Born on 15 September 1882 at Herford and died 18 March 1915 in the Pentland Firth. Despite is youth an experienced submarine officer which was serving in the Imperial German navy since 1901. Before the war he commanded the U-4, U-3 and U-5 and since 1 October 1911 the U-9.
He commanded in the First World War the submarine U 9 between 1 August 1914 and 11 January 1915 and next the U-29 between 16 February 1915 until she was on 18 March 1915 destroyed by the British HMS Dreadnought by ramming. On 22 September 1914 he destroyed the three British armoured cruisers HMS Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy costing the lives of 62 officers and 1.397 sailors.
