Propaganda for the youth

At the beginning of the First World War, the small cruiser "Emden" was roaming the waters of Asia. After its sinking, Lieutenant Captain Hellmuth von Mücke led the crew back home in an adventurous way.

During his lifetime, he rivalled the legendary "Seeteufel" Felix Graf von Luckner in popularity, and his experiences were filmed for television and cinema in 2012 by Berengar Pfahl under the title "Die Männer der Emden": Kapitänleutnant Hellmuth von Mücke. Born on 25 June 1881 in Zwickau, like Count Luckner and Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, he was one of the heroic figures of imperial Germany. The response to his odyssey in the domestic and foreign press was correspondingly great. Mücke could hardly have dreamed of such a development himself. When he left the port of Tsingtau (Qingdao, former capital of the German leased territory of Kiautschou) on board the small cruiser "Emden" on 2 August 1914 to take part as second officer in a privateer voyage on supply convoys in the Indian Ocean, it was actually a diversionary manoeuvre intended to cover the withdrawal of Vice-Admiral Maximilian von Spee's East Asia Squadron. Subsequently, however, the "Emden's" high seas piracy developed so successfully that within two months not only 16 British freighters and seven other ships were captured by her, but also British oil depots in Madras, and finally a Russian cruiser and a French torpedo boat destroyer in the Malaysian harbour of Penang fell victim to the cruiser.