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22-522: Kaiserliche Werften were government-owned shipyards which were responsible for the construction and repair of warships of the Prussian Navy from 1871 to 1920. They were also responsible for the design and construction of a small number of aircraft for the German Navy during World War I There were three Kaiserliche Werften: Prussian Navy The Prussian Navy was created in 1701 from

44-499: A blue-water navy . The Elector designated navigation and commerce as the most significant undertakings of his state, and strove energetically to acquire overseas colonies and become involved in the Atlantic slave trade ; as such, a powerful navy was needed to defend these interests. However, his grandson Frederick William I held little interest in colonial affairs or maintaining a powerful navy, preferring to expend state revenues on

66-662: A foundation named the Preußische Seehandlung (roughly translated as Prussian Maritime Enterprise ). After the end of the Napoleonic Wars , Prussia slowly began to build its own small fleet for coastal defense. Again, more value was placed on the development of a merchant fleet than on a navy. In this connection, the Prussian Maritime Enterprise played a significant role. Its ships were armed to protect against pirates and flew

88-782: The Reichsmarine (Reich Navy) and later the Kriegsmarine (War Navy), until at the end of World War II , it faced its own end. Emden Company The Emden Company was a Prussian trading company which was established on 24 May 1751 to trade primarily with the city of Canton in China . Its full name was the Royal Prussian Asiatic Company in Emden to Canton and China ( Königlich Preußische Asiatische Compagnie in Emden nach Canton und China ), but it

110-922: The Austro-Prussian War of 1866, the North German states had allied under Prussian leadership as the North German Confederation . Out of the Prussian Navy grew the North German Federal Navy , which after the Franco-Prussian War changed its name again to become the Imperial Navy of the new German Empire. Even though Prussia consistently understood itself as a continental land power, its rise and fall were closely bound up with

132-795: The Invasion of Hanover . After the end of the war, Frederick dissolved the company in 1765. Simms, Brendan. Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire . Penguin Books, 2008. Suebsman, Daniel. 'Chinese porcelain shipped by the Royal Prussian Asian Company of Emden. 1753-1756', in: Have a Cup of Tea! Chinese Porcelain and Tea in North-West Germany , Ostfriesisches Landesmuseum Emden, 2015. This East Frisia article

154-617: The Prussian Army . In 1721, Frederick I sold the Brandenburger Gold Coast to the Dutch West India Company for 7,200 ducats and 12 African slaves, marking the end for any need by Prussia for a blue-water navy; the Prussian Navy subsequently dwindled in size. The Prussian kings of the 18th century had little interest in maintaining their own navy. Due to the state's continental position and

176-509: The Prussian Army . The Prussian Navy was dissolved in 1867 when Prussia joined the North German Confederation , and its naval forces were absorbed into the North German Federal Navy . The Electorate of Brandenburg , the predecessor of the Kingdom of Prussia , possessed its own navy , which was founded in the 16th century. From 1657 onwards, under Elector Frederick William (the "Great Elector"), Brandenburg's naval forces were developed into

198-911: The Seven Years' War . This embryonic fleet lost the battle of Frisches Haff in September 1759 to a Swedish naval force. The Prussians lost all ships and as a consequence the Swedes occupied Usedom and Wollin . However, the ships were replaced already in 1760, and the new flotilla served until the end of the war in 1763. Even so, the Prussian monarch wanted to take part in international maritime commerce and therefore founded several trading firms (with varying success). The Emden Company (officially, Royal Prussian Asiatic Company in Emden to Canton and China) operated four ships from 1751 to 1757. The Societé de Commerce maritime , founded in 1772, exists today as

220-561: The 1848-1852 war against Denmark did Prussia recognize the necessity of having at least a minimal naval force to protect maritime interests. But after only 15 years, Prussia handed over its young naval forces to the rising centralized German state, an act which would have been unthinkable for the Prussian Army. The Navy was handed over first to the North German Confederation and in 1871, as the Imperial Navy , to

242-712: The Netherlands remained neutral and Denmark became the enemy. Within a few days, the Danish Navy halted all German maritime trade in the North and Baltic Seas. The navy of Austria , Prussia's ally, lay in the Mediterranean and was able to intervene only later in the war. After the failure of the Revolutions of 1848, Adalbert was able to resume his plans for the establishment of a Prussian Navy. He began with

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264-560: The Prussian war ensign . This protective fleet existed until around 1850. One of the first to work for the development of a Prussian Navy was Prince Adalbert of Prussia . He had made a number of journeys abroad and recognized the value of a fleet to support commercial interests and to protect one's own navigation. During the Revolutionary era of 1848–1852 , at the behest of the Frankfurt National Assembly ,

286-490: The construction of warships and naval education and training. From the middle of the 1850s, one could find Prussian corvettes and frigates upon all the world's seas. Besides Prince Adalbert, other important figures of this early period were Prussian naval officers Karl Rudolf Brommy and Ludwig von Henk , who eventually became an admiral in the Imperial German Navy. At the same time, the first naval base

308-474: The day of foundation. One of the major shareholders was the banking and trading house Splitgerber & Daumin Berlin. The company had a capital of 861,000 thalers in 1752, distributed over 1,722 shares. Although the small company was very successful, never losing any of its four ships, the business was destroyed by the outbreak of the Seven Years' War and the occupation of Emden by French troops in 1757 during

330-699: The destiny of the Brandenburger-Prussian-German naval forces. It was the ambitious appearance of the Great Elector who prepared Brandenburg's elevation as the Kingdom of Prussia. At that time, sea power and colonies were among the essential attributes of a European power; such attributes also obviously belonged to smaller and middling powers such as Denmark and the Netherlands. For 150 years Prussia — unlike all other European powers — declined to develop its own navy. Not until

352-522: The former Brandenburg Navy upon the dissolution of Brandenburg-Prussia , the personal union of Brandenburg and Prussia under the House of Hohenzollern , after the elevation of Frederick I from Duke of Prussia to King in Prussia . The Prussian Navy fought in several wars but was active mainly as a merchant navy throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, as Prussia's military consistently concentrated on

374-667: The great fleets of Britain , France , the Dutch Republic , Spain , Sweden , Denmark , and Russia ; with their few ships, the Prussians would always remain behind those great maritime nations. He believed that naval battles would only rarely decide a conflict and preferred having the best army in Europe rather than the worst fleet among the naval powers. Prussia nevertheless built up a small naval force of 13 makeshift warships (mixing of Galleys , Galiots and Gunboat ) during

396-454: The lack of easily defensible natural borders, Prussia had to concentrate its military preparations on the army . Besides this, the kingdom was able to rely on its many friendly connections with the neighboring naval powers of Denmark and the Netherlands. Frederick II ("the Great") took the view that Prussia should never seek to develop its own war fleet. The kingdom could never hope to equal

418-604: The new German Empire. The naval preference of the last Prussian king, German Emperor Wilhelm II , prepared the end of the Prussian monarchy. The German naval buildup of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was one of the causes of World War I ; and it was the mutinying sailors of the High Seas Fleet who forced the abdication of the Emperor during the German Revolution of 1918–1919 . The Navy continued as

440-522: The prince was given the responsibility of reestablishing an Imperial Fleet ( Reichsflotte ) -- a mission which the revolutionary parliament had undertaken in the face of the war with Denmark. The German Confederation possessed practically no fleet of its own, but relied upon the allied powers of Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Denmark. During the First War of Schleswig of 1848–1851, the failure of this strategy became clear because Great Britain and

462-724: Was established on the North Sea . In the Jade Treaty ( Jade-Vertrag ) of 1853, the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg ceded to Prussia the so-called Jade District. Here, in the following years, arose the great naval port which received the name Wilhelmshaven in 1869. By that time, the Prussian Navy had already ceased to exist. In 1864 Prussian seamen, with some help from Austria, fought numerically superior Danish Navy again in Jasmund and Heligoland , but without much success. After

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484-627: Was generally known by the shorter name. The company was made possible by the Prussian annexation of the port of Emden in 1744. This gave the Prussians a North Sea port. Frederick the Great established the company hoping to give Prussia a share of the valuable Asian trade similar to the British East India Company or the Dutch East India Company . There was great interest in the shares and 482 shares of 500 thaler (241,000 thaler in total) were subscribed on

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