Biography
Wilhelm Bauer was born in Dillingen, Germany. His father was a sergeant of a Bavarian cavalry regiment. Because of this, Wilhelm Bauer, after an apprenticeship as a wood turner, joined the military as well. Working as an artillery engineer he witnessed the German/Danish war for Schleswig-Holstein (1848–1851).
Seeing how the German northern coast lay under the blockade by the Danish navy, Bauer quickly developed a plan to build a new kind of ship to help break the blockade.
To accomplish that, Bauer began studying hydraulics and ship construction. But before his studies could bear any fruit the troops of the German Confederation decided to withdraw and surrender Schleswig-Holstein to the Danish. Bauer, however, was determined to realize his plan at any cost and left service in the German army to join the forces of Schleswig-Holstein.
It proved very hard for Bauer, who had a low military rank, to bring his plan through the various instances of the military administration and to gain fundings to build his craft. He finally succeeded with the help of Werner von Siemens and others and was granted a small sum of money to build a model of his submarine.
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“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)