Without firing a shot, the empire’s pride sank. 52 German ships sank. Their crews had raised the Emperor’s flag one last time before flooding and sending their own ships into the depths.
100 years ago today the German Navy scuttled itself, 52 German ships sank in the bay of Scapa Flow without a shot being heard. The only sound of the dying battleships was the gurgling and smacking of the incoming water, the tearing of metal and the bang of the anchor chains giving way.
How could this happen? Before the First World War, Germany looked with pride on its 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 empire’s longed-for “place in the sun” around the world.
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No role in the war
But when the war began in 1914, it quickly became apparent that it was being decided on the ground. The Germans wanted to defeat Paris in a quick advance – the fleet was not needed for this. When the fronts became deadlocked in an endless trench warfare, the High Seas Fleet was supposed to try to dominate the seas and thus decide the war.
The only major naval battle of the war took place at the Skagerrak from May 31, 1916 to June 1, 1916. 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 victory for the British. The Germans were unable to break out of their harbors and never challenged the Royal Navy again.
While millions of infantrymen were torn apart by shells and suffocated from poison gas, the fleet essentially spent the war in safe havens. When the war was hopelessly lost, some officers wanted to launch a suicidal attack – but the sailors no longer followed them. The revolution broke out and the empire collapsed.
Delivered to the Allies
The handover of the German High Seas Fleet to the Allies was one of the conditions of the armistice that ended the First World War 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 21st to place the fleet under the command of British Admiral Sir David Beatty. The handover was peaceful and Beatty wrote, not without irony, to his wife: “Well, Pansy, we have finally met the High Seas Fleet.” The High Seas Fleet, which had avoided encountering Beatty’s ships for years.
The Allies were divided over 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 sailors. Most of the sailors returned to Germany, only a skeleton crew remained. “The ships were not actually handed over and so there were no British troops on board to prevent them from being sunk,” Orkney Museum’s Tom Muir told BBC Radio. “They were the property of the German government and remained so throughout their time here.”
Self-scuttling to save the honor of the Navy
On June 23, the British wanted to take over the German fleet, but on June 17, von Reuter prepared to sink his fleet. He expected his ships to be boarded and confiscated by the Royal Navy. The rear admiral believed that such a thing should not be allowed to happen. Paul Schell was a sailor on the torpedo boat G 102. He remembered in a radio interview: “I was on G 102 – Germania 102. And you knew a few days beforehand that you got in touch with the few officers who were still there and it was then agreed that the ships would be sunk at a certain moment.”
Orkney Museum’s Muir said: “Von Reuter had already sent letters to the ships’ commanders informing them that he planned to have the fleet scuttled on his signal. Ironically, it was British boats that carried these letters to the officers on the other ships.”
On June 21, 1919, von Reuter gave the order to scuttle after most of the British ships had left the harbor for an exercise. At 10:30 a.m. the flagship Emden signaled the message – “Paragraph Eleven; confirm”. That was the signal that ordered the men to sink their own ships. Reuter’s ships hoisted the German flag again, something they were forbidden to do during internment. Seacocks, portholes, watertight doors, hatches and torpedo tubes were opened. The ships were deliberately flooded from one side so that they would turn over and sink upside down. The Germans believed that this would make it more difficult to save the ships.
Paul Schell remembered: “Where the flag was raised, 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 we sat down and tried to stay afloat until something happened.” The remaining 2,000 men got into the boats.
Shots at 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 began to list, some diving headfirst, their sterns heaving and pointing skyward. A dull snap of the anchor chains increased the noise as the great bodies sucked and sucked horribly drowned in clicking noises.”
Another student, 12-year-old Leslie Thorpe, watches as the British fire a machine gun at 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 the First World War.
The Hindenburg, the largest German battle cruiser, was the last ship to sink. 52 German ships sank, some of whose superstructures could still be seen. In the 1920s, scrap dealer Ernest Cox purchased two sunken battlecruisers and 26 destroyers and began lifting the ships to recycle the metal. He later bought more ships and more than 30 ships disappeared in this way. An inglorious end for the once proud ships.
Sources: Deutschlandfunk, BBC
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