From the arrival of the first soldiers in 1938 to the opening of the Naval NCO School in 1960, Plön and the Ruhleben barracks experienced an eventful history. Excerpts from life between the "capital", boarding school and site of the German Navy.
Christian Senne
Last year, the Naval NCO School was able to look back on its sixtieth anniversary at the Plön site. Since 27 September 1960, non-commissioned officers with and without a commission in the German Navy have been trained here. Prior to this - in the formative years of the German Navy - NCO training had first taken place in Cuxhaven, then in Brake an der Unterweser and from 1957 to 1960 in Eckernförde. With the move of 600 soldiers to the Ruhleben barracks in Plön in the autumn of 1960, the travelling years of the Naval NCO School came to an end. However, the history of the property on Lake Plön, into which the central training centre for non-commissioned officers of the still young German Navy now moved, goes back further into the past.
Greater capacity
The construction of a naval training facility in Plön was largely due to the steady expansion of the navy following the introduction of general conscription on 21 May 1935 and the conclusion of the naval agreement between the German Reich and Great Britain on 18 June 1935. The subsequent expansion of the German fleet, which was pursued with great vigour, resulted in an increased demand for trained marines. The training capacities of the existing naval non-commissioned officer training departments (M.L.A.) in Friedrichsort and Wilhelmshaven were no longer sufficient. Accordingly, the order was issued to create a further training centre for naval non-commissioned officers. The construction plans for the Ruhleben barracks complex for the future III Naval Non-Commissioned Officer Training Centre were drawn up in mid-1936. The development measures such as the clearing of old trees, earthworks and the construction of the sewage system were carried out in the autumn and winter of 1936/37. The first construction phase with the erection of the staff, staff platoon, utility and accommodation buildings was completed in mid-September 1937 with a topping-out ceremony.
Subsequently, the second construction phase with drill hall, boat hall and workshop, officers' mess and other accommodation buildings was also pushed ahead. The topping-out ceremony for this part of the construction project was also held in spring 1938 and the entire facility was ceremoniously handed over to the navy on 31 March. On this occasion, the daily press in Plön carried headlines typical of the time such as: "Plön - naval garrison", "The imperial war flag flies over Plön" or "Plön's day of honour". For many people, the consequences of the National Socialist regime's emerging war policy were not yet foreseeable and were a long way off. They were happy to surrender to the impression of the Reich's regained power, which they were promised by the military ceremonies, the uniforms of the enlisted marines and the new troop flag of the III Naval Non-Commissioned Officer Training Division fluttering in the wind.d
Training in peace for war
The training personnel of the newly established III Naval NCO Training Department in Plön came from the existing locations in Wesermünde and Friedrichsort. This was to ensure a smooth start to the training programme. In addition to theoretical instruction, sports and nautical training were also on the daily schedule. Special priority was given to formal service and practising the march past in order to cut a good figure in front of the representatives of the National Socialist regime at large parades. Accordingly, detachments from the Plön NCO training unit also took part in various major events organised by the Nazi state, such as the Reich Party Congress in Nuremberg in 1938, the parade to mark Hitler's 50th birthday in Berlin and the reception for members of the Condor Legion returning from Spain at the beginning of June 1939.
However, the news of the German invasion of Poland and the start of the Second World War burst into the preparations for participation in the "Peace Party Congress" in 1939. In view of the inferiority of the Kriegsmarine compared to the forces of the Royal Navy at the beginning of the war, the Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, had noted both pessimistically and cynically: "The surface forces, however, are still so small in number and strength compared to the British fleet that - assuming full commitment - they can only show that they know how to die with decency and are thus willing to create the basis for a later reconstruction."
Submarine training department
After the start of the war, the M.L.A. Plön initially served as an assembly centre for the crews of the auxiliary cruisers to be commissioned. In February 1940, however, the III. naval non-commissioned officer training division was disbanded and the submarine training division (U.A.A.) was set up at the Plön site. The U.A.A. was consistently filled with around 600 course participants, the majority of whom were non-commissioned officers and enlisted men. The soldiers only received supplementary training in Plön, as they arrived here already trained for their missions from the submarine training divisions and were just waiting to be assigned to a new front-line submarine. Although the U-boat force suffered a significant increase in losses, especially from 1943 onwards, the influx of volunteers and their desire to serve on a submarine remained seemingly unbroken.
Nevertheless, the dramatic nature of the worsening war situation in the navy was illustrated by the fact that from the beginning of 1944, the so-called small combat units were deployed under the leadership of Rear Admiral Hellmuth Heye. A test centre for explosive boats was set up in the Ruhleben barracks under the camouflage designation Lager Netzkoppel. These blasting boats, known as "lenses", were around six metres long and were to be steered by a "driver" until close to the target. After the soldier jumped off, the boats were then supposed to destroy the enemy by hitting the target. The explosive boats were used on the invasion front in Normandy, in the English Channel and finally in March 1945 during an attack on Soviet engineer bridges on the Oder.
Inspection of the blasting boats in autumn 1944
End of the war
In the final phase of the Second World War, Plön and the Ruhleben barracks briefly became the centre of attention. Since the beginning of April 1945, parts of the naval command had already moved from Sengwarden to Plön. They were followed on 22 April by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz and his staff from Berlin. On Hitler's instructions, he was to assume command in the north. Dönitz and his staff then moved into the barracks of the so-called Forelle temporary quarters not far from the Ruhleben barracks - after the Second World War, the Fünf-Seen-Kaserne (Five Lakes Barracks) was built on the former site in today's Stadtheide district, which then housed the Pioneer Battalion 6 until 1996. With the arrival of Dönitz and Hitler's suicide on 30 April 1945 in Berlin, which was surrounded by Red Army troops, Plön became the "capital" of the Third Reich for a few days as it sank into ruins. Fleeing from the approaching British troops, Dönitz and his imperial government made their way to Flensburg-Mürwik, where he was finally arrested on 23 May 1945.
Meanwhile, the first British units reached Plön on 4 May. However, the formal handover of the Ruhleben barracks to the victorious forces did not take place until three days later. The Second World War thus ended in Plön and the post-war period began just two days before the unconditional surrender of the German Reich on 8 May 1945, which was signed in Berlin-Karlshorst by the representatives of the three branches of the armed forces, Colonel General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff for the Air Force, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel for the High Command of the Wehrmacht and the Army and Admiral General Hans-Georg von Friedeburg for the Navy.
Under the British flag
From the summer of 1945, the Ruhleben barracks, which was now known as Connaught Barracks for the next few years, served as the headquarters of the 8th British Corps, to which all occupying troops stationed in Schleswig-Holstein were subordinate. In spring 1948, this staff unit was relocated from Plön to Luisenlund. After the withdrawal of the British soldiers, a British boarding school was set up in the Ruhleben naval barracks, which was given the name King Alfred School. Between 1948 and 1959, around 600 children of members of the British Army of the Rhine lived and learnt here. The school was built in the style of a comprehensive school - in the same way as a German comprehensive school. In addition to the British teachers, a small number of German teachers also taught at King Alfred School. The boarding school maintained an intensive exchange with the German population through reciprocal visits and invitations - for example, the pupils' theatre performances were also open to the people of Plön. The use of the barracks as a school also prompted a series of conversions to the existing buildings as well as new buildings. For example, an Anglican church was built in the southern part of the barracks complex from a larger so-called Nissenhütte. Even today, the former St George's Chapel building and today's auditorium of the Naval NCO School, whose outer shell is made of corrugated iron segments, still serves as a venue for larger events as well as a place of worship. The King Alfred School was finally closed in 1959, as the number of schoolchildren was also reduced due to the decline in the number of British occupying forces in Germany. The Windsor Girls' School then moved into the barracks for just under six months, until this educational institution was also relocated from Plön to Hamm in Westphalia at the beginning of 1960.
Dönitz (from left) visiting Plön in 1944
Travelling years
With the formation of the Bundeswehr on 12 November 1955 and the start of training for non-commissioned officers in the German Navy soon after, training facilities became necessary. In view of the fact that most of the existing barracks facilities from the war and pre-war period were still being used by the Allied occupation forces, replacement solutions had to be found first - the so-called "Wanderjahre" (travelling years) were one consequence. On 26 May 1956, the first Minister of Defence of the Federal Republic of Germany, Theodor Blank, ordered the establishment of the Naval NCO School on 1 July 1956 at the Cuxhaven site.
The MUS was initially tasked with conducting induction training courses for newly recruited non-commissioned officers and enlisted men from 1 August 1956. General military non-commissioned officer courses were then to follow from 1 November. The training content of the induction courses at this time included instruction on the legal foundations of the newly established Bundeswehr, the provisions on superior officer relationships, the salute regulations and orientation on the structure and organisation of the armed forces. Training guidelines and the methodology of training were also part of the MUS curriculum in Cuxhaven. And, as the first commander of the MUS, Captain Wolfgang Erhardt, recalled, despite many difficulties, "[...] everyone was happy and enthusiastic. We often worked, planned and prepared well into the night. The enthusiasm carried the instructors and those being instructed on a wave of optimism that they could contribute to the start of a new navy." While the induction courses described above continued for some time in the Grimmershörn barracks in Cuxhaven, the MUS moved its main base to Brake an der Unterweser in the Brommy barracks there on 15 October 1956. The first military mates course began here on 1 November 1956 with 250 course participants.
This was followed on 1 May 1957 by the first military boatswain's course with 50 petty officer students. These courses were scheduled to last three months. At the end of November 1957, the Naval NCO School moved again from Brake to Eckernförde. With regard to the character of the initial training at MUS Carlshöhe in Eckernförde, the then commander and later naval captain Franz-Georg Reschke recalled: "As there were no new guidelines or focal points, we carried out the training according to our own ideas, drawing heavily on experience from the navy. According to the judgement of the naval training command in Kiel under Admiral Erhardt, we were also right. Even in my time, formal service was only second to general education." In addition to the ongoing teaching and training programme, the MUS also welcomed numerous visitors during this time. These included military attachés and diplomats, members of the Bundestag, NATO officers and representatives of the army and air force. The two other branches of the German Armed Forces, which are constantly being reorganised, were keen to model their NCO training on that of the Navy. With this in mind, the focus of the training was "... to make clear the connections between the constitution of the state and the constitution of the armed forces in order to be able to correctly interpret the meaning and purpose of command and obedience.
It was also important to make our social order understandable as being worth defending in order to clearly demonstrate the necessity of the Bundeswehr and its actual mission ...", as Captain August Hoepner, who commanded the MUS from 1 April to 22 November 1959, said in retrospect.
Reopening of the MUS after the war
MUS or European School
Since the beginning of 1958, when it became known that the British would be vacating the Ruhleben barracks in Plön, the navy had been trying to find a site for its non-commissioned officer training programme. For some time, however, this idea competed with the idea of establishing a European school in Plön-Ruhleben as a successor to the British boarding school. This temporary plan was based on the founding of the European Economic Community (EEC) with the conclusion of the Treaty of Rome on 25 March 1957. Based on this political initiative of European unification, the first German President Theodor Heuss suggested the idea of establishing European schools in the participating countries.
Although Edo Osterloh, the Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs of the state of Schleswig-Holstein at the time, supported the head of state's idea, he was ultimately unable to prevail against the German Navy's claim to re-establish the central training centre for its junior non-commissioned officers in Plön. After the British had vacated the Ruhleben barracks in the meantime, the way was now clear to return the barracks to its original purpose as a training centre for the navy's junior NCOs. On 14 July 1960, the Federal Minister of Defence, Franz Josef Strauß, issued the order to relocate the naval NCO school from Eckernförde to Plön. With the arrival of the first soldiers of the German Navy on 27 September 1960, Plön once again became a naval base. The daily press reported on this event much more soberly than 22 years previously. One of the headlines read: "Navy in Plön-Ruhleben again".
Senior instructor Christian Senne is a specialist teacher of historical and political education at the Naval NCO School and head of the military history teaching collection.
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The Military History Teaching Collection of the Naval NCO School was established in 1994 on the grounds of the Ruhleben barracks and has been a modern museum teaching and learning centre since its reopening in 2016. The focus is on German naval history from 1848 to the present day, with a special focus on over 170 years of NCO training in German navies. The aim is for every prospective non-commissioned officer in the navy to visit this teaching collection as part of their training and gain fundamental insights into tradition and change, but also into the particular continuities and breaks in German history. The offer is complemented and rounded off by the regional exhibition opened in 2015, in which the now 60 years of NCO training of the Federal and German Navy in the Ruhleben barracks as well as the history of the Bundeswehr base in Plön, which until 1996 was also home to the Fünf-Seen-Kaserne (Five Lakes Barracks), which was primarily used by the Pioneer Force, are particularly honoured.
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