Emden was put into service on April 1, 1910.

period of service

Service until 1914

On April 12, 1910, the Emden left Germany under its commandant, Corvette Captain Waldemar Vollerthun , with the aim of South America . On May 10, 1910, she reached Montevideo and a few days later, with the small cruiser Bremen , took part in Buenos Aires in the centenary celebrations of Argentina's independence . Then the ship continued the voyage to East Asia. After stops in Punta Arenas and Valparaíso , the coal was replenished again in Talcahuano , before the Emden began to cross the Pacific on June 24, 1910 . Without any additional fuel, it reached Papeete , Tahiti ( French Polynesia ) on July 12, 1910 . Finally, on July 22, 1910, the cruiser met with the large cruiser Scharnhorst , the flagship of the East Asia Squadron , off the island of Apia ( German Samoa ) .

The Emden reached its base in Tsingtau on September 17, 1910. From January to March 1911, the cruiser was involved in the suppression of the Sokehs uprising. This was followed by a first overhaul in the Tsingtau shipyard . Subsequently, the Emden took over its representation duties in the East Asian area again. For this purpose, the ship visited Hong Kong and various ports in China and Japan. At the end of November 1911, Waldemar Vollerthun resigned from the command. In February 1913 the ship went back to the shipyard. The Emden then took a trip to the German colonies in the Pacific . The trip went to the islands of Yap and New Guinea , but was then interrupted by unrest in China. The cruiser was ordered to the Yangtze River and there successfully fired at forts of the rebels. He also provided escort for German merchant ships. In August 1913 , several ships were shot at by rebels off Hankau , 500 kilometers upstream. Vice admiral Maximilian von Spee ordered the Emden to go there for support. After the bombardment of Tung-Lin-Chan Fort, there was calm again.

After a trip to Japan with the Scharnhorst and the torpedo boat S 90 , the Emden was in Shanghai at the end of 1913 . In February 1914, the Emden's boilers and machines were overhauled one last time in the Tsingtao shipyard. On March 28, 1914, the small cruiser collided with the torpedo boat S 90 while leaving for a combat maneuver . The port propeller then had to be repaired.

First World War

Cruiser war

The Emden capture trip in the Indian Ocean

Oil tanks set on fire by the Emden near Madras

The Schemchug

With the beginning of the First World War , the Emden left Tsingtao, which was part of the German Empire, on August 2, 1914, and initially waged cruiser warfare on Tsushima Street . The ship was fitted with a false (fourth) funnel to simulate the appearance of a British Town-class cruiser .

After a short stopover in Tsingtao, the small cruiser left this base again on August 6, 1914 to join the East Asia Squadron in Pagan on the Mariana Islands . In order to divert attention from the voyage of the squadron under Admiral Maximilian von Spee through the Pacific towards South America, the Emden was sent to the Indian Ocean on a trade war as the most modern and fastest of the small cruisers of the East Asian squadron . It was supposed to attract the attention of the Royal Navy by bringing up mostly British freighters. Through the islands of the Dutch East Indies , the ship reached the Indian Ocean and began its pirate voyage in the eastern Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal . Within a week she brought up four British merchant ships and hijacked two others which she used as supplies . The Australian government, deeply concerned, stopped shipping the Australian and New Zealand troop convoys . On September 22, 1914, Emden fired at oil facilities near Madras on the Indian coast.

Past Ceylon , the Emden crossed the Maldives and stopped in Diego Garcia in the British Chagos Archipelago . There they had no knowledge of the outbreak of war and they received the crew in a friendly manner. The cruiser passed through the Maldives again and crossed in the sea area of ​​the Laccadives . Then the ship went to the Nicobar Islands and attacked the port of Penang on the Malay Peninsula on October 28, 1914 . The Emden , still disguised as a British cruiser, managed to penetrate the port undetected. There she opened fire on the ships in the harbor and sank the Russian protected cruiser Shemchug , which was anchored there, by means of torpedo and cannon hits. The cruiser, broken in half and burning, sank, with 85 men of the crew drowning, 250 men, including 112 wounded, were rescued. On the way out of the harbor she sank the French torpedo boat destroyer Mousquet . 40 crew members went down with the ship. The crew of the Emden then saved 36 survivors of the French ship. After that, the Emden , which emerged undamaged from the battle, ran along the west coast of Sumatra to the Sunda Strait , before heading for the Cocos Islands.

A meeting with the supply ship Buresk was supposed to take place here on November 9, 1914 . In addition, the Emden crew carried out a landing operation against the cable station on Direction Island , which was to be destroyed. This command, under the young Lieutenant Captain Hellmuth von Mücke , consisted of three officers , six NCOs and 38 crews , including a former French Foreign Legionnaire . They carried four machine guns with 2,000 rounds of ammunition each, 29 Mauser G98 rifles and 24 pistols. The crew of the radio and cable station surrendered without a fight, but managed to make an emergency call. This distress call was received on the Australian cruiser Sydney until it suddenly broke off. The Sydney was part of the escort of an Australian troop convoy, which happened to pass the Cocos Islands that day about 50  nautical miles away.

Battle of the Cocos Islands

The coconut islands

The Sydney

Sydney , which was superiorly armed and faster than the Emden , was then released from the convoy and used against the Emden . The commandant of the Sydney hoped to surprise the Emden and put them into battle. This did not succeed completely because the lookout from the Emden spotted the plume of smoke from the Sydney approaching at high speed early on. On board the German cruiser, however, this was initially seen as part of the expected coal tender Buresk . Only at closer range was the approaching ship recognized as an enemy cruiser. There was no more time to take the disconnected landing train on board again, and the Emden ran out of the narrow roadstead of Port Refuge towards the enemy.

The wreck of the Emden from starboard

The Emden set Topp flags and opened fire on the enemy ship, although its exact identity was still unclear at the time. The Sydney returned the fire immediately after the fire opened, but initially scored no hits on the Emden . Numerous 10.5 cm shells of the German cruiser, however, found their target, but caused  only minor damage due to the superior armor of the Sydney - apart from a hit in the fire control system and a dud hit an ammunition chamber. Aware of the superior range and penetration power of its 15.2 cm shells, the commander of the Sydney subsequently increased the distance to the Emden , whereby the Australian cruiser did not have to fear that the Emden could escape its grasp because of its superior speed .

In the further course of the battle, the Sydney brought decisive hits to the Emden : In addition to the destruction of the radio booth , the chimneys were shot to pieces, the foremast with the combat observation post felled and most of the guns were disabled. In addition, a hit in the rowing machine meant that the cruiser could only steer with its two screws. In addition, the personnel losses quickly became very high, so that commander Karl von Müller decided to land his wrecked ship on the coral reef of North Keeling Island after the last guns failed to save it from sinking and thus give the survivors a greater chance to get rescue. At 11.20 a.m. the Emden ran up in front of the island at a right angle to the coastline (position 11 ° 50 ′  S , 96 ° 49 ′  E, coordinates: 11 ° 50 ′ 0 ″  S , 96 ° 49 ′ 0 ″  E ). The Sydney was now chasing the coal ship Buresk, which had meanwhile also arrived, and caught up with it after a while. The German crew on board the Prize therefore sank the ship. The Sydney took the Germans and returned at 16.00 pm Emden back. Since several signal inquiries regarding a handover were not answered and the flag of war was still waving in the top, the Sydney continued to bombard the wreck until the flag of war was lowered. As a result, 7 men were killed and 13 wounded. Four sailors drowned while trying to swim ashore.

Boat with survivors in front of the Emden wreck

The next day, the survivors of the German crew were rescued from the wreck or from North Keeling. Then the Sydney ran to Direction Island. But the 50 men from the landing platoon, under the command of Lieutenant von Mücke , had escaped with the old schooner Ayesha the previous evening . After an adventurous odyssey through Arabia and Constantinople , they returned to Germany in June 1915.

The Emden had to complain 136 dead crew members for this fight. 197 seafarers, including 65 wounded and the 16-man prize crew from the Buresk , were taken prisoner, including the commandant Karl von Müller (until September 1918). There were four dead and twelve wounded on the Sydney . The damage suffered was comparatively minor.

The captured seamen were brought to Singapore, which after the withdrawal of a British battalion was only protected by the 5th Indian Light Infantry Regiment, consisting of north Indian Muslims, and the Malay States Guides . The German prisoners of war succeeded in inciting their guards to mutiny, which broke out on February 15, 1915, but was soon put down by the police and by sailors from ships lying in the port.

Summary of successes

During its cruiser war, the Emden had captured 23 merchant ships with 101,182 GRT in enemy shipping space in two months  . 16 British merchant ships alone were sunk and a further seven ships were arrested. Oil depots in Madras were also destroyed, and the Russian protected cruiser Schemchug and the French torpedo boat destroyer Mousquet were sunk in the port of Penang. The sinking of the much more powerful Russian cruiser was in any case a remarkable achievement in view of the weaker armament of the Emden . Its activity prevented a large number of Allied warships that had to be used against it from other important tasks. The Emden benefited from the fact that the units of the British East Indies station were primarily busy with operations against the cruiser Königsberg , which was also operating in the west of the Indian Ocean , and that their own pursuit had to be organized by the China station .

Abandoned and sunk ships as well as targets of attack by the Emden in the First World War

Ship type / target	Ship name	GRT	country	date	Whereabouts	Remarks
Cargo ship	Ryazan	3433	Russia	4th August 1914	Prize - later auxiliary cruiser Cormoran
Cargo ship	Pontoporos		Greece	September 9, 1914	prize
Cargo ship	Indus	3412	United Kingdom	September 10, 1914	sunk
Cargo ship	Lovat	6012	United Kingdom	September 11, 1914	sunk
Cargo ship	Kabinga	4657	United Kingdom	September 12, 1914	upset	Dismissed on September 14, 1914 on charges of an American summons
Cargo ship	Killin	6000	United Kingdom	September 12, 1914	upset	Sunk on September 13, 1914
Cargo ship	diplomat	7615	United Kingdom	September 13, 1914	sunk
Cargo ship	Trabboch	4028	United Kingdom	September 14, 1914	sunk
Cargo ship	Clan Matheson	4775	United Kingdom	September 15, 1914	sunk
Madras oil tanks	-		British India	September 22, 1914	-	shot on fire / destroyed
Cargo ship	King Lud	3650	United Kingdom	September 25, 1914	sunk
Cargo ship	Tymeric		United Kingdom	September 26, 1914	sunk
Cargo ship	Gryfevale	4437	United Kingdom	September 26, 1914	upset	released with the prisoners
Cargo ship	Buresk	4350	United Kingdom	September 26, 1914	prize	later released, sunk on November 9, 1914 by the prize crew themselves
Cargo ship	Ribera	3500	United Kingdom	September 27, 1914	sunk
Cargo ship	Foyle	4147	United Kingdom	September 27, 1914	sunk
Cargo ship	Clan Grant	3848	United Kingdom	October 16, 1914	sunk
Dredger	Ponrabel		United Kingdom	October 16, 1914	sunk
Cargo ship	Benmohr	4806	United Kingdom	October 16, 1914	sunk
Cargo ship	Troilus	7562	United Kingdom	October 18, 1914	sunk
Cargo ship	St. Egbert	5597	United Kingdom	October 18, 1914	sunk
Cargo ship	Exford	4452	United Kingdom	October 18, 1914	prize	later released
Cargo ship	Chilkana	5220	United Kingdom	October 19, 1914	sunk
Protected cruiser	Schemchug		Russia	October 28, 1914	sunk	Attack on the port of Penang ( Malaysia )
Torpedo boat destroyer	Mousquet		France	October 28, 1914	sunk	Attack on the port of Penang ( Malaysia )
Cargo ship	Newburn		United Kingdom	October 30, 1914	upset	released with the French prisoners
Cable station on Direction Island	-		Australia	November 9, 1914	damaged	Naval battle against the Australian cruiser Sydney

Russian cruiser Askold (from Aug. 1918: Brit. Glory IV )

French destroyer Mousquet

Warships involved in the search for the Emden

Ship type	Ship name	country	class	Remarks
Protected cruiser	Askold	Russia	Single ship
Protected cruiser	Schemchug	Russia	Izumrud class	Sunk by the Emden
cruiser	Dupleix	France	Dupleix class
Torpedo gunboat	D'Iberville	France	D'Iberville class
Torpedo boat destroyer	Mousquet	France	Arquebuse class	Sunk by the Emden
Armored cruiser	Minotaur	United Kingdom	Minotaur- class
Armored cruiser	Hampshire	United Kingdom	Devonshire- class
Light cruiser	Yarmouth	United Kingdom	Weymouth class
Light cruiser	Melbourne	Australia	Chatham class
Light cruiser	Sydney	Australia	Chatham class	Destroyed the Emden near the Cocos Islands
Light cruiser	psyche	United Kingdom	Pelorus class
Light cruiser	Pyramus	United Kingdom	Pelorus class
Light cruiser	Philomel	New Zealand	Pearl class
cruiser	Chikuma	Japan	Tone class
cruiser	Ibuki	Japan	Ibuki class
Armored cruiser	Nisshin	Japan	Kasuga class

Contemporary reception

The great successes of the Emden in their capture voyage and, above all, the chivalry shown to the enemy in the process met with a wide echo in the international press after the destruction of the cruiser. The small cruiser quickly became one of the most famous ships of the entire First World War. The reactions of the opponents at the time are particularly noteworthy. The London Times wrote :

“The news that the 'Emden' has finally come to an inevitable end has of course been received with great satisfaction in this country. […] But her fate has awakened other feelings as well: Since the first days of September when the 'Emden' appeared in the Bay of Bengal, her deeds were characterized by daring and enterprising spirit, qualities that must be recognized by a people with the naval tradition of England . [...] Your fate was an honorable struggle for existence. […] Nevertheless, she was not accused of any act of roughness or violence. [...] We welcome Captain von Müller as a brave and chivalrous opponent. […] There are only a few events in the recent history of naval warfare that are more remarkable than the brilliant career of the little 'Emden'. "

The votes were also exceptionally positive in neutral countries. The Italian Corriere della Sera published a downright pathetic article on November 12, 1914 , in which it said:

“The lonely ship [...] has wound a laurel wreath for the German Navy , which neither times nor fates will let wither. [...] Glory of the 'Emden' in the vastness of the ocean and in the memory of mankind. "

The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten wrote:

"What the 'Emden' has achieved is unparalleled in war history."

Due to its sometimes spectacular successes, the Emden advanced to become one of the most famous German warships in general, also due to the corresponding presence in the media accessible at the time: The Emden's award officer , Julius Lauterbach , later reported on his experiences in books and lectures. Kapitänleutnant von Mücke, the leader of the landing company on the Cocos Islands, wrote two books, "Emden" and "Ayesha", which reached six-figure editions during the war.

The ship's fame can also be seen in depictions in contemporary arts and crafts, for example on a porcelain collecting plate from the Fraureuth porcelain factory (based on a painting by Max Münch, 1915).

In Tamil , the word emṭaṉ , spoken [ˈemɖən] , still means “clever fox” or “clever fellow”. The derived term amden , which describes a cheeky troublemaker , also found its way into the Sinhalese language .

Awards

One of the survivors (1964): Machinist's mate Harms-Emden (left)

• In 1919 the last commandant of the ship, who had meanwhile been promoted to sea captain, Karl von Müller , received honorary citizenship of the city of Emden.
• The ship itself was subsequently awarded the Iron Cross for its successes . Because of their achievements, all four successors of the same name bear the Iron Cross on the bow or superstructure.
• The survivors of the last stand were given the right to use the heritable suffix "-Emden".

Wreck of the Emden

The wreck of the Emden in 1915

Gun of the Emden in Hyde Park in Sydney

The wreck of the Emden , stuck on the coral reef and completely shot to pieces , remained there after the survivors were rescued. The small British warship Cadmus received orders about two weeks after the battle to rescue and bury the dead remaining on board the Emden and on North Keeling; an extraordinarily unpleasant task, according to reports from sailors on the British ship, given the tropical climate. Some of the Emden's torpedoes were also recovered from the underwater tubes and sent to Great Britain for investigation. The wreck remained in place without further action; contrary to all expectations, the heavy surf and typhoons of the coming years did little to harm him. It was not until the early 1920s that the stern section of the ship, which was particularly damaged in the battle, broke off together with the rest of the main mast and sank. In the 1930s, a Japanese salvage company began slaughtering the wreck, in particular the valuable non-ferrous metals and armored steel were recovered. Knives made from the high-quality shipbuilding steel have long been particularly popular in the region. Interrupted by the Second World War, this cannibalization was only ended in the 1950s. In 1954, a particularly violent storm tore the last visible parts of the Emden under water. However, parts of the keel section, the machinery and one of the two propellers are still in place today. Since the island of North Keeling is uninhabited and is rarely visited for the coconut harvest, the berth of the last remains of the Emden quickly disappeared from the public's consciousness and has been very difficult to close since the renewed interest in the history of the ship in the 1970s to reach. In 1982 the Australian government put the remains of the wreck under monument protection; Since then it has only been allowed to dive with a special permit. On March 15, 1927, the light cruiser Emden , the second successor to the name of the first Emden , visited the site and held a commemoration ceremony on the relatively intact wreck; to date the only (official) visit by a German naval ship to the island.

The rescued imperial war flag could be transported to Germany and finally hung in the Marienkirche in Lübeck .

Some objects from the Emden were later salvaged by the Australians. So two guns of the German cruiser were set up in Sydney and Canberra . The rear emblem is in the Australian War Memorial . The ship's bell, which had disappeared several times, has been on view at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra for around 40 years.

Film adaptations

• Our Emden , silent film, directed by Louis Ralph , D 1926
• Kreuzer Emden , sound film, director: Louis Ralph, D 1932
• Heroism and agony of our Emden , sound film, director: Louis Ralph, D 1934
• Under the imperial flag , historical film by Jürgen Stumpfhaus, Germany 2006
• The men of Emden , feature film, director: Berengar Pfahl, D 2012

See also

• List of ships with the name Emden

literature

• Karl-Theo Beer, Helmut Debelius: SMS Emden . Koehlers Verlagsges., ISBN 3-7822-0810-2 .
• Henning Bess : 100 years of SMS Emden . In: Marineforum , 11/2012, pp. 51–53
• Addi Dreier: The Odyssey or the long way back . (Year of publication 2005) Can be obtained from the Emdenfahrer on-board community .
• Olaf Fritsche : Desert sailors . Cecile Dressler Verlag, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-7915-0442-1 .
• Georg Gellert: Heroes' journeys of the "Emden" and "Ayesha": adventures and battles of the "Emden" team during the World War, with pictures by A. Roloff . last edition: Globus Verlag, Berlin 1943
• Erich Gröner / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 1 : Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p. 133 .
• Ulrich van der Heyden : The EMDEN and the war aims in the Pacific 1914. On watch and far from home . In: Schiff Classic. Magazine for Shipping and Marine History , vol. 1, 2013, p. 31.
• Peter Günter Huff: SMS Emden 1909–1914, fate of a small cruiser . Hamecher Verlag, ISBN 3-920307-49-6 .
• Georg Lehfels: The Lord of the Sea: Trips and adventures of the "Emden" in the world war . Velhagen & Klasing publishing house, Bielefeld / Leipzig 1915.
• RK Lochner: The pirate trips of the small cruiser Emden . Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, ISBN 3-453-00951-7 .
• Ships-people-fates:
  • Otto Mielke: Small cruiser Emden: Pirate war in distant seas 1914 . Text supplemented by Uwe Greve, issue No. 54, Maximilian-Verlag Schober, Hamburg 1998
  • Otto Mielke: Schooner Ayesha: An adventure trip in the First World War . Issue No. 97, Stade-Verlag, Kiel 2002
• Hellmuth von Mücke : Emden . Scherl-Verlag, Berlin 1915
• Hellmuth von Mücke: Ayesha . Scherl-Verlag, Berlin 1915 (later published as a joint anthology)
• Hermann Oesterwitz, Walter Stein: On the Emden and Ayesha: Experiences of a participant (Obermaat Ardenpfuhl) described based on the notes from his diary, preface: Walter Stein . Wollmann Verlag, Berlin-Lankwitz 1916
• Ostfriesisches Landesmuseum Emden / Emder armory: Frigate Emden 1983–2003 - 20 years in the service of the German Navy . ISBN 3-89995-032-1 .
• Reinhard Roehle: Emden-Ayesha: Heroes' voyages and adventures of German sailors in the World War, told according to reports from participants . Union Verlag Stuttgart / Berlin / Leipzig 1915
• Hugo von Waldeyer-Hartz : From Tsingtau to the Falkland Islands . Ernst Siegfried Mittler and Son, Royal Court Bookshop, Berlin 1917.
• Rudolf Wolff-Emden: From the Cocos Islands to Germany - My experiences on the landing train of the "Emden-Ayesha" in 1914/15 . Hermsen publishing house, Lutherstadt Wittenberg 1940

Web links

Commons : SMS Emden (1908)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Kaiserreich-Kolonien-Marine: SMS Emden (No. 1) accessed on November 6, 2009
• On-board community of Emden drivers - Via SMS Emden (accessed on November 6, 2009)
• The archive for World War I: World War I on November 11, 1914 - press reports on the sinking of the Emden ; Retrieved November 6, 2009
• Cruiser Emden (film 1926) in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Installation of a booty gun from the Emden . British Pathe short news film ; Retrieved February 18, 2013
• Photos from the fight of SMS Emden and the landing train under the chief officer of Mücke on the Keeling Islands at the National Library of Australia.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On-board community of Emden drivers: More about the Emden .
2. ^ ^{A b} Elmar B. Potter, Chester W. Nimitz: Seemacht, Maritime War History from antiquity to the present . German version published on behalf of the Working Group for Defense Research by Jürgen Rohwer, Manfred Pawlak Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Herrsching, ISBN 3-88199-082-8 .
3. ^ RK Lochner: The Kaperfahrten of the small cruiser Emden. 3rd edition, Heyne, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-453-00951-7 , pp. 140ff.
4. ^ Geoffrey Bennett: Naval Battles of the First World War , Penguin Books, London (England) 2001, p. 47.
5. ↑ Setting the war flag in the main top (that is, at the top of the tallest ship's mast) was the traditional sign that a warship was engaged in battle with enemy units. It was seen as an unmistakable signal that one was ready to take on a fight and fight it out. The lowering of the flag hoisted in the main top accordingly signaled the willingness to surrender. These regulations were so strict that even ships that were obviously incapable of fighting continued to be fired at as long as the large top flag was used - possibly only for technical reasons, e.g. For example, damage to the rigging prevented it from being pulled down - blew (for example in the case of the Emden after the stranding or when the German cruiser Monmouth was sunk by the German cruiser Nuremberg after the sea ​​battle at Coronel ).
6. ↑ Hack, Karl; Rettig, Tobias (ed.); Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia , Abingdon 2006, ISBN 978-0-415-33413-6 ; P. 254f.
7. ↑ cf. Tarling, Nicholas; The Singapore Mutiny of 1915; Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JMBRAS), Vol. 55 (1982), No. 2.
8. ↑ Lochner: The kaper trips of the small cruiser Emden. A factual report, Munich 1979, p. 390.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Lochner: The pirate trips of the small cruiser Emden. A factual report, Munich 1979, p. 391.
10. ↑ Julius Lauterbach: 1000 pounds head price - dead or alive: Escape adventure of the former prize officer SMS "Emden" . Berlin 1917.
11. ^ ZDF broadcast Bares für Rares , December 5th and 12th, 2019.
12. ↑ Thomas Malten: Emden Tamil-German Dictionary , Institute for Indology and Tamil Studies, Cologne 1994, p. 44.
13. ↑ Megara Tegal: Tracing Amdan and finding Emden. Sunday Times (Sri Lanka), March 6, 2011, accessed April 11, 2017 . 
14. ↑ http://www.ft.lk/article/348650/World-War-I-and-Ceylon
15. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from December 11, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
16. ↑ The addition "-Emden" to the family name, with legal basis and application form
17. ↑ Hans H. Hildebrand Albert Röhr Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: A mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 1 . Koehler, Herford 1979, ISBN 3-7822-0209-0 , pp. 70 .
18. ↑ Uwe Schulte-Varendorff: Hellmuth von Mücke - the man of the "Emden" from war hero to pacifist? [1. Edition]. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2016, ISBN 3-8391-8472-X , p. 170 ( google.de [accessed on August 22, 2019]).
19. ↑ Burkhard Köster : For the love of seafaring! Vice Admiral Karl-Adolf Zenker . In: Helmut R. Hammerich , Rudolf J. Schlaffer (eds.): Military development generations of the Bundeswehr 1955 to 1970: Selected biographies . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-486-70436-5 , p. 319–349 ( google.de [accessed on August 22, 2019]).
20. ^ Peter Günter Huff: SMS Emden 1909-1914 , Kassel 1994, p. 253ff.
21. ↑ Huff, p. 254 f.
22. ↑ ^{a b} Huff, p. 266.
23. ^ Huff, p. 255.
24. ↑ ^{a b} Lochner, p. 417.
25. ^ Huff, p. 268.
26. ↑ Documentary under the imperial flag on www.fregatte-emden.de.