More than 100 years ago the German Navy sunk, 52 German ships sank in the bay of Scapa Flow without a shot being heard. The only sound from the dying battleships was the gurgle and smack of the incoming water, the ripping of metal and the bang of the anchor chains giving way.
How could this happen? Before the First World War, Germany looked with pride at the navy. The construction of the high-seas fleet was particularly important to the Kaiser and the patriotic Germans. A powerful navy was supposed to secure the “place in the sun” for the Reich all over the world.
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No role in war
But when the war began in 1914, it quickly became apparent that it was decided on the ground. In a quick push, the Germans wanted to defeat Paris – the fleet was not needed for this. When the fronts got bogged down in endless trench warfare, the High Seas Fleet was supposed to try to dominate the seas and thus decide the war.
From May 31, 1916 to June 1, 1916, the Skagerrak was the only major naval battle of the war. After the first heavy British losses, the German battle line drove straight into a trap. With a bold maneuver, Admiral Scheer saved his ships and broke off the battle. In terms of casualties, the battle ended in a “draw.” Strategically, it was a British victory. The Germans failed to break out of their harbors and never again challenged the Royal Navy.
While millions of infantrymen were shredded by shells and suffocated by poison gas, the fleet spent much of the war in safe havens. When the war was hopelessly lost, some officers wanted to mount a suicidal attack – but the sailors no longer followed them. The revolution broke out and the empire collapsed.
Delivered to the Allies
The surrender of the German High Seas Fleet to the Allies was one of the terms of the armistice that ended World War I in November 1918. 70 German battleships, cruisers and destroyers under the command of Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter arrived on the Scottish coast off the Firth of Forth on November 21 to place the fleet under the command of British Admiral Sir David Beatty. The handover was peaceful and Beatty wrote to his wife, not without irony: “Well, Pansy, we’ve finally met the High Seas Fleet.” The High Seas Fleet, which for years had avoided encountering Beatty’s ships.
The Allies were at odds as to what to do with the German ships, so they were taken to the Orkney Islands’ large natural harbor of Scapa Flow to be interned. More ships arrived, finally there were 74 with around 20,000 German seamen. Most seamen returned to Germany, only an emergency crew remained. “The ships weren’t actually surrendered and so there weren’t any British troops on board to prevent them from being sunk,” Orkney Museum’s Tom Muir told BBC radio. “They were property of the German government and remained so throughout their time here.”
Scuttling to save the honor of the Navy
On June 23, the British wanted to take over the German fleet, but already on June 17 von Reuter was preparing to sink his fleet. He expected his ships to be boarded and confiscated by the Royal Navy. The rear admiral didn’t think he should allow something like that to happen. Paul Schell was a sailor on the torpedo boat G 102. He recalled in a radio interview: “I was on the G 102 – that is, Germania 102. And you knew a few days before that you got in touch with the few officers who were still there were, and it was agreed that the ships would be sunk at a certain moment.”
Muir of the Orkney Museum said: “Von Reuter had already sent letters to the ships’ commanders telling them that he was planning to have the fleet sunk on his signal. Ironically, it was British boats that carried these letters among the officers on the other ships transported.”
On June 21, 1919, von Reuter gave the order to scuttle after most British ships had left port for an exercise. At 10:30 the flagship Emden signaled the message – “Paragraph Eleven; confirm”. This was the signal that ordered the men to sink their own ships. Reuters ships hoisted the German flag again, they were forbidden to do so in the internment. Seacocks, portholes, watertight doors, hatches and torpedo tubes were opened. The ships were intentionally flooded from one side so they would turn and sink headfirst. The Germans believed that this would make it harder to save the ships.
Paul Schell remembered: “Where the flag was hoisted, then of course the sinking started. And of course everyone had to open their valves, no, and see that they could get out of the ship, no, and the small boats, the lifeboats, there of course you sat in and tried to stay afloat until something happened.” The remaining 2,000 men got into the boats.
Shots on the German sailors
The only civilian witnesses to the sinking of the German fleet were school children from Stromness who were on a voyage. 15-year-old James Taylor wrote: “Suddenly and without warning, these huge ships listed, some diving headlong, their sterns heaving and pointing skyward. A thud of the anchor chains amplified the noise as the great bodies squirmed beneath horribly sucking and clicking sounds went down.”
Another schoolboy, 12-year-old Leslie Thorpe, watches as the British machine gun a German boat full of fleeing soldiers. “The men were ordered to open fire on the defenseless German sailors,” Muir told the BBC. Nine Germans were killed and 16 injured. They were the last dead of World War I.
The Hindenburg, the largest German battlecruiser, was the last ship to sink. 52 German ships sank, some of the superstructures could still be seen. In the 1920s scrap dealer Ernest Cox bought two sunken battlecruisers and 26 destroyers and began raising the ships to salvage the metal. Later he bought more ships, more than 30 ships disappeared in this way. An inglorious end for the once proud ships.
Sources: Deutschlandfunk, BBC
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