Theodor Eschenburg (naval officer)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Theodor Eschenburg (born March 14, 1876 in Lübeck , † February 26, 1968 in Kiel ) was a German naval officer , most recently rear admiral .

Origin, family

Theodor Eschenburg came from the Hanseatic patrician family Eschenburg, which rose to great esteem in Lübeck in the 19th century . His father was the future senator and mayor Johann Georg Eschenburg . His son Theodor became known as a liberal German politician and Tübingen university lecturer for political science.

Military career

Eschenburg attended the Katharineum in Lübeck until he graduated from high school at Easter 1895. Against the wishes of his parents, Theodor Eschenburg sought the profession of naval officer, which at that time was terminologically differentiated from the broader term naval officer. He was newly married in 1904 for two years after Tsingtau as the main town of the German protected area of Kiautschou in China, so that he only met his eldest son Theodor when he was two years old. After returning to Kiel , he initially served as an officer on watch on ships of the line and armored cruisers. In 1909, Eschenburg was transferred to Cuxhaven as a training officer for mines and torpedoes , where he was promoted to lieutenant captain in a minesweeping unit consisting of six boats.

SMS Vulkan (1914)

In 1913 he was transferred to Kiel and was given command of a special ship, the submarine rescue ship SMS Vulkan . At the beginning of the First World War in 1914, as a corvette captain, he was the highest ranking naval officer in the Imperial Navy with practical submarine experience. With an interruption of a top secret command in Wilhelmshaven from November 1914 to March 1915, Eschenburg remained in command of SMS Vulkan until November 1918 . In 1915 he became head of the submarine school in Eckernförde . In 1918 he served a few months on a front boat in the Adriatic from Trieste to supplement his practical experience. The commander of this front boat was a Pour-le-Mérite porter whom Eschenburg had known personally for a long time. On October 29, 1918 Eschenburg was promoted to frigate captain.

After the collapse of the German Empire and the November Revolution of 1918, Eschenburg was taken over as Chief of Torpedo Staff in the new Republican Imperial Navy in 1919 . He was thus one of the 1,500 naval officers that the Versailles Treaty granted the Weimar Republic. His adjutant was Karl Dönitz , and Wilhelm Canaris was one of the other staff members of his staff at the Kiel Naval Academy . During this time he was one of the founding members of the Skagerrak Club in Kiel , where monarchist naval officers met with leading figures in business. Shortly after the Kapp Putsch , Eschenburg was appointed captain of the sea . As such, from July 16, 1920, he was initially charged with the inspection of torpedoes and mines with the performance of the inspector's business. From September 4, 1920 to March 31, 1922 he was Chief of Staff and then until September 30, 1923 inspector. This was followed by his employment as a naval commissioner for the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal . At the same time he was also port captain of Kiel. On September 27, 1924, Eschenburg was finally placed at the disposal of the chief of the naval station of the Baltic Sea, and on December 31, 1924, while being promoted to rear admiral, he was removed from the navy.

From then on he spent about six weeks a year at the Emperor's court in exile in Haus Doorn . Wilhelm II appointed Eschenburg as his adjudant general and awarded him the Grand Commander's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern.

Awards

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hermann Genzken: The Abitur graduates of the Katharineum zu Lübeck (grammar school and secondary school) from Easter 1807 to 1907. Borchers, Lübeck 1907. (Supplement to the school program 1907) urn : nbn: de: hbz: 061: 1-305545 , No. 1022
  2. ^ Theodor Eschenburg (1995), p. 96.
  3. ^ Theodor Eschenburg (1995), p. 100.
  4. ^ Theodor Eschenburg (1995), p. 118.
  5. ↑ Today the Föhrde Club
  6. ^ Theodor Eschenburg (1995), p. 130.
personal data
SURNAME Eschenburg, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer, most recently rear admiral
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Lübeck
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1968
Place of death Kiel