It would seem that the pragmatic and cold 20th century left no room for romantic and daring sea adventures, during which corsairs would gut “merchants”, burn coastal cities, dashingly evade pursuit and bury countless treasures on uninhabited islands.

But this is far from true! The corsairs operated throughout the twentieth century.

There is no doubt that the dangerous adventures of such captains as Müller, Nerger, Keller and Luckner, described by Igor Bunich on the basis of documents and memoirs, will take a worthy place in the list of books about pirates created by famous authors of the past, such as Stevenson, Mariette, Conan Doyle and Sabatini.

Germany, as it were, compensated for the lost time when the British, Spanish, Portuguese and French were engaged in sea robbery. In the first half of the 20th century, corsairs were almost exclusively Germans. This is how it happened historically. And although the naval flags of their country fluttered on the masts of the German cruisers, and the crews wore naval uniforms, they, just like their distant predecessors, waged a war against all humanity at their own peril and risk. For they had no allies or bases in the ocean, and every five to six days they had to replenish their supplies of coal, fuel oil and fresh water. There was no place to repair it - any damage could be the last. Only the remote coves of God-forsaken islands overgrown with coconut palms could serve as a place for a short rest.