U-boat captain’s role in the 1916 rising

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.

A year after Captain Walther Schweiger, an experienced and sometimes ruthless operator, had sunk the Luisitania off Kinsale, he had been scheduled to take Roger Casement 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.