Question about German Reichsmarine

[Bellerophon]

Hello everyone,

I was hoping you guys might be able to help me out regarding a question on the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche marine - not Reichsmarine, as given in the title to this thread). I am doing some research on officers and would like to know who and what exactly was the rank of the executive officers (or first officers) of German warship captains? Suppose a naval admiral was on a ship in 1912 - who would he be delegating his orders to?

Any books or articles that may also help clarify these matters would be especially welcome and appreciated! :smilie

 

[Boatteacher]

Hello everyone,

I was hoping you guys might be able to help me out regarding a question on the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche marine - not Reichsmarine, as given in the title to this thread). I am doing some research on officers and would like to know who and what exactly was the rank of the executive officers (or first officers) of German warship captains? Suppose a naval admiral was on a ship in 1912 - who would he be delegating his orders to?

Any books or articles that may also help clarify these matters would be especially welcome and appreciated! :smilie

I might be missing your question here but both Jane's Fighting Ships of WW 1 and Wikipedia both show the ranks below flag rank for the old Imperial Navy as being
Kapitän zur See (Captain at sea) and Fregattenkapitän

 

[Bellerophon]

Right. So I checked the Wikipedia page and so in this case would the admiral's XO be either a Kapitän zur See or a Fregattenkapitän?

 

[Boatteacher]

Right. So I checked the Wikipedia page and so in this case would the admiral's XO be either a Kapitän zur See or a Fregattenkapitän?

I don't want to appear more knowledgeable than I am, but I think both Jane's and Wikipedia would make it clear that the former is the equivalent of Captain and the latter essentially first/executive officer.

Normally the Admiral is looking to fleet or unit tactics/ command and the captain to the conning of the ship.

I wouldn't have expressed an Admiral's XO as being the captain of the ship he happens to be aboard; they are commanding different units. The captain of the ship he is on is merely one of several/ many captains in the fleet unit under his control

 

[kato]

The commanding officer depends on the individual unit; cruisers and larger always had a Kapitän zur See in command, small cruisers (or also naval stations) always a Fregattenkapitän, even smaller units (like destroyers, MTBs or survey ships*) only a Korvettenkapitän.

Both Kapitäne zur See and Fregattenkapitäne generally had a Korvettenkapitän as their XO, with a second Korvettenkapitän - on larger units - as first artillery officer. You pretty much never had the case that a Kapitän zur See had a Fregattenkapitän as XO.

During internment at Scapa Flow postwar these XOs were placed in command of the ships btw. Only one of the officers in command during internment was a Fregattenkapitän.

Admirals did not command individual naval units.

---
* Such smaller units later, during the war, only had Kapitänleutnante or Oberleutnante zur See as commanders, i.e. not staff officers. Especially the case for the MTBs which got a whole lot more numerous. Korvettenkapitäne were upgraded to command demiflotillas of these.

 

[Bellerophon]

Thank you so much. Both of your replies helped me a great deal.

One request for clarification: would a German admiral in command of a naval squadron in the Kaiserliche Marine also have had a Fregattenkapitäne as his executive officer on board his flagship?

Also, are there any books you would recommend on this subject?

 

[Boatteacher]

Thank you so much. Both of your replies helped me a great deal.

One request for clarification: would a German admiral in command of a naval squadron in the Kaiserliche Marine also have had a Fregattenkapitäne as his executive officer on board his flagship?

Also, are there any books you would recommend on this subject?

Again Kato may be more knowledgeable, but I wonder if you are confusing XO with the Admiral's Chief of Staff.

I can't post links, but a google search revealed the following lists of CIC's and COS's of the High Seas Fleet.

Commander in Chief (Chef der Hochseestreitkräfte).

Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, 30/1/1913 - 2/2/1915.
Admiral Hugo von Pohl, 2/2/1915 - 23/1/1916.
Vizeadmiral / Admiral Reinhard Scheer, 9/1/1916 - 6/8/1918. 1
Vizeadmiral / Admiral Franz Ritter von Hipper, 7/8/1918 - 30/11/1918. 2

Chief of Staff (Flottenstabschef).

Kapitän zur See Ernst Ritter von Mann Edler von Tiechler, 20/9/1913 - 1/9/1914.
Konteradmiral / Vizeadmiral Richard Eckermann, 12/9/1914 - 3/2/1915. 3
Kapitän zur See William Michaelis, 4/2/1915 - 28/1/1916.
Kapitän zur See / Konteradmiral Adolf von Trotha, 29/1/1916 - 10/11/1918. 4

But again, you need to clearly distinguish between the Admiral's command team on the one hand the the command structure on what happens for the time being to be his flagship

 

[kato]

The flag group that a squadron commander would have onboard was pretty small.

As an example the flag staff of Graf Spee onboard his cruiser squadron in 1914, all officers, with NATO rang code for simplification:

Commander - Vizeadmiral (OF-8) Spee
Chief of Staff - Kapitän zur See (OF-5) Fielitz
Squadron Chief Engineer - Marineoberstabsingenieur (OF-3) Klein
Senior Flag Officer - Korvettenkapitän (OF-3) Pfahl
Junior Flag Officer - Kapitänleutnant (OF-2) von Bötticher
Flag Lieutenant - Oberleutnant zur See (OF-1) Schleip

This flag group was onboard SMS Scharnhorst. The ship had:

Captain - Kapitän zur See (OF-5) Schultz
First Officer or First artillery officer - Korvettenkapitän (OF-3) Bender
plus one other Korvettenkapitän (OF-3) whose name i can't find
plus about two dozen lower officers

The second heavy cruiser of the group, SMS Gneisenau, had a Fregattenkapitän (OF-4) as XO to the captain; the light cruisers of the group were commanded by Fregattenkapitäne (OF-4) as captains.

 

[Bellerophon]

Again Kato may be more knowledgeable, but I wonder if you are confusing XO with the Admiral's Chief of Staff.

I can't post links, but a google search revealed the following lists of CIC's and COS's of the High Seas Fleet.

Commander in Chief (Chef der Hochseestreitkräfte).

Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, 30/1/1913 - 2/2/1915.
Admiral Hugo von Pohl, 2/2/1915 - 23/1/1916.
Vizeadmiral / Admiral Reinhard Scheer, 9/1/1916 - 6/8/1918. 1
Vizeadmiral / Admiral Franz Ritter von Hipper, 7/8/1918 - 30/11/1918. 2

Chief of Staff (Flottenstabschef).

Kapitän zur See Ernst Ritter von Mann Edler von Tiechler, 20/9/1913 - 1/9/1914.
Konteradmiral / Vizeadmiral Richard Eckermann, 12/9/1914 - 3/2/1915. 3
Kapitän zur See William Michaelis, 4/2/1915 - 28/1/1916.
Kapitän zur See / Konteradmiral Adolf von Trotha, 29/1/1916 - 10/11/1918. 4

But again, you need to clearly distinguish between the Admiral's command team on the one hand the the command structure on what happens for the time being to be his flagship

My question arose after reading Redmond McLaughlin's The Escape of the Goeben, which talks about how SMS Goeben and her sister SMS Breslau - making up Germany's Mediterranean Squadron - effectively evaded the Royal Navy during the summer of 1914 and eventually found safe refuge when they were granted entry into the Dardanelles by Turkey.

Goeben's commanding officer was Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, which was why I was wondering about the composition of his staff onboard his ship.

 

[kato]

Souchon's group was complicated because it was a pretty minimal team initially owing to the situation. It basically consisted of his chief of staff (Korvettenkapitän Busse), a flag officer (Korvettenkapitän Büchsel) and a flag lieutenant (Oberleutnant zur See Wichelhausen); Busse, despite his low rank, was explicitly considered to have the position of Souchon's chief-of-staff in correspondence with Berlin, e.g. when reporting the attack on Sevastopol.

Once the ship became "Turkish" Souchon's team was expanded to full standard by taking on Turkish officers - relegating Busse from chief of staff to senior flag officer (but still operational chief of staff for German subordinates) and taking on the Turkish Fregattenkapitän Enver-Bei as new chief of staff (for Turkish subordinates). Büchsel became second/junior flag officer and the Turkish CoS brought Oberleutnant zur See Hakki as a second flag lieutenant onboard.

There's a quite widespread picture showing that second flag group onboard SMS Göben.

The relegated Korvettenkapitän Busse a few years into the war became flag liaison to Bulgaria, commander of naval stations Konstanta and Varna and operational commander of the imperial navy units active in the Black Sea - basically a submarine demiflotilla.

Korvettenkapitän Büchsel was detailed to command a small taskgroup formed around the Turkish Protected Cruiser Mecidiye in the rather unsuccessful operations against Odessa in early 1915, which seems to have mostly ended his career (until the Wehrmacht needed navy officers two decades later).

Fregattenkapitän Enver-bei was not identical with the Turkish war minister Enver Bei ;-)

 

[Bellerophon]

Souchon's group was complicated because it was a pretty minimal team initially owing to the situation. It basically consisted of his chief of staff (Korvettenkapitän Busse), a flag officer (Korvettenkapitän Büchsel) and a flag lieutenant (Oberleutnant zur See Wichelhausen); Busse, despite his low rank, was explicitly considered to have the position of Souchon's chief-of-staff in correspondence with Berlin, e.g. when reporting the attack on Sevastopol.

Once the ship became "Turkish" Souchon's team was expanded to full standard by taking on Turkish officers - relegating Busse from chief of staff to senior flag officer (but still operational chief of staff for German subordinates) and taking on the Turkish Fregattenkapitän Enver-Bei as new chief of staff (for Turkish subordinates). Büchsel became second/junior flag officer and the Turkish CoS brought Oberleutnant zur See Hakki as a second flag lieutenant onboard.

There's a quite widespread picture showing that second flag group onboard SMS Göben.

The relegated Korvettenkapitän Busse a few years into the war became flag liaison to Bulgaria, commander of naval stations Konstanta and Varna and operational commander of the imperial navy units active in the Black Sea - basically a submarine demiflotilla.

Korvettenkapitän Büchsel was detailed to command a small taskgroup formed around the Turkish Protected Cruiser Mecidiye in the rather unsuccessful operations against Odessa in early 1915, which seems to have mostly ended his career (until the Wehrmacht needed navy officers two decades later).

Fregattenkapitän Enver-bei was not identical with the Turkish war minister Enver Bei ;-)

Ok, I think mentioning the story about the Goeben right off the bat would have saved us a lot of trouble

Can you please tell me where you got your information from? This is a very detailed response that I did not even know was available.

 

[kato]

Mostly Google actually for that one. There's quite a couple German-language sites (and some in French) that do crew lists for things like this, in addition to the usual books on WW1 cruisers usually listing flag-level staff available online. Through a couple more obscure websites you can also find the official telegrams sent through the German Embassy in Turkey by the crew reporting on battles through the course of that little adventure.
Plus an old Spiegel article from 1965 available in their online archive that was published recapping Göben's/Yavuz' story when the ship was finally scrapped that year. In German, of course.