Flensburg
Sonderburg, Flensburg, and Eckernförde were naval stations of secondary importance, but all were fortified. Flensburg was the site of a naval station and Naval Academy at nearby Mürwik before World War II. Throughout its history, the officer corps of the Imperial German navy remained roughly two-thirds Prussian.
The German naval academy, which was first established at Kiel and later moved to Murwik near Flensburg. In 1910 the Imperial German Naval Academy / Naval College in the Mürwik special district [Marineschule Murwik] was granted its charter - equivalent to the USN's Annapolis, IJN's Etajima, RN's Dartmouth, RNethN's Den Helder etc. . The "red castle by the sea", as Mürwik Naval Academy is affectionately called, has seen navies come and go: the Kaiserliche Marine, the Reichsmarine afterwards.
At the beginning of the 20th Century, the Imperial Navy was in a phase of rapid and generous construction. The existing training facilities would soon no longer satisfy the growing demands. A new officer school was necessary and in the summer of 1903 the decision approved by Emperor Wilhelm II. The city of Flensburg was selected, and it agreed on the transfer to the Imperial Navy of an area of 15 hectares in Mürwik. Construciton took place from 1907 to 1910, based on the plans of the architedt Kelm to the promotion a spacious training facility for the young officer of the Imperial Navy. Kelm planned the building with a strong historical buildings, especially of Malbork Knight Order of the German influences. At the heart of the complex of buildings is the high tower. Among them are large teaching rooms and common areas. In the north and south join the wings with the accommodations. In the east, the classrooms and gymnasiums as well as rooms for the administration.
On 1 October 1910 the first Fähnriche [officer candidate] crew from 1909 was in the new school. At the official inauguration on 21 November 1910 Kaiser Wilhelm II addressed the school, facing the Fähnriche, and issued the Cabinet Order listing priorities for officer training were formulated. The naval officer should "... an educated man in a general sense, ..." and added "... broad technical knowledge." First and foremost, however, the Navy leadership to the consolidation of personality to the character. This stamp should particularly by the example of the superior officer candidates can be achieved.
With the mobilization in August 1914 the school was initially closed because of the expectation of a brief war run. But in January 1915 began re-training for new staff. The naval cadets completed their three-month basic training before their training on board the School Ship [Schulkreuzer] continued.
Flensburg (Danish, Flensborg), a seaport of Germany, in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein, at the head of the Flensburg Fjord, 20 m. N.W. from Schleswig, at the junction of the main line Altona-Vamdrup (Denmark), with branches to Kiel and Gliicksburg. Pop. (1905) 48,922. It has an agricultural hinterland and is the centre of a thriving tourist industry. The principal public buildings are the Nikolai Kirche (built 1390, restored 1894), with a spire 295 ft. high; the Marienkirche, also a medieval church, with a lofty tower; the law courts; the theater and the exchange. The cemetery contains the remains of the Danish soldiers who fell at the battle of Idstedt (25th of July 1850), but the colossal Lion monument, erected by the Danes to commemorate their victory, was removed to Berlin in 1864.
Flensburg is a northern border town, which through history has changed national allegiance with the consequence that two distinct communities, German and Danish, are evident today. Flensburg was probably founded in the 12th century. It attained municipal privileges in 1284, was frequently pillaged by the Swedes after 1643. In the 16th. Century Flensburg was a rich and important sea trading city whose later economic development to the 19th Century was strongly influenced by Denmark. Rum importation from the West Indies began in the middle 18th Century.
The year 1806 marked the high point of the Flensburger's merchant shipping with 271 ships and approximately 15,000 commerce loads. There was subsequently a heavy economic setback by the Napoleonic Wars and the consequences of the transfer of Norway at Sweden (1814). In 1848 Flensburg became the capital, under Danish rule, of Schleswig. The 19th Century saw heated disputes including a German-Danish War in 1864 as to whether Flensburg should be in Schleswig-Holstein or remain in the Danish Commonwealth. The German federation intervened, in order to re-establish the old condition. Prussia and Austria marched into Schleswig and Jutland. After the Prussian conquest of the Düppeler Denmark must transfer the duchies Schleswig and Holstein to Austria and Prussia.
In 1877 the Navigation School at the Munketoft was built. In 1886 the Sea-Machinist School [from which the today's College of Further Education developed], was opened.
By 1910 Flensburg was a busy center of trade and industry, and was the most important town in what was formerly the duchy of Schleswig. Flensburg was Germany's third biggest shipping company city, after Hamburg and Bremen. There were two gymnasia, schools of marine engineering, navigation, wood-carving and agriculture. It possessed excellent wharves, did a large import trade in coal, and has shipbuilding yards, breweries, distilleries, cloth aid paper factories, glass-works, copper-works, soap-works and rice mills. Its former extensive trade with the West Indies had suffered owing to the enormous development of the North Sea ports, but it was still largely engaged in the Greenland whale and the oyster fisheries.
After a referendum in 1920 Flensburg became a German border town. At the end of WWII became the provisional capital of the Third Reich. Großadmiral Dönitz, speaking from Flensburg's Naval Academy at Mürwik, capitulated on 07 May 1945 ending the war in Europe. Flensburg again became a naval base after the establishment of West Germany.
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