Köln and the cost of lost institutional memory

One recalled account has a Brazilian officer becoming visibly uneasy while touring the explosive spaces aft, especially after seeing sailors smoke nearby. The exact port and observers remain uncertain, but the reaction is offered as an example of practical operating judgment. The arrangement could appear efficient to a designer while violating rules that experienced constructors and officers regarded as too obvious to write down. Germany's postwar dispersal of personnel, loss of naval careers, and upheaval during the Weimar years weakened that unwritten professional memory. In this interpretation, the Reichsmarine became more likely to accept hazards that an institution with continuous experience would have challenged early.