Der verheerende Unfall auf dem Linienschiff Brandenburg am 16. Februar 1894: technische Ursachen und gerichtliche Ahndung

Abstract

On 16 February 1894, during a trial run on the "Brandenburg", the new battleship of the Imperial Navy, a severe accident occurred, claiming forty-four lives from among the members of the navy and the shipyard workers. The accident resulted from a number of construction and assembly errors on the war vessel’s starboard engine. Due to the fact that it was the Vulcan Shipyard in Bredow near Stettin - the shipyard in which the vessel had been constructed - that was responsible for the errors, the legal proceedings on charges of involuntary manslaughter of so many persons on board a warship were carried out before civil court. The article is concerned with providing a clear explanation of the actual technical causes of the disaster as well as with what was ultimately an unsatisfactory process of legal prosecution with regard to the accident. Even though the Prussian minister of justice Schönstedt - who was new in office at the time - made an effort to have as many employees of the responsible shipyard sentenced, it ultimately never proved possible to clarify the question of guilt in court. Emperor William II finally put an end to this unfortunate chapter in the history of German shipbuilding with an act of pardon in 1897.