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Fregattenkapitän

military rank in the navy

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 25, 2025
Entity authorityQ22815070
Source-derived summary

Fregattenkapitän (English: Frigate captain) is the middle ranking senior officer in a number of Germanic-speaking navies.

Austro-Hungary

Belgium

Germany

Fregattenkapitän, short: FKpt / in lists: FK, is the middle Senior officer rank (German: Stabsoffizier Rang) in the German Navy.

It is the equivalent of frigate captain or commander in other navies, and the equivalent of Oberstleutnant in the German army and air force.

Address

In line with ZDv 10/8, the official manner of formally addressing military personnel holding the rank of Fregattenkapitän (OF-4) is "Herr/Frau Fregattenkapitän". However, following German naval tradition the "Fregattenkapitän" is usually addressed as "Herr/Frau Kapitän" or in seamen's language as "Herr/Frau Kap'tän".

Rank Insignia and Rating

Rank insignia Fregattenkapitän, worn on the sleeves and shoulders, are one five-pointed star above three stripes and a half stripe between stripe two and one (or rings on sleeves; without the star when rank loops are worn).

The rank is rated OF-4 in NATO, and is equivalent to Oberstleutnant in Heer, and Luftwaffe. It is domiciled at the A14 and A15 pay scale of the Federal Ministry of Defence and is senior to the rank of Korvettenkapitän (NATO OF-3 - Commander Junior Grade).

Whereas the equivalent ranks (with the same insignia stripes) in Belgium and Denmark are NATO-translated as Commander Senior Grade, the German equivalent is simply termed Commander.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Fregattenkapitän” as military rank in the navy. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Fregattenkapitän, military and rank.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 219-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Fregattenkapitän, military and rank providing the first useful test.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Fregattenkapitän”, the useful work is to connect “military rank in the navy” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q22815070. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Fregattenkapitän” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.