Gdynia Maritime University GMU

Speech of HM GMU Rector Professor Adam Weintrit
on the occasion of the posthumous promotion to the rank of vice-admiral of
Adam Mohuczy - 7th March 2022 

“Adam Mohuczy - Director of the State Maritime School - Maritime Educator”

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today’s celebration is for me and the entire Gdynia Maritime University academic community a great source of pride and satisfaction. Today the first director of the Maritime School, whose mission began in the developing city of Gdynia in 1930, will, on the day of his birthday (7th March 1891) be posthumously promoted to the rank of vice-admiral for his unwavering, devoted service to Poland.

I wish to join the congratulations and words of appreciation expressed by the President of the Republic of Poland on 11th March 2019, that is 3 years ago, by highlighting the merits of Adam Mohuczy as an educator of maritime personnel and an exceptional organiser and director of the School. 

For the Maritime School in Tczew - the cradle of today’s Gdynia Maritime University, the turn of 1931 was the beginning of a new era. The School was at this time relocated to the modern, more-than-adequate building which was rapidly erected on Szosa Gdanska street in Gdynia and the first director of the Maritime School in Tczew, Engineer Antoni Garnuszeski, was at his own request transferred to the role of Head of the Technical Department of the Maritime Office in Gdynia and was replaced by Cmdr Adam Mohuczy as Director of the now more prestigious State Maritime School.

And it was Adam Mohuczy who oversaw the relocation of the School from Tczew to Gdynia. He was an experienced Polish Navy Officer who previously held the role of Commander of the Naval Officers’ Academy in Torun and therefore had experience in running a uniformed school. 

He introduced new rules concerning uniform and financing, and above all, ensuring the creation of authentic science and education facilities. Under the direction of Adam Mohuczy at its new location in Gdynia, the Maritime School reached new heights previously unattainable during the days in Tczew. 

The new School building was designed to accommodate scientific offices, workshops, and machine shops. The main building housed physics, electrotechnics, chemistry, and commodity science offices, as well as workshops for deviation, navigation, radioelectronics, and radiotelegraphy with a short-wave broadcasting station. A weather station and a workshop for rope and sailing works were also opened. 

It was Adam Mohuczy who was behind the exceptionally well-educated maritime personnel that graduated from those early years of the State Maritime School in Gdynia, and which went on to fight on the fronts of the Second World War. The director implemented an obligatory 9-month introductory period of seamanship training onboard the School’s training ship. Theoretical learning within the Faculties of Navigation and Marine Engineering lasted four years. Navigation students were required to complete 22 months of seagoing service on board the training ship and cargo ships and likewise, mechanics spent the same period onboard cargo ships and working in workshops and engineering plants. 

As the director, Adam Mohuczy adapted the School’s education programmes to the changes introduced in shipping. He established the specialist Publishing Institute, which published textbooks, academic scripts and scientific works on topics essential to the education of future ship officers and other maritime personnel.

Of extraordinary importance and symbolic, an altogether new era in the history of the State Maritime School was the replacement of the worn-out Lwów with the frigate Dar Pomorza.  The purchase of the ship was finalised under director Antoni Garnuszewski of the Maritime School in Tczew. Immediately after being purchased, the ship’s name was named Pomorze. After leaving port in Saint Nazaire and arriving in the Naskov shipyard in Denmark for repairs, this was then changed to Dar Pomorza [Pomerania’s gift] in order to commemorate the substantial financial contribution of the people of Pomerania. 

The new training ship entered into service in 1930 and successfully circumnavigated the globe in 1934-35 during LtCdr Mohuczy’s term of office. Dar Pomorza was the first vessel to sail around the world under the colours of the Polish flag,  on what was the longest and most well-known voyage of the “White Frigate” - an event of great symbolic significance for the maritime ambitions of the 2nd Republic of Poland.

Director Mohuczy put emphasis on organising courses for fishermen and machinists and was also initiated the appointment of a College of International Academic Teachers.

He left the State Maritime School in 1936 for the Polish Ship Operators’ Association and later worked for Polish Shipping and Polbryt. 

The six years during which Adam Mohuczy was the director of the State Maritime School in Gdynia were a time of prosperity for the School, which after the years of hardship during the First World War and the rebuilding of the country, and later the changes that saw the incorporation of the maritime economic into national policy, finally became Gdynia Maritime University.  We are the successors of the work of those individuals who came before us.  One of them, whose name is certainly written on the pages of history in golden letters, is Adam Mohuczy. Today we honour him posthumously promoting him to the rank of vice-admiral.                               

Honour to his memory!