Seeteufel. Abenteuer aus meinem Leben
Berlin & Leipzig: K.F. Koehler, 1926. Later printing (the book was first published in 1921); 8vo, pp. [6], 318, [2] ads; folding map showing the course of the German raider Seeadler to the the point of its demise in the Pacific in 1917; double-p. sailplan, and approx. 135 illustrations throughout, largely from photographs taken during the cruise; original pictorial cloth, spine a bit soiled, else generally very good. This copy enhanced by a 13-line inscription in German by the ship's navigator (and famed whaler and Arctic explorer) Carl Kircheiss, to Carl G. Orgell, dated Philadelphia, 17 October, 1927, mentioning the Seeadler, and also with a 7-line inscribed photograph of the navigator laid in. From January to July 1917, the Seeadler sank fourteen allied ships, eleven in the Atlantic and three in the Pacific. In August, however, the Seeadler was lost altogether: she was wrecked on an atoll in French Polynesia. Mystery still surrounds her loss. Von Luckner attested to the German Admiralty that an underwater earthquake caused a tsunami that dashed the ship on the reef, a story that is reaffirmed here in this book, and by several subsequent historians of the Germany Navy. And so has that story been perpetuated through the ensuing decades. Two contemporary investigations, as well as several recent ones, dispute this version of events, and instead blame Von Luckner for being oblivious to the change in the wind direction which blew the Seeadler onto the reef. Ignored by the supporters of Von Luckner was a 1929 book by the navigator of the Seeadler Carl Kircheiss in which he offers a vastly different version of how the shipwreck occurred, and one, ultimately, much closer to the truth. For a full account see the article by James N. Bade, University of Aukland, at http://www.europe.canterbury.ac.nz/conferences/euro2003/paper1.pdf. Item #31620
Price: $1,500.00
