Karl August Nerger

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Karl August Nerger
Korvettenkapitän Nerger.jpg
Fregattenkapitän Nerger
Birth name Karl August Theodor Julius Nerger
Birth date 25 February 1875(1875-02-25)
Place of birth Rostock, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, German Empire
Death date 12 January 1947 (aged 71)
Place of death Speziallager Nr. 7 Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Soviet occupation zone, Allied-occupied Germany
Allegiance  German Empire
 Weimar Republic
 National Socialist Germany
Service/branch  Kaiserliche Marine
 Reichsmarine
 Kriegsmarine
Years of service 1893–1918
1919
1939–1945 (?)
Rank Konteradmiral
Commands held SMS "Wolf"
Battles/wars World War I
World War II
Awards Iron Cross
Pour le Mérite
Military Order of Max Joseph
Relations ∞ Maria/Marie Annie "Annine" Katharine Friedrichsen

Karl August Theodor Julius Nerger (sometimes wrongly Karl-August; 25 February 1875 – 12 January 1947) was a German naval officer of the Imperial German Navy, the provisional Reichsmarine and the Kriegsmarine, finally honorary Konteradmiral in WWII. He was one of only two junior officers to receive the highest military honors of the five main German states during World War One.

Life

Nerger, Rangliste 1914.png
Karl August Nerger von Karl Konrad Friedrich Bauer, Zeitschrift Jugend, Heft 42, 1918 (Titelseite).jpg
Die Kriegsfahrt der SMS Wolf unter Nerger.jpg
Nerger, Rangliste 1918.png
Nerger, Die Heimkehr des deutschen Hilfskreuzers „Wolf“ nach 15-monatiger Kreuzfahrt.jpg
Roy Alexander, 451 Tage ... Die Kaperfahrten des deutschen Hilfskreuzers Wolf (Nerger).jpg
Karl August Nerger (Münze).jpg

Nerger joined the Kaiserliche Marine in 1893 and became an officer in 1896. He served during the Boxer Rebellion, and while serving aboard SMS Iltis in 1900, he displayed distinction in action during the attack on the Chinese Taku Forts. As the commandant of the Königsberg class light cruiser SMS "Stettin", he was involved in the Battle of Helgoland in 1914. The SMS "Wolf" (II) was previously a freighter of the Hansa Line, with a gross tonnage of 5809 tons, she was launched as "Watchfels" and was renamed SMS "Wolf" when she was fitted out as an auxiliary cruiser. She was prepared for her role as an armed merchant ship with an armament that included six 150 mm guns, one 105 mm gun, three 52 mm guns, four torpedo tubes and carried 458 mines, to be placed in enemy territory throughout her journey. SMS "Wolf" was also provided with an innovative new weapon, the Friedrichshafen FF.33e two seater biplane, an aircraft that was used with deadly success to scout out new targets for attack or to elude enemy threats. The raider was relatively slow, with a top speed of only 11 knots but her bunkers held 8,000 tons of coal, giving her a huge cruising range of 32,000 nautical miles at eight knots. On 30 November 1916, SMS Wolf sailed from Kiel, Germany, with a complement of 348 sailors and commanded by Fregattenkapitän Nerger. Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen write:

July 1917: The First World War is about to enter its fourth horrendous year, and ships are mysteriously disappearing off the coasts of Australia and New Zealand. A young Australian woman named Mary Cameron is sailing with her husband and daughter from San Francisco to Sydney when, less than a thousand miles from their destination, a black-hulled freighter appears out of the vast blue emptiness. It is the first ship they have seen in nearly two months, and Mary and her daughter rush to the deck to greet her. Suddenly, two hinged iron sections of the freighter’s bulwarks drop down to reveal she is bristling with guns. She is in fact the German warship the Wolf, and the Camerons are about to find themselves captive on one of the century’s most extraordinary wartime sea voyages. Sent by Germany on a suicide mission to the far side of the world, the Wolf was a formidable and ingenious commerce-raider. Her task was to inflict maximum destruction on Allied shipping using all the latest technology of warfare – torpedoes, mines, cannons, smokescreens, wireless receivers, even a seaplane. It was an assignment so secret that she could never pull in to port or transmit any radio signal. In one continual 64,000-mile voyage lasting fifteen months, the ship caused havoc across three oceans, launched Germany’s only direct attacks on Australia and New Zealand in the Great War and captured over 400 men, women and children. Surviving on fuel and food plundered from other ships, the Wolf became a world in miniature as her 350-strong crew and their prisoners crowded together in an improbable survival story. Drawn from eyewitness accounts, declassified government files and unpublished diaries and correspondence discovered during five years of research, this is the story of the Wolf’s voyage, one of the most remarkable but least-known episodes of the First World War.

During the 451 days she was deployed in Allied territory around Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, South Asia and Africa, she destroyed 35 trading vessels and two war ships, amounting to approximately 110,000 tons. After a trip around Australia, a successful overhaul near Papua New Guinea and operations off Singapore, she returned to Kiel on 24 February 1918 with 349 men and 467 prisoners of war, who formed a community of destiny with the united interests not falling victim to plagues, scurvy or to enemy cruisers, and substantial quantities of rubber, copper, zinc, brass, silk, copra, cocoa and other essential materials to the German war effort. SMS Wolf, without any support, had made the longest voyage of a warship during the First World War. The prisoners praised the "chivalrous treatment" on the "Wolf" upon their return to their home countries. There was at least one lady and a couple of children on board. For the lady games were held on deck for entertainment and for the children the captain even put himself at risk just to get the children some animals to play with.[1]

In the end, she had mastered a stretch which was three times the circumference of the earth. On her celebrated return to Germany and the parade through the Brandenburg Gate, Kaiser Wilhelm II presented every crew member with the Iron Cross and Fregattenkapitän Nerger was awarded the highest German decoration, the Pour le Mérite. He was then appointed to the Staff of Admiralty of the German Naval Forces. In May 1918, he became commander of the Vorpostenboote[2] (VP-Boats, flakships or outpost boats) in the North Sea, a command he held until war's end.

Between wars

On 25 July 1919, he was dismissed from the Provisional Reichsmarine (some sources state after serving with the Freikorps) and given the character of a captain at sea (Kapitän zur See). In 1920, he achieved "official status" as an employee of the Siemens-Schuckert-Werke, a German electrical engineering company. From 1929, he was head of plant security and a member of the board of directors of Siemens-Schuckertwerke, Berlin. When re-elected in Braunschweig on 22 September 1935, Dr. Nerger was elected chairman of the board of directors as head of the department for plant security at Siemens & Halske AG and Siemens-Schuckertwerke AG. As late as 1938, he was authorized signatory at Siemens & Halske Aktiengesellschaft, limited to the main office in Berlin and the branch office in Vienna. Siemens-Schuckert designed a number of heavy bombers early in World War I, building a run of seven Riesenflugzeuge. In World War II, the company had a factory producing aircraft and other parts.

WWII

Konteradmiral a. D. Nerger was placed to disposal of the Chef der Marinestation der Ostsee (Chief of the Baltic Sea Naval Station) and was allegedly entrusted with "special assignments" during WWII, although this cannot be proven with documentation. The reason for the later arrest, according to the special camp protocol (pretext), was alleged service as a member of the German counter-intelligence (Abwehr). Post-war sources suggest that Nerger was arrested and incarcerated in connection with his activities as a director of Siemens-Schuckertwerke, but in Soviet documents, this is not mentioned.

Death

After the end of World War Two, Karl August Nerger was arrested in his villa in Potsdam on 15 August 1945 by the Soviets and incarcerated at the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp, which had become the infamous death camp of the NKVD (Speziallager Nr. 7), where he died in January 1947. The official cause of death was reported as cachexia due to malnutrition, but, according to former inmate Heinz Masuch, wo had survived, Nerger was actually beaten to death. His body was cremated and buried on the grounds of the camp. Only four months prior, like so many, famous German actor Heinrich George starved to death in Speziallager Nr. 7.

Family

Karl was the eldest of three sons of the Rostock Gymnasium teacher, linguist and translator Dr. phil. Karl Friedrich Ludwig Nerger (b. 19 November 1841 in Tessin, Mecklenburg; d. 12 June 1913 in Rostock) and his wife Clara Sophie Therese, née Hagemeister (1850–1925), co-owner of the Neuhof manor (Rittergut) near Parchim in Mecklenburg. His father, who had studied theology in Rostock, was a Gymnasium professor from 1867 to 1876, then until 1905 a teacher of German, religion and Hebrew at Rostock's Higher Civic School (Höherer Bürgerschule). As a Low German linguist, he made a name for himself with his first German dialect grammar of Mecklenburg Low German (Plattdeutsch), which appeared as a doctoral thesis and was published as a free print by the University of Rostock.

His younger brother Dr. med. Bruno Erich Julius Joachim Friedrich Nerger (1878–1944), the second eldest son, also made an amazing career as a medical officer in the Imperial Navy and worked, among other things, at the Berlin Charité togetherwith Nobel Prize winners, such as e.g. Robert Koch. Bruno was also an officer, he was a one-year volunteer (Einjährig-Freiwilliger) with the Großherzoglich-Mecklenburgische Füsilier-Regiment Nr. 90, studied medicine at the renowned Kaiser-Wilhelms-Akademie, joined the navy on 1 April 1896, was promoted to Marine-Unterarzt on 15 February 1901, to Marine-Oberassistenzarzt on 1 April 1904, served on ships in East Asia, attended the Marineschule and the Marineakademie, was promoted to Marine-Stabsarzt on 11 May 1907 and to Marine-Oberstabsarzt on 13 October 1913. At the end of WWI, he was promoted to Marine-Generaloberarzt and opened his own practice after the war. He was married to Katharina “Käthe”, née Syppli, both sons, Karl-Joachim and Klaus, would fall (⚔) in WWII.

His youngest brother was Johann "Hans" Maximilian Nerger, a naval officer, since 27 January 1909 Leutnant zur See, since 27 January 1912 Oberleutnant zur See and in World War I Kapitänleutnant (since 10 June 1916) and commander of the 7th minesweeping semi-flotilla. He had joined the German navy on 1 April 1905 and was, among other awards, recipient of the Mecklenburg Military Cross of Merit, 2nd class, the Hamburg Hanseatic Cross and both classes of the Iron Cross. Like his brother Karl, he worked at the Siemens-Schuckert works in Berlin after the war.

Marriage

Oberleutnant zur See Nerger married c. 1904 his fiancée Marie/Maria Annie "Annine" Katharine Friedrichsen (b. 5 September 1885; d. 1 October 1945). They had three sons and two daughters, among them Maria (1905–1971) and Bruno Ernst Ludwig (b. 1910). Annine died six weeks after her husband was ripped from their home. Some sources state, she was raped and murdered by soldiers of the Red Army. Her body was identified but later disappered. The children had a memorial stone set up for the parents at the Cemetery of the Evangelical parish of Geltow (Schwielowsee), where daughter Maria is buried.

Promotions

  • 4. April 1893 Kadett
  • 8. September 1894 Seekadett
  • 14. September 1896 Unterleutnant zur See (2nd Lieutenant)
  • 9. April 1900 Oberleutnant zur See (1st Lieutenant)
  • 21. März 1905 Kapitänleutnant (Lieutenant Captain)
  • 10. April 1911 Korvettenkapitän (Corvette Captain)
  • 13. Januar 1917 Fregattenkapitän (Frigate Captain; Commander)
  • 25. Juli 1919 Charakter als Kapitän zur See (Honorary Captain at Sea)
  • 19. August 1939 Charakter als Konteradmiral (Honorary Rear Admiral, announced on Tannenbergtag, 27 August 1939)

Awards, decorations and honours

Awards and decorations

Honours

  • Honorary citizen of Rostock in 1918
  • Honorary degree in medicine (Dr. med. h. c.) from the University of Rostock in 1919

Writings

  • SMS Wolf (ein Heldenbuch), Scherl-Verlag, 1918

Further reading

External links

References

  1. ↑ Nicht nur Graf Luckner! Kaperfahrt des Korvettenkapitäns Karl-August Nerger, in: "Bullauge", 2016, pp. 10–12
  2. ↑ At the outset of World War I, the Imperial German Navy lacked sufficient numbers of warships to perform auxiliary tasks like coastal patrol and convoy escort. As such, the navy requisitioned a large portion of civilian fishing trawlers to perform these tasks, converting them into Vorpostenboote.
  3. ↑ Karl Friedrich Verdienst Orden
  4. ↑ Militär-Max-Joseph-Orden
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