Karl von Müller

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For other people with Karl and Müller, see Karl Müller.
Karl von Müller
SMS Emden
Battles/warsSecond Chinese Revolution
First World War
AwardsIron Cross 1st class
Pour le Mérite

Karl Friedrich Max von Müller (16 June 1873 – 11 March 1923) was a German naval officer who was the captain of a commerce raider, the light cruiser SMS Emden during the First World War.

Early life and career

The son of a colonel in the

German Imperial Navy at Easter 1891. He served first on the training ship SMS Stosch, then on the training ship Gneisenau on a voyage to the Americas. He became signal lieutenant of the old ironclad SMS Baden (1880) in October 1894, and later transferred in the same capacity to her sister ship Sachsen
.

Müller was promoted to Oberleutnant zur See and posted to the unprotected cruiser Schwalbe. During Schwalbe's deployment to German East Africa, he caught malaria, which troubled him for the remainder of his life.

After returning to Germany in 1900, Müller served on shore before becoming second gunnery officer of the

Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz
.

In command

As a reward for his admiralty work in Berlin, Müller was given command of the

Nanking. He was awarded the Order of the Royal Crown
(Third Class) with Swords.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Emden was anchored in the German base at Qingdao. She steamed out to sea on the evening of 31 July 1914, and on 4 August she intercepted and captured the Russian mail steamer Ryazan, the first prize taken by the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) in the Great War. Emden then made rendezvous with the East Asia Squadron of Admiral Count Maximilian von Spee in the Mariana Islands.

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

In the following twelve weeks Emden and Müller achieved a reputation for daring and chivalry unequaled by any other German ship or captain. Müller was highly scrupulous about trying to avoid inflicting non-combatant and civilian casualties. While taking fourteen prizes, the only merchant sailors killed by Emden's guns were five victims of a

Sabang, Sumatra, in the neutral Dutch East Indies
.

Defeat and captivity

Further information: Battle of Cocos

When Emden sent a landing party ashore to destroy a radio station at Port Refuge in the

Sutton Bonington Campus of the University of Nottingham). In 1917 he led an escape of 21 prisoners through a 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 exchange of prisoners. In October 1918, a month before the armistice, he was repatriated to Germany.

Kapitan v. Müller Street in Hanover

Final years

Müller was awarded the

Blankenburg. He politely refused to write a book detailing his war service and exploits. He was elected to the state parliament of the Free State of Brunswick on an anti-class platform as a member of the German National People's Party
. He died at Brunswick suddenly, probably weakened by frequent malarial bouts, on 11 March 1923.

References and links
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