Felix Von Luckner - Postwar Life

Postwar Life

On 12 May 1921, Luckner became a Freemason of the Lodge Zur goldenen Kugel (Große Landesloge von Deutschland) in Hamburg. He wrote a book of his adventures which became a best-seller in Germany, and Lowell Thomas' book about him spread Luckner's fame widely.

In 1926 he raised funds to buy a sailing ship which he called Vaterland and set out on a goodwill mission around the world leaving Bremen on September 19 and arriving in New York on October 22, 1926. An entertaining speaker, he was widely admired for his seamanship and for having fought his war with minimal loss of life. This opened him many doors in the United States where he spoke on hundreds of occasions across the country, both in German and, later, increasingly English. He won the support of many notables, diplomats, politicians and even the American Legion. Henry Ford presented him with a motor car and the city of San Francisco made him an honorary citizen. President Coolidge wanted to meet him but Luckner declined at the request of his government. Feeling that his "goodwill mission", as he called it in his travelogue Seeteufel erobert Amerika ("Sea-devil conquers America"), could neither have greater success elsewhere nor could be financially sustained by the income as speaker however popular and successful he returned to Germany where he arrived on April 19, 1928. At this time, historian Bruce Adamson wrote that his grandmother "Minnie" Campbell-Adamson and her husband James Harold Adamson entertained Luckner at their plush estate "Cedar Island," Larchmont Shores. The Adamsons were neighbors to the Larchmont Yacht Club, and naturally Luckner must have felt at home. Adamson inherited a signed photograph from Luckner.

He was a frequent visitor to the Heydrich home in Halle where he inspired a young Reinhard Heydrich, with stories of his adventures on Seeadler, to join the inter-war Reichsmarine. In 1937 and 1938, he and his wife undertook a round-the-world voyage in his yacht Seeteufel, being welcomed in New Zealand and Australia, though some viewed him as an apologist for the Nazi regime. During the visit to the Australian state of Queensland the von Luckners were feted by the press and public. The Brisbane office of the Commonwealth Investigation Branch (CIB) maintained a survaillance of the von Luckners during the visit with inspector in charge of the CIB in Brisbane, Bob Wake, attending a gala function held in honour of the von Luckners. The gala menu was decorated with a Swaztika. The CIB kept detailed records of all of von Luckners contacts and when Australia declared war on Germany many of these contacts were rounded up and interned. see Valdemar Robert Wake's book No Ribbons or Medals published by Jacobyte Books in 2004.

During the Second World War, Hitler tried to use him for propaganda purposes, though, as a Mason, he was not in one of the Nazi's favoured groups of people. He was implicated in a scandal, and put on trial before a 'Sonderehrengericht' (Special Court of Honor), in 1939, for incest and having sexual congress with a minor, but he was never convicted. It is said that his retirement from public life was a condition for the discontinuation of the trial. Luckner refused to renounce his membership of the Masons or the various honorary citizenships granted in the US, and consequently he suffered by having his bank account frozen. In 1943, he saved the life of a Jewish woman, Rose Janson, whom he provided with a passport he found on a bombsite, and who subsequently managed to escape to the US via a neutral country. At the end of the war, the mayor of Halle, where he was living, asked him to negotiate the town's surrender to the approaching American forces, which he did, though he did not return to the town after hearing that the Nazis had condemned him to death.

Luckner was extremely strong and was noted for his ability to bend coins between his thumb, index and middle finger of his right hand and to tear up telephone directories (the thickest being that of New York) with his bare hands. On the occasion of his visit to Australia in 1938, the Sydney Labour Daily published a cartoon showing Kaiser Wilhelm tearing up the Belgian Neutrality Pact, Adolf Hitler tearing up another agreement, and Luckner tearing up a directory, with the caption "They All Have The Habit".

Luckner was a prolific autograph signer, and original Luckner autographs turn up frequently at auctions and estate sales.

After the Second World War, Luckner moved to Sweden, where he lived in Malmö with his Swedish second wife Ingeborg Engeström, until his death in Malmö at the age of 84 in 1966. He is buried in Main Cemetery Ohlsdorf, Hamburg.