The 74 Secret Flags of Ludwig von Reuter

Just before late morning on 21 June 1919, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter raised a secret flag hoist aboard his flagship Emden. One by one, the same coded signal climbed the masts of the other 73 German vessels all anchored around Scapa Flow. What happened next has become a day of Orkney legend.

The ships at anchor were the core of the German High Seas Fleet, interned here after the Armistice of 11 November 1918. Their presence turned Scapa Flow into a vast, floating prison. The fleet had sailed here under the terms of the armistice, pending a final decision on its fate at the peace talks.

For eight months, life aboard the German ships was bleak and monotonous. Crews were confined to their vessels, cut off from Germany, with morale steadily draining away. Coal was rationed, engines lay cold, and food supplies deteriorated. British records and later German accounts confirm that some crews became so short of fresh provisions that they caught and ate seagulls, supplementing meagre rations in an anchorage surrounded by water but starved of supplies.

The uncertainty was deliberate. The Allied powers had not yet decided what to do with the fleet. As negotiations dragged on at Versailles, it became increasingly clear that the ships would never return to Germany. Instead, they would be divided up among the victors or destroyed, taken as war prizes once the Treaty of Versailles was signed. For the German officers, this prospect was deeply humiliating: the fleet that had been built at enormous cost was about to be carved up by its enemies.

It was while reading a British newspaper that von Reuter realised the decision had effectively been made. He believed the armistice deadline was imminent, and feared that once it did, the British would move immediately to seize the ships. Acting without direct orders — and knowing communication with Germany was slow and unreliable — he chose pre-emption. The coded flags were raised, and the scuttling of the High Seas Fleet began.

Deep inside the hulls, German sailors opened sea-cocks and flood valves, systems designed to control ballast and stability. Once opened, there was no stopping the water. Seawater poured in, boiler rooms flooded, and the great steel hulls began to lose buoyancy. The main British guarding squadron was away on exercises, leaving only a reduced force behind, and the scale of what was happening was not immediately grasped.

An eyewitness described the moment vividly:

“Without any warning these huge vessels began to list over, their sterns lifted high out of the water. Out of the vents rushed steam and oil and air with a dreadful roaring hiss.”

By mid-afternoon, the scale of what had happened was unmistakable. Fifty-two ships had been sunk — including battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers, and destroyers — making it the largest deliberate sinking of warships in history. British sailors scrambled to beach or tow a handful of vessels, but most slipped beneath the surface, settling on the seabed of Scapa Flow.

Among the German officers, reactions were complex. Lieutenant Johannes Zaeschmar later wrote:

“It was a sublime and yet so deeply sad feeling to see virtually nothing left of our beautiful fleet.”

Von Reuter himself was unrepentant. In his later account, he framed the act as one of honour rather than defeat:

“Now the German fleet lies on the cold seabed, and in my thoughts I shake the hands of the fine comrades who brought off this last patriotic deed.”