Ludwig Borckenhagen

Borckenhagen was born in the Rodenbeck subdistrict of Minden, Westphalia, the son of Johann Ludwig Friedrich Borckenhagen (1818-1870), and his wife Julie Emilie Helene Seydel (1820-1888). His younger brother Carl Borckenhagen was later to emigrate to South Africa and become an immensely powerful political leader there.

He joined the Prussian Navy as a young cadet on 26 April 1868, and went to sail with the frigates Gefion and Niobe, as well as the battleships König Wilhelm and Elisabeth. In 1871 he served in the Baltic Ostseeflotte before studying further at the Naval Academy in Kiel.

In Berlin, on 25 September 1881, he married Margarete Clara Kapp (daughter of Friedrich Kapp and Louise Engels) and the couple had two daughters, Luise and Fritze.

In the ensuing years he rapidly rose in rank, alternating his successively higher commands with further studies at the Kiel Naval Academy.

At this time, he also authored a series of enormously influential papers on naval strategy. Two of his early review articles constituted the first discussion on naval power and strategy in the German Empire. He also introduced the ideas of geostrategist Alfred Thayer Mahan to the Prussian Empire, even personally translating Mahan's work, "The Influence of Sea Power upon History" into German.

While Borckenhagen greatly emphasized the lag in naval development between Germany and its competitors, many of his recommendations centered on the principal need for the Prussian military to invest heavily in naval power. This suggestion, which drew from his study of history and of Mahan's writings, was subsequently taken to the extreme by the Kaiser's government, and led Germany to engage in the Anglo-German naval arms race.^[1][2]