STB-MA89
     THE SEA DEVIL
           by
W. Bro. William A. Moore

  At the time this article was written W. Bro. Moore was serving
as master of United Masters Lodge #167 (a lodge of Masonic
Research) in Auckland, New Zealand. We regret that W. B. Moore
passed this life on Aug. 19,1988. We are, however, pleased to
publish his moving account about the life of Count Felix Von
Luckner.

  I would gladly live to be a hundred and fifty if I could use
all my time to work for reconciliation and understanding
between the nations, to work to convince men and women that it's
worthwhile to believe in love. Men are too apt to listen to
evil, and it's so very necessary that they should listen to good.

  There's no shortage of goodness; it's everywhere in the world.
Very often it can't be seen because it's hidden by a cloud of
misunderstandings. Once the misunderstandings are cleared away
it becomes easy to see that fundamentally everyone wants the
same thing. Everyone wants to live in peace and happiness and
lead a life without fear. If there is still anyone who doesn't
believe this let him ask a young mother what it is above all she
wants for her child. Her answer will dispose of the last vestige
of doubt.

  These are the words of a man whose life presents a host of
apparent contradictions. It is doubtful that you would expect
them from one who was born into a military family and attained
rank and world-wide fame in this profession. Sickly in his
infancy he was in later life, for a time, a circus strong-man, a
wrestling champion and, even when well past his prime, continued
to delight audiences with his feats of strength. While achieving
amazing results for his country in the field of war, he yet
became and remained a hero to countless thousands of his
country's enemies! He joined the Freemasons at the age of forty
after the career which sealed his fame and made him a household
name throughout the world, but his actions had shown him to be a
true Freemason before his formal initiation.

  He was born 9 June 1881 in Dresden, Saxony. At age thirteen,
after being captivated by the menu of a luxury liner, looked to
the sea and ran off and shipped as an unpaid cabin boy, on a
Russian sailing ship bound for Australia. Life aboard was very
different from the pictures evoked by the aforesaid menu. His
duties included cleaning the latrines and pig-sties! And he was
lucky to survive a fall overboard. Not surprisingly he abandoned
ship in Fremantle and for seven years he roamed the world in a
great and bewildering series of jobs, including selling the
Salvation Army's War Cry, assistant lighthouse keeper, kangaroo
hunter, circus hand, professional boxer, fisherman, seaman,
Mexican army guard for President Diaz, railroad construction,
tavern keeper and barman. He even spent time in a Chilean gaol
accused of trying to steal pigs; won a wrestling competition in
Hamburg; twice suffered broken legs, was thrown out of a hospital
in Jamaica for lack of funds, but was lucky enough to be
befriended by some German sailors.

  Aged twenty, and with less book knowledge than an average ten
year old, he entered a German navigation training school. After
qualifying and serving on a South American liner, he was eligible
to become a reserve officer in the German navy. In his uniform
he returned home to a family which had long given him up as lost.
He remained in the merchant marine service, passed his Captain's
examination, and in 1912 entered the German navy for active
service in the ship Panzer. A visit to German territories in
Africa saw him engaged on an elephant hunt. World War I broke out
in 1914 but the British blockade of German ports severely limited
the German navy's capabilities. In the great battle of Jutland,
von Luckner commanded a gun turret on the Kronprinz with skill
and cunning. These attributes, combined with the fact that he was
apparently the only German naval officer who had served 'in sail'
singled him out for a unique command which sailed him into the
history books of the world.

The Seeadler (Sea Eagle).

  A 1570 ton three masted sailing ship, built in Glasgow 1888 and
captured by the Germans while under a British flag, was converted
under von Luckner's directions to an auxiliary cruiser, heavily
armed and equipped with two 500 H.P. engines, but carefully
disguised inside and out as a Norwegian timber ship Inna. Von
Luckner managed, during a violent gale in the North Sea 23
December 1916, to break the British blockade,--the Inna was
inspected and passed--and sailed north around Scotland into the
Atlantic.

  Over the following 88 days his ship, renamed the Seeadler or
Sea Eagle, disguise removed, captured eleven Allied ships in
the Atlantic, and sank ten without a single loss of life, crew or
captive. Even the ships' cats were safe, at one time there were
144 on board his ship! At times up to 400 persons, men and women,
were held in the ship until transferred ashore in South American
ports. "I had the courage to sink ships", he said, ''but I had
not the courage to deprive a mother of a child. I fought the war
without killing anyone . . . I always thought of my mother, and
imagined what tears and sadness I would cause if I killed the
son of some other mother.'' It is claimed that he once delayed
sinking a sailing ship until the Captain's false teeth had been
saved! If perhaps you feel that von Luckner was a good self-
publicist, Newbolt's History of the Great War tells of a "bold,
calculating, and adventurous leader; and we have every reason to
believe that he was a kindly and courteous gentleman as well" .
."believing concerted action between (his prisoners) impossible"
. . they "had been allowed to roam about their ship as they
wished; and apart from this, Count von Luckner had several times
acted graciously and generously".

  In April 1917 he rounded Cape Horn and entered the Pacific
where three more ships were sunk. On 2 August his good fortunes
ran out and Seeadler was cast ashore by a tidal wave onto remote
Mopelia Island in the Tahiti group, inhabited only by three
Kanaks left by the French to catch turtles. Von Luckner tells of
Sunday services conducted by himself to "worship the Great
Ruler of the Waves". Beside the Bible rested the German flag plus
those of the prisoners. "I wanted our prisoners to feel that the
service was as much theirs as ours, and that we did not feel
ourselves any more a chosen people before Cod than any other
people."

  Von Luckner was involved in many more adventures before
returning to Germany as a hero. The highest award made to him was
an honour placing him above the scope of German law, usually, the
prerogative of only the German Royal family. He was even summoned
to Rome by the Pope who called him "a great humanitarian."
Between the two world wars, von Luckner and his wife Countess
Ingaborg travelled throughout Europe and the United States. In
1938 he again visited New Zealand in his yacht Seeteufel.
Tremendous crowds greeted him wherever he went and, ever the
showman, he delighted audiences whenever he spoke at public
meetings. Some, however, felt that he was a propagandist for
nazism, a charge that he denied, claiming to be an ambassador for
peace only. Although too old for active service in World War II,
Hitler attempted to use him for propaganda purposes but demanded
that he renounce Freemasonry. Our hero who had been initiated in
Zur Goldenen Kugel Lodge No. 66, Hamburg on 26 May 1921, refused.
He also refused to renounce the various honorary citizenships
granted him in the United States. In 1943, in Berlin, he saved
the life of a Jewish girl by finding her shelter and giving her a
passport picked up on a bomb site. She managed to reach a neutral
country and then the United States. After the war, when the Count
again visited the U.S.A. appealing for the expulsion of the
hatreds engendered by the war, she opened previously shut doors
by her influence. ''I was given an opportunity of reaching the
hearts of men and women who had previously rejected me in their
own sorrow and refused to listen to what I had to say. They had
refused to give me a hearing because I was a Cerman and came from
that country whose government had once brought them such terrible
sorrow."

  Hitler made life difficult for von Luckner, and his bank
account was stopped. In remote Halle, where he was living, the
citizens seemed to feel that their relative immunity from
air-raids was due to the presence in their midst of the Count,
who had been given the freedom of so many American cities. In the
closing stages of the war refugees from other areas crowded in.
The Count was asked by the Mayor and others in April 1945 to seek
out the approaching American troops and seek terms. The German
General in command disclaimed any responsibility, but permitted
him to try. The control officer from Berlin remarked
disdainfully: "There's another international Freemason.'' He did
manage to find and negotiate with the Americans, among whom were
Masonic friends, and they agreed not to bomb the city. He was
able to so advise his friends in Halle but, on the advice that
Hitler had condemned him to death, he was forced to f,ee into
hiding.

  Count Felix von Luckner died 14 April 1966, in Malmo, Sweden.
Thus ending a career that might have come straight out of the
pages of 'The Boys' Own'. His last wish was that it should be
said of him, as it had been said of his own hero, another Mason,
Buffalo Bill Cody: ''He was a great white scout, a loyal and
honest man", and this wish was fulfilled in Lodge White Lily, 16
April 1966.
