SMS Goeben
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SMS Goeben was a large cruiser ( battle cruiser ) of the Moltke class of the German Imperial Navy . It was named after the Prussian general August von Goeben .
The ship was launched at Blohm & Voss on March 28, 1911 and was then the flagship of the Mediterranean Division of the Imperial Navy. From August 1914 the cruiser sailed under the Ottoman flag, was named Yavuz Sultan Selim (later Yavuz for short ) after Sultan Selim I Yavuz , and was used in the Black Sea against the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy and its ports.
From April 4, 1914 to January 2, 1918, the commander of the Goeben was Captain Richard Ackermann (1869–1930).
The Goeben is considered to be the dreadnought warship with the longest active service life. Until her decommissioning in the early 1960s, she was in active service for over 50 years (for comparison: the longest-serving Iowa- class ship , the USS New Jersey , was in active service for 21 years between 1943 and 1991).
The 1914 Mediterranean Campaign
From 1912 the Mediterranean division of the Imperial Navy consisted of the Goeben and the small cruiser SMS Breslau . At the time of the first and second Balkan Wars , the small squadron was under the command of Admiral Trummler; this was on 23./24. Released October 1913 by Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon .
At the time Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914, the squadron was in the Adriatic . Since Souchon did not want to be locked in by an enemy blockade of the Strait of Otranto , he immediately marched into the western Mediterranean. After the state of war between Germany and France had arisen on August 3 , Souchon shelled the port facilities of Bône and Philippeville in Algeria in order to delay the embarkation of French-North African troops to Europe.
Meanwhile, the British naval command under the First Lord of Admiralty Winston Churchill had given the British Mediterranean fleet under Admiral Sir Archibald Berkeley Milne the order to shadow the German squadron and prevent it from disrupting French troop transports from Algeria to France. But Souchon managed to move to Messina in Sicily to stash coal there. From there, to the surprise of his pursuers, he marched eastwards, because the French had expected Souchon for further port bombardment off Africa, the British a breakthrough into the Adriatic to the friendly kuk port of Pola . Now Souchon was only facing the light cruiser HMS Gloucester . On August 7, he made a courageous attempt to stop the German ships, but broke it off because of obvious inferiority when the Goeben returned fire.
Goeben and Breslau marched around Greece and through the Aegean Sea without difficulty and anchored off the Dardanelles on August 10th . After a few days of diplomatic negotiations between Berlin and Constantinople, the two ships passed the mine barriers in the Dardanelles and reached Constantinople . There they were taken over into the Ottoman Navy on August 16 , an act that soon afterwards brought about the Turkish entry into the war on the side of the Central Powers . The Goeben was the German single ship that had the greatest strategic impact, probably even more so than the battleship Tirpitz in World War II . The Goeben was given the name Yavuz Sultan Selim (Sultan Selim der Gestrenge), the Wroclaw became the Midilli ( Mytilini , after the city on Lesbos, which was lost to Greece in 1913 ). The ships continued to sail with their German crews, who now wore the Fez as their official headgear.
Strategic importance
The arrival of the Goeben and the Breslau in Constantinople and their handover to the Ottoman Navy were one of the decisive factors for Turkey's entry into the war. The most important consequence of this was cutting off the best maritime transport route by which France and Britain could have brought war materials to Russia and Russia their wheat abroad. Since the Baltic Sea was also blocked by the deep-sea fleet, Russia was largely cut off from the outside world - apart from the difficult Arctic Ocean route to Arkhangelsk , the route through Persia , which had a very low capacity, and the long route via Vladivostok and the Pacific .
On the English side, the Goebes' successful escape is seen as the first serious defeat in World War I.
Operations in the Black Sea
On October 28, 1914 Souchon led his squadron into the Black Sea and the next day shelled the port of Sevastopol and then the port of Odessa , with the Russian mine sweeper Prut being sunk. Thereupon Russia declared war on Turkey on November 2, 1914.
The Goeben or Yavuz Sultan Selim played no role in the fighting over the Dardanelles , apart from the fact that the British Navy was forced to always station at least one modern battle cruiser in the eastern Mediterranean in order to be prepared against a possible outbreak of the Goeben . However, individual crew members of the ships were used in land operations on the Dardanelles, e.g. B. the eldest son of the German-Turkish journalist Friedrich Schrader , who - originally an interpreter (staff war writer) on the Goeben - was deployed to a submarine observation post on the European side of the Dardanelles during the Dardanelle battle, and later also in several newspapers - and has reported magazine articles.
Sea Battle of Cape Sarych
Instead, the Goeben operated in the Black Sea until 1918. On November 18, 1914, she fought near Sevastopol with five Russian pre-dreadnought ships of the line. Only a few volleys were fired at a time, with a 30.5 cm shell struck through the Goeben's 15 cm thick port armor at around 12:20 p.m. and killed 13 crew members. According to Russian sources, there were up to 115 dead and 57 wounded and 14 hits of all calibers in this battle. On the Russian flagship Yevstafi 4 of 19 grenades fired by the Goeben struck, causing 33 deaths and 25 wounded. Presumably due to the Russian fire tactics of fire concentration, there were no more hits. The Russian Navy tried to copy the successful Japanese tactics of the naval battle in the Yellow Sea . This was based on a fire control ship, which sends reference data to the rest of the fleet. The Ioann Slatoust took advantage of this, but her salvos were off target due to poor visibility. This affected the entire fleet, which then scored no more hits. Souchon had to protect its only modern ship and withdrew from combat after 15 minutes.
In his message, Captain Richard Ackermann stated that the Goeben had suffered a hit in a gun turret, whereupon sailors were torn to their deaths instantly and without suffering. To the extent that this was an untrue claim, it is more likely that after the shell hit on the port side he might have ordered the flooding for fear of the ammunition bunker. Obeying the need, he would then have to have sacrificed the lives of a few sailors below deck in order to save the entire ship.
Further use in the Black Sea
On December 26, 1914, the Goeben ran into two mines at the entrance to the Bosporus , which put them out of action for about two months. In April 1915 she sank two Russian freighters. On May 10, she fought another battle with Russian ships of the line, and on November 14, she survived an attack by the Russian submarine Morz undamaged.
The balance of power in the Black Sea changed towards the end of 1915 when the Russian Black Sea Fleet put two new battleships of the Imperatriza Marija class into service. The ships each had twelve 30.5 cm guns and were thus superior to the Goeben with their ten 28 cm guns. On the other hand, the Goeben had a speed advantage. The Russian ships had a top speed of 21 knots, while the Goeben still reached 24 knots despite lack of maintenance. In 1916 there were two brief skirmishes between the Goeben and the new opponents. On January 7, the Goeben and the Imperatriza Jekaterina Velikaja fought an eleven-minute artillery duel , which the Goeben ended without being damaged thanks to their speed. In early July 1916, in a renewed attempt to bombard Russian ports, there was a second encounter with superior Russian forces, including the Imperatriza Yekaterina Velikaya , but Souchon again managed to escape. Nevertheless, the changed balance of power forced Souchon to plan and carry out the further operations of his only modern capital ship very carefully.
Battle at Imbros
After Russia withdrew from the war, there were no more tasks for the two cruisers in the Black Sea. On January 20, 1918, Goeben and Breslau made a sortie from the Dardanelles and met British units near the island of Imbros . However, the two old ships of the line HMS Agamemnon and HMS Lord Nelson were not there , without which the British destroyers and monitors were hopelessly inferior. The HMS M28 and HMS Raglan monitors were sunk, but the Turkish flotilla ran into a minefield. The Breslau sank immediately, while the Goeben returned to the Dardanelles despite being hit by a mine three times and could be set aground there. There she survived several English attempts to bomb her and was brought to Constantinople on January 26th.
Remaining after the First World War
Due to the war damage, the ship remained inoperable and useless until 1926 in the port.
In 1927, Flender-Werke delivered a new floating dock to the newly founded Gölcük marine shipyard. The lifting capacity of 26,000 tons was finally enough to carry the Yavus and to permanently repair it. The work was awarded to the French shipyard Chantiers de l'Atlantique and lasted three years. They were accompanied by numerous accidents and bribery affairs. The chief of staff , Marshal Fevzi Çakmak , was against further expansion of the fleet and throttled all shipbuilding. This only changed when arch-rival Greece held major naval maneuvers on the Turkish border in 1928. New boilers came on board, as well as a new French fire control system. These construction measures on the Yavuz alone were enough for the Greek government to propose a ten-year shipbuilding moratorium. But this was rejected by the Turkish government because the Turkish fleet was upgraded because of the red fleet . In 1930 the renovation work was finished and the Yavuz was put back into service.
In 1933 and 1934 politicians used the ship for representational purposes. The Turkish Prime Minister İsmet İnönü drove from Istanbul to Varna, and the Shah of Persia , Reza Shah Pahlavi , was brought from Trabzon to Samsun during his visit to Turkey . In 1936 the ship's name was changed to TCG Yavuz ( T ürkiye C umhuriyeti G emisi or Ship of the Republic of Turkey ). The Yavuz was from now on the flagship of the new Turkish Navy . In November the ship drove to a fleet visit in Malta, UK .
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In November 1938, the Yavuz Sultan Selim transferred the remains of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk from Haydarpaşa to İzmit . On April 5, 1946, the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) came to Istanbul on a fleet visit and was received by the Yavuz, with 19 rounds of salute being exchanged. The occasion for the visit was the transfer of the body of Münir Ertegün , at the time the Turkish ambassador to the United States. In 1952, when Turkey joined NATO , the ship was given the hull number B70.
On November 14, 1954, the Yavuz was deleted from the naval register. " Der Spiegel " reported in 1964 that Turkey was planning to scrap the former Goeben in Germany in order to finance the first installment of a new school ship with the proceeds from the scrap sale. In 1965 the Yavuz was offered for sale for the first time by means of an international tender. The Turkish government asked for a minimum bid of 25.19 million Turkish pounds (not quite 11 million DM ). The scrapping industry saw this amount as excessive, which is why no buyer was found. A second attempt followed a year later, with the Turkish government now lowering its demand to 19.95 million pounds (around 8.8 million DM). But once again, none of the relevant companies were interested in the veteran.
At the beginning of the 1970s, private circles in Germany campaigned for the battle cruiser to be brought back to Germany and converted into a museum. In particular, the German Museum in Munich called for the technical monument to be preserved. However, such plans could not be implemented for financial reasons. On June 7, 1973, the ship was finally decommissioned. Then began the scrapping work, which dragged on until February 1976.
Some Goeben artifacts are now in the Istanbul Naval Museum.
In memory of this traditional ship, the new Turkish Navy christened a new MEKO 200 class with the name F240 Yavuz in 1987 .
Commanders
Under the German flag
| July 2, 1912 to April 3, 1914 | Sea captain Otto Philipp |
Under the Ottoman flag
| April 4, 1914 to January 2, 1918 | Captain Richard Ackermann |
| January 3 to November 2, 1918 | Sea captain Albert Stoelzel |
| 1919-1920 | Corvette Captain Vasif |
| 1920-1922 | Lieutenant Captain Mustafa Rasih |
| 1922-1923 | Sea captain Cevat Toydemir |
Under the Turkish flag
| 1923-1924 | Corvette Captain | Aziz Mahmut |
| 1924-1925 | Sea captain | Ahmet Saffet |
| 1925-1926 | Lieutenant captain | Mustafa Necati |
| 1926-1928 | Sea captain | Tevfik Halit |
| 1928-1931 | Sea captain | Ahri Engin |
| 1931-1934 | Lieutenant captain | Hüsnü Gökdemir |
| 1934-1938 | Lieutenant captain | Ertugril Ertugrul |
| 1936-1938 | Sea captain | Ihsan Özel |
| 1938-1939 | Sea captain i. G. | Mithat Isin |
| 1939-1940 | Sea captain | Safiyettin Dağada |
| 1940-1942 | Sea captain i. G. | Necati Özdeniz |
| 1942-1944 | Sea captain i. G. | Tacettin Talayman |
| 1944-1945 | Sea captain | Nedim Ülseven |
| 1945-1946 | Sea captain i. G. | Münci Ülhan |
| 1946-1947 | Sea captain i. G. | Kemalettin Bozkurt |
| 1947-1948 | Sea captain i. G. | Münci Ülhan |
| 1948-1949 | Sea captain | Ndim Ülseven |
| 1949-1951 | Sea captain i. G. | Asim Sinik |
| 1951-1952 | Sea captain i. G. | Sadik Ozcebe |
| 1952-1953 | Sea captain i. G. | Naci Seyhan |
| 1953-1954 | Sea captain | Hilmi Okcugil |
| 1954-1955 | Sea captain | Edip Sahsuv Aroglu |
Others
There was a welfare card from the “Reich Association for Support of German Veterans e. V. "- a black and white drawing with the signature" SM Panzerkreuzer Göben and Breslau leave Messina clear to fight ".
A ship's doctor was Karl Scheele .
The US historian Barbara Tuchman believes that the Goeben (and Breslau ) voyage in the 1914 Mediterranean campaign was of far-reaching significance for the course and aftermath of the First World War:
"Russia's isolation with all its consequences, the unsuccessful and bloody tragedy of Gallipoli , the splitting of the Allied fighting power through campaigns in Mesopotamia , Suez and Palestine , finally the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the ensuing history of the Middle East, that was all." Follow the Goeben's journey . "
literature
- Erich Gröner, Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945. Volume 1. Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 .
- Hans Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. A mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present day. Biographies, Volume 3. Mundus Verlag 1990.
- Bernd Langensiepen , Dirk Nottelmann , Jochen Krüsmann: Half moon and imperial eagle. Breslau and Goeben on the Bosporus 1914–1918. Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0588-6 .
- Dan Van der Vat: The Ship That Changed the World: The Escape of the Goeben to the Dardanelles in 1914. Hodder & Stoughton, London 1985.
- Geoffrey Miller: Superior force. The conspiracy behind the escape of Goeben and Breslau , Hull (University of Hull Press) 1996. ISBN 0-85958-635-9
- Georg Kopp, Hans von Malottki: The devil's ship and his little sister. Experiences of the "Goeben" radio operator Georg Kopp. KF Koehler, Leipzig 1930.
Web links
- SMS Goeben. on: deutsche-schutzgebiete.de
- Mediterranean Division. on: deutsche-schutzgebiete.de
- War picture sheet , around 1915 (p. 7: "Der Kreuzer Goeben")
- Chronological lists of the commanders of German capital ships (English)
- Rolf Bürgel: SMS “Goeben”, a chapter in German-Turkish relations.
- Newsreel footage of the funeral celebrations of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk with the Yavuz and the German cruiser Emden as well as warships of other nations off Istanbul 1938 Video
- Online version of Superior Force [2]
Individual evidence
- ↑ Josef Matuz: The Ottoman Empire - Basics of its History. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1985, pp. I – XIII, 1–354, ISBN 3-534-05845-3 , p. 264, footnote 3.
- ↑ E.g .: Berghofer was trembling about Istanbul 60 years ago. In: Ruhr news. Dortmund, March 18, 1975.
- ↑ http://www.gwpda.org/naval/csayrch1.htm
- ^ Güvenç and Barlas, p. 10.
- ↑ a b Brice, p. 278
- ↑ ^ Stillwell, p 102
- ↑ ^ Sturton, page 147
- ↑ Der Spiegel, July 27, 1964, p. 16 [1]
- ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 17, 1965.
- ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 5, 1965.
- ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 29 and November 2, 1966.
- ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 29, 1972.
- ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 8, 1973.
- ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Deniz Müzesi ( archive links unusable)
- ↑ Commanders ( FLV ; 20 kB)
- ↑ uni-osnabrueck.de: Photo of the picture postcard , accessed on May 30, 2014
- ↑ Barbara Tuchman: August 1914. From the American by Grete and Karl-Eberhard Felten, unabridged new edition, Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-596-19734-7 , p. 174.