Karl von Müller



Karl Friedrich Max von Müller (1873–1923) was Captain of the famous German commerce raider, the light cruiser SMS Emden during World War I.

Early life and career
The son of a Prussian Army Colonel, he was born in Hanover on June 16 1873. After attending gymnasium at Hanover and Kiel, he entered the military academy at Ploen in Schleswig-Holstein, but transferred to the Imperial Navy, on Easter 1891. He served on the schoolship Stosch, then on the 'cruiser-frigate' Gneisenau on a voyage to the Americas. He then became signal lieutenant of battleship Baden in October 1894, and later, on her sister ship the Sachsen as well.

Von Müller was promoted to Oberleutnant zur See, and posted to the gunboat Schwalbe. During the Schwalbe's deployment to German East Africa, he caught malaria which would trouble him his for the remainder of his life. After returning to Germany in 1900, he served ashore before becoming second gunnery officer of the battleship Kaiser Wilhelm II. An appointment to the staff of Admiral Prinz Heinrich von Preußen would prove his big break. After receiving high praise and ratings from his superiors, he was promoted to the rank of Korvettenkapitän in December 1908, and assigned to the Reichs-Marine-Amt in Berlin where he impressed Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz.

In command
As a reward, von Müller was given command of the SMS Emden in the Spring of 1913. Soon he achieved fame and notoriety in both the German and other imperial powers' newspapers for initiative and skill in shelling rebellious forts along the Yangtze at Nanjing (or Nanking). He was awarded the Order of the Royal Crown Third Class with Swords.

At the outbreak of World War I, Emden was anchored in the German base at Tsingtao. She departed in the evening of July 31 1914. On August 4 she intercepted and captured the Russian mail steamer Ryazan (Rjasan), the first prize taken by the Imperial German Navy (Or Kaiserliche Marine) of the Great War. Emden then rendezvoused with the Asiatic Squadron of Admiral-Graf (Count) Maximilian von Spee in the Mariana Islands.

It was during a conference at the island of Pagan there, that von Müller proposed a single light cruiser of the squadron be detached to raid Allied commerce in the Indian Ocean while the remainder of von Spee's Squadron continued east across the Pacific. Kapitän von Müller and Emden were given the assignment.

In the following 12 weeks the Emden and von Müller would achieve a reputation for daring and chivalry unequalled by any other German ship or Captain. Von Müller was highly scrupulous about trying to avoid inflicting non-combatant and civilian casualties. While taking fourteen prizes, the only merchant sailors killed by the Emden's guns were victims of a shore bombardment of British oil tanks at the port of Madras, India, despite the precautions von Müller had taken so the line of fire would miss civilian areas of the city. Emden also sank the Russian cruiser Zhemchug and the French destroyer Mosquet during a daring raid on Penang, Malaya.

Defeat and captivity
When the Emden was finally cornered by the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney and defeated by its longer range guns, von Müller with the rest of his surviving crew were captured and taken to Malta. A detachment of the crew which had gone ashore was missed, and escaped to Germany under the leadership of Emden's first officer Kurt von Mücke. On October 8 1916, two days after the German resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, von Müller was separated from the rest of the Emden crew prisoners and taken to England where he was interned at a prisoner of war camp for German Officers located at the Midlands Agricultural and Dairy College (now the Sutton Bonington Campus of the University of Nottingham). In 1917 he led an escape of 21 prisoners through an underground tunnel, but was recaptured. The climate of England disagreed with his malaria, and he was eventually sent to the Netherlands for treatment as part of a humanitarian prisoner exchange. In October 1918 he was repatriated to Germany.

Final years
After some controversy, von Müller was awarded the Pour le Mérite (or Blue Max) and finally promoted to Kapitän zur See. In early 1919, he retired from the Navy on grounds of ill health, and settled in Blankenburg. A modest man, he politely refused requests to write a book detailing his skilful service and gallant exploits.

He was elected to the provincial parliament of Brunswick (Braunschweig) on an anti-class platform as a member of the German National Party. He died there quite suddenly, most likely weakened by frequent malarial bouts, on March 11 1923. Selfless and chivalrous until the end, a major concern of his final years was the welfare of the surviving Emden crew.

Karl von Müller