Scuttling of the High Seas Fleet
The German Navy Self Destructed to Save its Honor
On November 21, 1918- ten days after the end of hostilities on the western front- the German Kaiserliche Marine's High Seas Fleet surrendered its 74 principal vessels into internment under the guns of the British Royal Navy until the final peace treaty could be negotiated at Versailles. Eight months later Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, the last commander of the fleet feared the worst. The German admiral and his fleet, with only a skeleton crew remaining on each ship were isolated the Gutter Sound inlet of Scapa Flow and unable to get German newspapers. Reports that they read in the four day old British newspapers they were able to get proclaimed that the treaty was only days away from being signed and that the High Seas Fleet would be seized and divided among the victorious allies as they saw fit. Unwilling to sacrifice the fleet in such a humiliating way the admiral hatched a plot to destroy it. The fleet had been disarmed so it could not fight. The ships were almost completely out of fuel so they could not flee. The only solution would be to scuttle the ships in protest.
In the early morning hours of June 21, 1919 the British fleet at Scapa Flow that was guarding the Germans left harbor briefly in the summer sunrise to undertake gunnery practice nearby. Admiral Reuter put on his full dress uniform at ten am and quietly gave the word that beginning at noon the ships should scuttle themselves. The final signal for this would be “Paragraphe Elf Bestatigen” (Paragraph 11 Confirm). This was a reference to a German navy drinking song that revolved around a line to ‘let the water in’. At noon the bell of the flagship sounded after hoisting the signal flags and repeating the message via signal lamp.
The first of the German Fleet to sink after the order to scuttle was Reuter’s flagship the SMS Friedrich der Grosse. This battleship sank beneath the surface at 12:16pm. All over the sound German sailors hauled down the hated British Naval ensign that flew from their ships and raised the old Imperial Kaiserliche Marine's black eagle ensign as engineering crews went to break open sea control valves to flood their ships. Deck crews mobilized to prevent boarding and recapture of their ships by the British marines stationed nearby. A group of Royal Marines, trying to prevent the scuttling, killed the captain and first officer of the battleship SMS Markgraf. Seven other German officers and men were shot during the operation which caused no British casualties. These became the last men killed in combat during world war one. Less than five hours had passed when the last ship, the battleship SMS Hindenburg, settled on the bottom. The butcher’s bill amounted to 53 ships sunk, 17 beached and only four undamaged.
The damage was staggering. Of the 16 German battleships and battlecruisers interned, fifteen were sunk and were a total loss. The only survivor of the battlewagons was the SMS Baden that was only narrowly saved due to being towed to the beach by fast acting British tugboats. The rest of the fleet was in the same shape. Four light cruisers were sunk by their crews and the other four beached. The German destroyer crews took 34 of their craft down to Davy Jones locker but could not prevent the other 12 to be beached by the British. The only boats actually floating that were taken over by the British were four small torpedo boats. The torpedo boats survived because of their size they did not have sea valves to open and the crews had no explosives to sink them. By the time the sun set on Scapa Flow 400,000 tons of the Imperial German navy had committed ritual suicide.
Admiral Reuter was arrested by the un-amused British authorities and made a prisoner of war along with the other 1,773 men of the fleet's remaining crews. They eventually returned to Germany as heroes. Admiral Reuter retired and led a private life. During his retirement he was promoted to full Admiral in 1939. He died in 1943 at 74 years of age. The allies protested and the peace treaty at Versailles almost went unsigned. The German government confirmed that Admiral Reuter had acted on his own without orders from Berlin.
Most of the ships were salvaged.
Sources
The Grand Scuttle: the sinking of the German fleet at Scapa Flow in
1919 Dan Van der Vat, Hodder and Stoughton. 1982
The Wrecks of Scapa Flow David M. Ferguson, Orkney Press 1984
Scapa: Britain's famous wartime naval base James Miller, Birlinn Press 2000.
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