Ahoy - Mac's Web Log

(Read more about Moewe also try the search for "Moewe")

Hi Mac:

I enjoyed browsing through your web site, and in particular reading of the exploits of the Moewe, captained by Burggraf Graf Nikolaus zu Dohna-Schlodien.  Count Dohna was my wife’s grandfather.    Although I knew his wife, Countess Dohna, well (my wife’s grandmother) the Count died in 1956, a few years before I met my future wife. She has many fond memories of him.

You might be interested to know that Count Dohna still has two daughters living, one in Bavaria in the house where Count Dohna spent the last +/- twenty years of his life, and the other living in Tucson, Arizona.   We spend the winters in Arizona and see that daughter (my wife’s aunt) regularly. She has been in USA for many years and speaks English fluently. The aunt living in Germany speaks very limited English.   Either daughter would, of course, be a good source of information on the Moewe captain if anyone needed such information for a book or web site. Neither, unfortunately, uses email.    If you wanted to communicate with them I could provide the addresses. His daughter Margaret Roberts, the one in Tucson, and the one I know best, has a very clear memory of her father. We have a number of memorabilia from him including sketches and paintings which he did. Her eyesight is unfortunately not good, (she will be 86 this year) so writing her a letter would be difficult for her. If you wish to contact me you could do so at MalcolmCromarty@hotmail.com or the addresses below. We will be in Arizona until mid-April after which we will return to Brussels and Belgium.

Best regards,  Malcolm Cromarty

Hello Malcolm,

What a wonderful suprise to hear from you, and learn that the intrepid Captain of Moewe still has two daughters living.

Count Dohna was not only the most successful of all the Merchant Raider Captains of WW1, but on two ocassions he eluded the Blockade by the Royal Navy to guide his ship and crew back to Germany safely. He was an inspiratrion as a leader, and I have always admired his feats.

I would love to be able to talk to Margaret Roberts, but writing is a problem with failing eyesight, and in Bavaria this daughter has little English, and my German is non existent.

Malcolm would you be able to pose a series of questions from me, verbally to Margaret, and record her answers, which, at your convenience you might relay to me via E-Mail?

I do realise I am asking you to impose a burden both on Margaret and yourself, but time marches on, Margaret is 86, I am just about 83 ( and will be in a week ) what a shame if we could not record some new material, and publish it on AHOY? I will leave that to your discretion.

Re the memorabilia, would any of the sketches or paintings by the Count be able to be reproduced by scanning and E-Mailing? so we again might bring them to a wider audience.

I continue to be amazed at the interest my work about the German Armed Merchant Raiders of both WW1 and WW2 has engendered across the internet.

But to receive your communication is true icing in the cake, again I say thank you Malcolm for your time and interest.

Best wishes from Australia.
Mac.

Hi Mac:

I would be happy to pose any questions that you might want to ask Margaret, and I know she would be happy to pass on information about her father. Just let me have the questions and I can probably do that within a few days. I would try to tape the responses and can then transcribe them, or might possibly be able to send you a sound file, although my equipment in Brussels would make that easier as I can go directly from a tape recorder to my computer. But, one way or another it will get done.  If you were to send me your questions via email I would cut and paste them into Word, and print them out in large a large font.  She can read large type and this would give her a chance to think over the replies before recording.   I  do have one sketch here done by the Count of his wife and of Margaret sitting at a table.  It is in black and white and I could easily photocopy that.

Malcolm.

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