Showing the Flag: War Cruiser Karlsruhe and Germandom Abroad
SHOWING THE FLAG: WAR CRUISER KARLSRUHE AND GERMANDOM ABROAD Simone Carlota Cezanne De Santiago Ramos, BS, MS, MA Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS August 2013 APPROVED: Robert M. Citino, Major Professor Randolph B. Campbell, Committee Member Olga V. Velikanova, Committee Member GeoffreyWawro, Committee Member Günter Gross, Committee Member Rick McCaslin, Chair of the Department of History Mark Wardell, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School De Santiago Ramos, Simone Carlota Cezanne. Showing the Flag: War Cruiser Karlsruhe and Germandom Abroad. Doctor of Philosophy (History), August 2013, 209 pp., references, 240 titles. In the early 1920s the Weimar Republic commissioned a series of new light cruisers of the Königsberg class and in July 1926, the keel of the later christened Karlsruhe was laid down. The 570 feet long and almost 50 feet wide ship was used as a training cruiser for future German naval officers. Between 1930 and 1936 the ship conducted in all five good-will tours around the world, two under the Weimar Republic and three under the Third Reich. These good-will tours or gute Willen Fahrten were an important first step in reconciling Germany to the rest of the world and were meant to improve international relations. The Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defense carefully orchestrated all stops of the vessels in conjunction with the respective embassies abroad. Final arrangements were made at least six-nine months before the scheduled visits and even small adjustments to the itinerary proved troublesome. Further, all visits were treated as “unofficial presentations.” The mission of the Karlsruhe was twofold: first to extend or renew relations with other nations, and second to foster notions of Heimat and the Germandom (Deutschtum) abroad.
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