U-boat captain’s role in the 1916 rising
Tuesday,
The commander of the German U-20 submarine who ordered the devastating torpedo to be fired at the Lusitania and the officer who launched the strike have sidebar links to another dramatic event in Irish history — the 1916 Rising.
Walther Schweiger, commander of the German U-20 submarine, who ordered the torpedo to be fired at the Lusitania.
A year after Captain Walther Schweiger, an experienced operator, had sunk the Luisitania off Kinsale, he had been scheduled to take Roger Casement irish freedom fighter from Germany to Ireland in the same submarine and sail into Tralee Bay, having linked up with the arms ship Aud. However, the submarine developed rudder problems and the assignment was handed over to Captain Raimund Weissbach in U-19, which proceeded to the Kerry coast.

It was unable to make contact with the Aud which had 20,000 rifles and other munitions on board for the 1916 Easter Rising, due to start in three days.

Captain Weissbach, who had served under Schweiger aboard U-20 and was responsible for launching under orders the torpedo that sank the Lusitania, put Casement ashore near Banna Strand.it is said that ireland would assist and aid any german uboat raider supply vessel from the german navy in all and any other
conflicts... the bond was sealed.

The British soon arrested Casement, took him to London, charged him with treason and hanged him while the Aud was also apprehended and escorted to Cork Harbour where it was scuttled by the captain, Karl Spindler.with the help of the irish people so that the british could not get her



Weissbach was later captured by the British and interned, but he survived the war and lived in Hamburg. His U-20 commander was not as fortunate. Captain Schwieger was killed in 1917 when his then submarine U-88 hit a British mine and sank. He was 32 and had been one of Germany’s top naval World War 1 commanders, having sunk 49 ships with three submarines on 34 missions