POINT OF INTEREST

Marineschule Mürwik

Kelmstraße 14, 24944 Flensburg

Today, the “Red Castle” on the eastern side of the Flensburg Fjord is a building that impresses many visitors to Flensburg. It is indeed well worth visiting the naval school, which was built between 1907 and 1910, when it is open to the public on “Heritage Day”. It was after all involved in key political events in the last 100 years.

At the end of 1910, Emperor Wilhelm II personally opened the Mürwik Naval Academy. The German Empire thereby demonstrated its claim to power in the previously Danish region. After World War I, the academy fell into disrepair until members of the English infantry regiment, the Sherwood Foresters, occupied the site on 14 March 1920 to monitor the plebiscite to determine the new border between Denmark and Germany according to the will of the people. The infantry regiment gave support to the International Commission (CIS) in the à police headquarters. During the referendum, German soldiers had to leave the city and naval academy, as they were not allowed to vote[1]. At the end of April 1945, Grand Admiral Dönitz, Hitler’s successor, moved the provisional government to the Naval Academy. He himself arrived in the night from 2 to 3 May and took up residence on the ex-passenger ship “Patria”. This had fatal consequences. Fearing a concentration of troops, the Allies ordered bombing raids. These claimed the lives of dozens of people in the city, in which thousands of refugees and displaced persons had gathered[2]. From the Naval Academy, Dönitz conducted the negotiations that led to the unconditional surrender on 8 May 1045. However, he also ordered the shooting of alleged à deserters[3] after summary court martials and helped members of the SS obtain false papers that enabled them to go underground. After the surrender, Dönitz governed the special district of Mürwik, the remains of the German Empire, up to his arrest on 23 May 1945 by British troops. After World War II, the complex was used for a variety of purposes, for example as a teacher training college, and for a long time former Nazi teachers taught there. The Mürwik Naval Academy, which suffered no damage during the war and which is now protected as a building of historic importance, is once again a military training establishment under the command of the navy in Rostock[4].