William Michaelis

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (January 2010) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:William Michaelis]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|de|William Michaelis}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

William Otto Ernst Michaelis
Birth name	William Otto Ernst Michaelis
Born	(1871-07-19)19 July 1871 Bischofsburg, East Prussia
Died	5 January 1948(1948-01-05) (aged 76) Putbus, Rügen
Allegiance	German Empire  Weimar Republic
Service / branch	Imperial German Navy  Reichsmarine
Years of service	1889–1920
Rank	Vizeadmiral
Commands	Thüringen
Battles / wars	World War I

William Otto Ernst Michaelis (19 July 1871 – 5 January 1948) was a German viceadmiral and head of the Naval Command within the Ministry of the Reichswehr in the Weimar Republic.

Michaelis was born in Bischofsburg in the Province of Prussia to a civil engineer, he graduated from high school with a first. He entered the Imperial German Navy as a Seeoffizieranwärter in April 1889 and was promoted to Unterleutnant zur See (equivalent to ensign) in 1892. He served at the rank of Unterleutnant zur See from 1900 to 1902 as a deck officer and commander with the 1st Torpedo Boat Division in Kiel. He also attended Kiel's Naval Academy from 1900 to 1902, leading to service with the Reichsmarineamt (RMA) as a head of department and with the Admiralty Staff. He then served as first officer of a capital ship then as staff officer to the admiral of a squadron. From 4 February 1915 through 28 January 1916 he served as chief of staff to the Commander of the High Seas Fleet, Admiral Hugo von Pohl.^[1][2]

• "Kaiser Wilhelm II. und seine Marine. Kritische Beobachtungen während des Kaisermanövers in der Nordsee Herbst 1912. Aus den Erinnerungen von Vizeadmiral William Michaelis" (Kaiser Wilhelm II and his Navy - critical observations made during the royal manoeuvres in the North Sea in autumn 1912, from the memoirs of vice admiral William Michaelis), reprinted 1976
• "Tirpitz' Wirken vor und während des Ersten Weltkriegs" (The Work of Tirpitz before and after the First World War), paper of 1934

• (in German) Biography in "Die Akten der Reichskanzlei" in the Bundesarchiv
• (in German) Rahn, Werner: "Deutsche Marinen im Wandel. Vom Symbol nationaler Einheit zum Instrument internationaler Sicherheit", 2005, S. 397, S. 420 Anmerkungen ISBN 3-486-57674-7