Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy

6. Interim, 1889–1891

69 Family Life to 1914 Late in 1883 or early in 1884, while Tirpitz struggled with the complexities of torpedoes and torpedo boats, the thirty-four-year-old officer fell in love. The young lady, Marie Lipke, was a fetching twenty-three year old from a wealthy bourgeois family. By early 1884 they were engaged. Their correspondence at the time shows Tirpitz as the eager suitor. “How much I love you and desire you . . . do you feel this desire at least a little bit?” Marie fretted that Alfred might find her boring.1 They married on 18 November 1884 at the Garrison Church in Berlin.2 After a happy and protracted honeymoon they lived in Kiel in a house subsidized by Gustav Lipke, Marie’s father.3 Marriage for a naval officer was a complicated business. The groom needed imperial marriage consent (Allerhöchsten Konsens), for reasons both financial and social. Officers needed enough money to support a family, lest they be overwhelmed with debt. Brides, too, had to have financial means, and a wife with low social status was considered unsuitable. The practical effect of such rules was to prevent officers ranked below lieutenant from marrying. Young officers searched for wealthy, socially acceptable young women so actively that, in 1894, the Marine Kabinett censured officers for advertising in the newspapers for a suitable match. Although there were no written rules, young officers were discouraged from seeking Jewish wives, even if the latter were financially and socially suitable.4 Commander Tirpitz’s family was wealthy and prominent enough to clear these hurdles. Marie Lipke was a baptized Protestant, born in 6 Interim, 1889–1891 70 Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy West Prussia in 1860. Her mother was Karoline Rothpletz, daughter of a rich Swiss/Baden family. Gustav Lipke was born in 1820 in Berlin to a wealthy, assimilated Jewish banking and business family. At eighteen he converted to Protestantism. He attended Gymnasium and the University of Berlin. He was a lawyer who had served in the Prussian Diet (1873–1879) and in the Imperial Reichstag (1878–1881). He was a liberal ally of Carl Twesten and an opponent of Bismarck. He was a very successful man, both through inheritance and his own enterprise. Marie Lipke was quite a catch for a rising and ambitious officer. Only by later Nazi standards, unimaginable in 1884, would she be considered half-Jewish; nevertheless, Gustav’s Jewish origins seem to have been a closely held family secret. It is not even certain that Tirpitz himself knew about it, although given his relatively tolerant religious views it might not have made any difference.5 Early in the marriage, Marie had political opinions of her own. Unlike her husband, Marie was no great admirer of Bismarck, to the point that Tirpitz gently chided her with the appellation “my darling democrat” (mein geliebter Demokrat).6 After her father’s death, and particularly once Tirpitz himself became engaged in politics, their friendly differences vanished. If one can judge by their correspondence, the marriage seems to have been happy. Children followed quickly. Ilse, Tirpitz’s favorite, was born in 1885, eleven months after the wedding. Wolfgang (1887), Margot (1888), and Max (1893) followed. In 1892 the family moved to Berlin. In 1897, when Tirpitz became State Secretary of the RMA, the family moved into the spacious official residence on Leipzigerplatz. Until his dismissal in 1916 Tirpitz lived adjacent to his office. Time and mischance took a toll on the family. Mother Malwine died in 1890 at the age of seventy-five. Rudolf lived on until 1905. He died, hale and hearty almost to the end, at ninety-four. Brother Max died after a riding accident in 1892. In 1889 Gustav Lipke died of injuries after he was hit by a beer wagon in Berlin.7 Upon his death, Marie inherited a very large sum.8 Tirpitz, perhaps through Marie’s maternal relatives, became friendly with the Grand Duke and Duchess of Baden who, in the late 1890s, gave him a plot of land on the side of a hill overlooking the small and lovely Black Forest spa of St. Blasien. Tirpitz built a comfortable home there, which still stands. Its most striking feature is a broad, wraparound porch, Interim, 1889–1891 71 from which one can view the town and its scenic valley. Once Tirpitz became State Secretary, St. Blasien served as the family’s vacation...