SMS Dresden

[mraoul]

I am looking to gather evidence that some of the crew who became POWs when the ship was scuttled in Chile managed to be sent into internment in Canada. I have seen newspaper reports stating that personnel from the Dresden disembarked in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. I am looking for more evidence that this indeed was the case. If anybody can shed light, or point me to information confirming this fact, I would be appreciative.

[KizmeRD]

Did the crew of SMS Dresden become Prisoners of War?

Chile was a neutral country and so simply interned the surviving crew members. They certainly didn’t hand them over to a belligerent state for purposes of imprisonment.

Serval people, including Wilhelm Canaris chose to escape back to Germany, but most crew members simply remained on San Juan Bautista.

MB

[KizmeRD]

Apologies, I can offer you the names Georg Bitter, Hermann Kuhn and Karl Lehmkuhl who were purportedly crew members of SMS Dresden interned in Canada at the tail-end of 1914 - but I know nothing of the circumstances of their capture.

MB

Edited 4 September , 2023 by KizmeRD

[charlie2]

Kuhn was on SMS Karlsruhe 

http://des.genealogy.net/search/show/11797750

http://des.genealogy.net/search/show/11828239

So was Bitter http://des.genealogy.net/search/show/11709416

and also Lehmkuhl http://des.genealogy.net/search/show/12268506

Charlie
 

 

[mraoul]

Thank you for the information. Do you have any other details regarding these names?

Thank you for the information. Very much appreciated.

[KizmeRD]

Thank you Charlie for putting us straight on the names (Karlsruhe makes far more sense).

I got misled by reading a publication written about German Internees in Canada…

(page 20).

https://www.internmentcanada.ca/PDF/documents/Halifax Citadel WWI Internment Research Report 2014.pdf?__cf_chl_tk=ksGr.aejBQ8SpXnKJtWijh6Ug1Dnz1dipklEMxC79XA-1693842026-0-gaNycGzNC6U

MB

 

[charlie2]

There would appear to be more to this than first meets the eye. The Red Cross documents record Bitter and Kuhn as being on SMS Dresden and only Lehmkuhl on SMS Karlsruhe.

https://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/File/Details/2051144/1/2/
https://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/File/Details/2086949/1/2/

The index card for Bitter is among those that have been lost or not digitized.

Charlie

[KizmeRD]

I rather suspect that there may have been some deliberate muddying of the water going on here, and that all three German ratings were in fact members of the Karlsruhe’s crew (a fact that they were trying to conceal).

In any case, it would be interesting to learn more about the circumstances of the men’s capture - were they attempting to escape home to Germany, or maybe they were part of a (recaptured) prize crew?

MB

 

Edited 5 September , 2023 by KizmeRD

[mraoul]

Thank you for the information. Very much appreciated.

[KizmeRD]

Further to the story of the (4) German sailors captured and interned in Canada as P-o-W’s, I think I may have found the answer…

A group of internees came from a shore party sent to Mexico by the German light cruiser SMS Dresden. As the Mexican Revolution embroiled the country, the shore party had the duty of reaching the German embassy in Mexico City and securing confidential German materials*. They succeeded and were returning to Europe on a neutral ship when they were stopped and arrested by a British warship.

MB

Edit - * No doubt sensitive diplomatic papers and correspondence pertaining to Admiral Paul von Hintze’s term as German Minister to Mexico.

Edited 7 September , 2023 by KizmeRD

[mraoul]

That's great. Would you happen to know the dates and sources for this information? I am writing a book on the Amherst Internment Camp during World War 1, and this is the type of story that will make the book a better reading experience. Thank you for your interest in this topic.

[KizmeRD]

@mraoul   Andrew Farris mentioned this fact on his website (he does walking tours of the citadel in Halifax)…

https://onthisspot.ca/cities/halifax/citadel

MB
 

PS I’ll try to find out a bit more about the German sailors mission to the embassy, and details of their capture.

[michaeldr]

1 hour ago, mraoul said:

Would you happen to know the dates and sources for this information?

With thanks to KizmeRD for the lead here 

 

From Internment Operations at the Halifax Citadel, 1914-1916 prepared for the Parks Canada Agency by Roger Marsters, PhD Hindsight Historical Consulting May 2014 

https://www.internmentcanada.ca/PDF/documents/Halifax Citadel WWI Internment Research Report 2014.pdf

See page 20 (21 of the pdf) Quote - "The least ambiguous internees at the Citadel, those who most aptly match the category “prisoner of war”, were active duty German naval personnel. Men such as George Bitter [41], Hermann Kuhn [45] and Karl Lehmjuhl [54], were crew members of SMS Dresden, a powerfully armed cruiser that, in the first year of the war, fought repeated battles with Royal Navy forces off the coasts of South America. Bitter, Kuhn, and Lehmjuhl were part of a shore party dispatched before the outbreak of war to protect German assets in Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution; they were taken from the Spanish merchant ship Montserratt while travelling to resume active service."

Footnote 29 -   LAC, RG24, vol. 4542, file 73-1-15, Interrogation Typescript, n.d., pp. 9-10, 12 

[presumably LAC = Library and Archives Canada]

Edited 7 September , 2023 by michaeldr

[KizmeRD]

See also the link to the press clipping relating to events aboard the steamer Montserratt…

https://www.internmentcanada.ca/articles/30/1914-09-21-MFP-How-Germans-Were-Caught-on-Steamer.pdf

MB

[KizmeRD]

Extract from HMS Glory’s logbook…

MB

7 September 1914

At sea, cruising off Nantucket

Lat 40.5, Long -68.3

Number on sick list: 10

9.05am: a/c to N35ºW to intercept US SS Ruby and Spanish SS Montserrat.

9.15am: Stopped. Boarded both ships.

11.45am: Placed armed guard on board SS Montserrat.

12.55pm: Proceeded 70 revs in company with SS Montserrat. SS Montserrat detained on account of having a number of German Reservists onboard.

pm: Speed averaging 70 revs to keep in touch with SS Montserrat.

 

4f73cd0ca2fc8ea90300149f: (https://s3.amazonaws.com:443/oldweather/ADM53-43011/0083_0.jpg)

 

8 September 1914

At sea, at Halifax and at sea

Lat 44.65, Long -63.56

The noon position in the log is: Lat 43.8, Long -64.0. The location for Halifax has been used above to provide a more representative track for the maps.

am: Control parties with loading drill.

3.10pm: Sambro Ledge Buoy abeam 2½ miles.

3.38pm: Entered War Channel. Course as requisite. SS Montserrat following in company.

pm: Reduced to await SS Montserrat.

4.35pm: Stopped off Examination Vessel.

4.45pm: Proceeded, course and speed as requisite for anchorage.

5.20pm: Stopped. Let go Port anchor.

pm: SS Montserrat turned over to Prize Marshall.

8.15pm: Weighed and proceeded.

10.20pm: Outer Ledge Buoy abeam 2 miles.

[KizmeRD]

On July 26, 1914, the Dresden met with the light cruiser Karlsruhe in the harbour of Port-au-Prince (Haiti) and the commanders of the two cruisers exchanged command (Erich Köhler taking over Karlsruhe from Fritz Lüdecke). Since volunteers from both ship’s appear to have been involved in the Mexican Embassy mission, it would appear that the operation must have been hatched then*.

MB

* I can’t find any primary source material clearly referring to  the objective of a joint Mexican landing party involving sailors from both Dresden and Karlsruhe - at least not in July/August 1914 (if indeed there actually was one), but Red Cross records do appear to suggest that a small number of men from both ships were subsequently interned in Canada. There was however certainly an earlier landing party of 11 armed sailors (all sent from Dresden) for purpose of providing security for the embassy in April 1914, during the disturbances that led to the downfall of Heuta’s regime. Did Karlsruhe also send a few additional men to assist embassy security after she arrived on the scene too?

Edited 8 September , 2023 by KizmeRD

[mraoul]

On April 19, 1915, it was reported from Saint John,  New Brunswick, in the Manitoba Free Press, that 300 German sailors, "some of them former members of the Dresden's crew, the others captured from German merchant marine," were brought to Saint John aboard the C.P.R. steamer St.George from Bermuda. The British had a pow camp in Bermuda, and given its location, it is easy to see why it would be a drop-off point for German sailors picked up at sea. The reference to there being crewmembers of the Dresden is interesting - I have seen no other reference to there being members of the Dreden's crew in Bermuda. The prisoners were sent from Saint John to the internment camp in Amherst, N.S. (215 km away).

[KizmeRD]

Yes, but the 4 prisoners we’ve been discussing (Lehmkuhl, Kuhn, Gossmann & Bitter) are known to have initially been interned in the citadel in Halifax, having been intercepted aboard the steamer Monserratt (September 1914) - escorted into Halifax harbour by HMS Glory. Therefore surely they were already imprisoned in Nova Scotia, prior to the landing of 300 additional German & Austrian PoWs shipped in from Bermuda on the steamer St. George, (landing in St. John in April 1915).

MB

 

[mraoul]

Agreed. So there must have been additional Dresden crew that were shipped in from Bermuda and if the four crewmembers that you speak of came from the steamer Montserratt, then we still have Dresden POWs coming to Amherst from Jamaica. My question then is this: How many Dresden POWs are we actually talking about between Bermuda, Jamaica, and the Montserratt?

[KizmeRD]

We have yet to establish for certain whether there were in fact any PoWs from SMS Dresden amongst those who arrived in St. John in April 1915 - but its entirely possible that there were.

Therefore would be good to find and analyse a list of the St. George arrivals (most of whom are likely to have been non-active ex-pat army and navy reservists caught trying to get home so as to join the war effort).

MB