SMS Emden (1908) - Epilogue

Epilogue

Müller had the Iron Cross First Class bestowed upon him by Kaiser Wilhelm II. In fact, every officer serving on the Emden was awarded the Iron Cross First Class and 50 crewmen were given the Iron Cross Second Class. He was later moved to England while his men remained in captivity on Malta, until November 1919. In October 1918, Müller was released early as part of a prisoner exchange. Returning home to Germany, he was presented with the Pour le Merite, promoted to Kapitän zur See and later retired from the navy due to ill-health. He died suddenly on 11 March 1923.

As a signal mark of honour, the Government of Germany allowed all of the surviving officers and men to suffix the word 'Emden' to their names (an inheritable honour); the honour is remembered to this day in the form of the numerous 'X-Emdens' amongst German citizens still extant. This does not, however, represent an ennobling, as it was, in practice, done after the war, when the 'Emdenfahrer' ('Emden voyagers') were repatriated and Nobility had lost its official status in Germany (whether Wilhelm II issued such an order while still on the throne, is not conclusively known). According to the Almanach de Gotha, Volume I (2000), one of them was Franz Joseph, Prince of Hohenzollern-Emden (1891–1964).

Lieutenant von Mücke and his landing party made for Padang on Sumatra, in the neutral Dutch East Indies, where they rendezvoused with a German merchant vessel on 13 December 1914. The party reached Hodeida in the Ottoman Empire province of North Yemen, from where they undertook an epic overland journey under constant harassment before arriving at Constantinople on 5 May 1915. From there, they travelled overland to Germany.

The captured German sailors were transferred to Singapore, which at that stage was only garrisoned by the 5th Indian Light Infantry Regiment and some Malay States Guides. On 15 February 1915, nearly eight hundred and fifty men of the 5th Light Infantry mutinied, along with nearly a hundred men of the Malay States Guides. This revolt lasted almost seven days, and resulted in the deaths of 47 British soldiers and local civilians. The mutineers also released the interned crew of the SMS Emden, who were asked by the mutineers to join them but they refused and actually took up arms to defend the barracks after the mutineers had left (sheltering some British refuges as well), until the prison camp was relieved. The mutineers went on the rampage in Keppel Harbour. The mutiny was quickly suppressed by loyal police (mainly Sikhs) and sailors from ships in port. The press reported that at least one Emden officer, Lieutenant Lauterbach, used the confusion of the mutiny to make good an escape. However, in an account given to an American journalist Lauterbach denied inciting the native troops against the British and argued the escape occurred via tunnelling after the "revolution" had been "settled". (For a more thorough analysis of the mutiny itself see the Hindu-German Conspiracy page).

The mascot of the Emden, a 12 cm (4.7 in) bronze figure of a woman, was presented to Sir John Hope Simpson, then acting commander of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. A shell from the ship can be seen in the Madras city museum.

Three of Emden's main guns and their mountings were recovered from the wreck, two with shields and one without. In 1917 a 10.5 cm (4.1 in) gun from the Emden was installed as a monument in Sydney's Hyde Park. Another is on display in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, alongside a projected video map of the engagement. The third gun had been on outdoor display at HMAS Penguin since the 1950s, until a restoration was undertaken in 2010 by the Royal Australian Navy's Fleet Support Unit - Sydney which refurbished and repainted the gun in the original 1914 German paint scheme. The gun was then put on display at the Royal Australian Navy Heritage Centre on Garden Island.

The ship's whistle was salvaged and given to General Sir John Monash who, as chairman of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV) in 1928, had it installed as the siren at the new Yallourn Power Station. Audible across the area, it signalled shift changes, breaks and emergencies until Yallourn was shut down and the whistle was donated by the SECV to a local museum in 1980.

The wreck itself remained but scattered over time.

Since the destruction of the Emden in 1914, four other warships of the German navy have received the same name.

• The second Emden was a light cruiser built in 1916. She was beached at Scapa Flow in 1919, when much of the High Seas Fleet was scuttled, and was given over to the French Navy who eventually scrapped her in 1926.
• The third Emden was a light cruiser built in 1925. She was the first new warship built in Germany after World War I, and mostly served as a training ship until scuttled in May 1945.
• The fourth Emden was a Köln class frigate of 1959, which was sold to the Turkish Navy in 1983. An engine room fire in 1989 took her out of service and she was scrapped in 1994.
• The latest Emden is a Bremen class frigate that was commissioned in 1983 and is still in service with the German Navy.

As Kaiser Wilhelm II also awarded the Iron Cross to the ship herself (the only other instance being SM U-9), the four later Emdens have all carried large symbols of this medal on their bows or forecastles.

SMS Emden has been a part of the Malayalam vocabulary as "emenden", roughly translated means 'great'. Fear of the ship's prowess had amazed the people of the Malabar Coast during the First World War, even though SMS Emden never attacked the Malabar Coast.

Two German films Our Emden (1926) and Cruiser Emden (1932) were made about the warship, both directed by Louis Ralph.