U 9 Weddigen

As with the silent film THE BATTLE OF SANTIAGO BAY, I really have not seen this film at all, so I will refrain from commenting on it's contents. Instead, I want to take a moment to discuss it's interesting title: U9 WEDDIGEN.

How many people recognize these names: Oswald Boelke, Raoul Luftbery, Rene Fonck, Charles Nungesser, Georges Guyneymer, Albert Ball, Manfried Von Richtofen, Werner Voss, Eddie Rickenbacker, Frank Luke.

I suspect Richtofen and Rickenbacker make people recall the great World War I aviation aces of both sides. They did manage to add a dash or false chivalry to the general slaughterhouse of the war, and they were advancing aviation by twenty years in their personal battles against each other.

Now how about these: Walter Schweiger, Von Trapp, Otto Weddigen.

That is more difficult, although the central name may help. Most of you will think, "Von Trapp" and visualize Christopher Plummer singing "Eidelweiss" while Julie Andrews and the children surround him. And you would be right. But you have to think carefully about the story of THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Remember that Von Trapp has a military background, and he is being ordered by the Nazis (whom he despises) to go to Wilhelmshavn or Bremen for his next orders after the Anschluss. That is why he and the family flee. Also he is called "Captain Von Trapp". In reality Herr Von Trapp was Austria-Hungary's sixth ranking submarine ace (and surviving one) at the end of the First World War. That is why his services are desired by the Third Reich, despite his political dislike of the regime.

Submarines, like airplanes, were a new form of warfare in 1914, and the successes of submarine commanders led the German public to call them aces, like Von Richtofen. Walter Schweiger sank nearly 300,000 tons of allied shipping in World War I, before his death in a submarine disaster in 1917. Schweiger is best/worst remembered for one ship he sank...on May 7, 1915. He torpedoed R.M.S. Lusitania.

And Otto Weddigen - hey, his last name is in the title of this film!

Yeah, it is. Because Otto Weddigen did an amazing thing in September 1914 that no other sub commander ever did, and which all of them (no matter what navy they are in) dream of repeating. In his submarine, U9, he sited three antiquated English light cruisers: H.M.S. Aboukir, H.M.S. Cressy, and H.M.S. Hogue. In rapid succession he sank all three ships, killing 1,400 seamen. Never did a submarine win such a total victory over it's foes. Weddigen's career lasted into 1915, and he received Germany's highest medals for his work. Like Schweiger he died in action when his submarine (not the U9 anymore) was sliced in half by the H.M.S. Dreadnought.

The film's use of his submarine and Weddigen's name was to remind the audience of a major naval victory by Germany at the start of World War I. And since it was off the coast of Holland it is in the North Sea, which was the scene of the major action of the film's plot (as outlined in the previous comment). So the movie title is meant to bring in an audience from Germany (and even from England) that would be more in the know about these matters than we of a later period would.