Dönitz: The Last Führer (24 page)

In June 1934 Dönitz received orders to take command of the light cruiser,
Emden
, in the autumn. He could have asked for nothing better after his three and a half years as a staff officer—independent command and foreign travel combined.

After handing over to his successor, he went to England for four weeks to brush up his English, staying with ‘a Lady of the English gentry in Kensington’. Her name was Handfield-Jones and she lived at 24, Bedford Gardens. Her husband was dead and she had lost her only son in Flanders during the war, but bore no bitterness; in his memoirs Dönitz paid generous tribute to her outlook on life.

Every Friday she would give him her suggestions for the weekend written on blue notepaper; these seem to have consisted chiefly of visits to her many ‘county’ relatives. One of the first was to her 80-year-old mother, who astonished him by gulping back neat whisky as an aperitif before lunch. When he expressed his ‘amazement at her vitality’ she replied that it was entirely natural since she had spent half her life in the saddle. Her husband was master of the hunt.

The following weekend his hostess drove him to Portsmouth to visit Nelson’s
Victory
. The car was stopped at the gates of the Navy Yard and
she was asked some questions by the guard before being allowed to proceed. Inside, as the panorama of British warships of every description opened before his eyes, he asked her what the guard had asked.

‘They wanted to know whether we were both British subjects,’ she told him. ‘Naturally I said we were.’

Alarmed that his appearance and halting English might give him away as a foreigner—‘and if into the bargain it came out I was a German naval officer’
⁷⁸
—he told her he would make one very brief tour of the
Victory
, then leave this dangerous spot! He was unable to enjoy the famous ship fully because of his state of apprehension and breathed a sigh of relief when they left the dockyard.

All in all it was probably a pleasant interlude in England; Mrs Handfield-Jones was solicitous for his welfare, he exerted his quiet charm and evidently made an impression since his daughter, Ursula, remembers a correspondence continuing afterwards. Perhaps it exorcized some of the ghosts of his previous period in England; but perhaps they had become a part of him.

In Germany, meanwhile, Hitler had consolidated his power. Earlier in the year he had made a pact with Blomberg, whereby he agreed to liquidate the SA and its leader Roehm, now threatening to carry the national revolution into the ancient stronghold of the officer corps itself; in return the Army would support Hitler as successor to the ailing President, Hindenburg. The liquidations were carried out on June 30th by Hitler and the SS under Himmler—with additional victims, including von Schleicher—and the massacre explained as a purge of traitors plotting a coup against the State. Two months later Hindenburg died and Blomberg fulfilled his part of the bargain; the office of President was merged with Hitler’s post of Chancellor, and on the following day, August 2nd, the leaders of the Army and Navy reaffirmed their loyal oath as ‘unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, Führer of the
Reich
and of the German people, Supreme Commander of the armed forces …’ The same oath was repeated at ceremonies throughout the
Reich
by every officer and man of the services.

This series of events had significant psychological consequences: the Army had been drawn further into the blood-stained illegality of the regime, above all the armed forces were bound by oath to the person of the Führer; the party insignia had already been incorporated into their uniforms.

Foreign policy had changed, meanwhile, in line with Hitler’s anti-Bolshevik
crusade. Since Soviet Russia was the enemy a non-aggression pact had been signed with the former eastern enemy, Poland. The western ‘enemy’, France, had re-aligned in consequence and the German armed forces were now being prepared to meet a Franco-Russian coalition. For Hitler the fundamental principle for this new system was the benevolent neutrality of Great Britain. He had spelled it out to Raeder after he came to power: the way to keep Great Britain out of the game was to restrict German fleet building to a level that could not possibly alarm her, and he intended, directly the opportunity seemed ripe, to formalize German naval inferiority in a bilateral treaty with her; this would serve the additional purpose of splitting her from France and the other formerly allied signatories to the treaty of Versailles and the subsequent Washington naval agreements which had laid down ratios of naval strength for each of the powers.

As a result of his determination to come to an agreement with Great Britain, increases in the naval rearmament programme worked out that year by Raeder’s staff brought planned German tonnage up to one third of Britain’s tonnage in the three larger classes of warship—battleships, carriers and cruisers—as it was believed that Great Britain would feel comfortable with such a ratio. In torpedo craft and U-boats the ratio worked out at almost 100 per cent, but since these were for the most part short-range vessels it was perhaps thought they would not be taken as a threat. In any case 50 per cent, 35 per cent and 33⅓ per cent ratios for U-boats were calculated at the same time.
⁷⁹
This was a considerable increase on the five-year rearmament programme, 1933–38, that Hitler had inherited and which had been more or less in line with Versailles stipulations.

The fleet was intended in the first line for the same purposes of commanding the Baltic and North Sea approaches and striking at the French lines of communication as the earlier mobilization plans, but the terminal date was 1949, fifteen years hence, and there is every reason to believe that what Raeder was actually preparing and what Hitler agreed that year was the thin end of the wedge of the second stage of the overall plan for world mastery—the struggle with Great Britain. This is suggested by the size and characteristics of the capital ships, by the strategy of oceanic warfare into which they fitted, and by the consideration that the powerful, vastly expensive units planned were appropriate for use against Great Britain but hardly against France or Russia, where the land battle would be decisive.

Confirmation that the final struggle with Great Britain was at the back of Raeder’s mind at least comes in his notes of a talk with Hitler on June 27th that year. It is interesting that Hitler’s policy of dividing his opponents and potential rivals from one another by the Führer principle extended to the chiefs of the armed services; they reported to him, not to co-ordinating committees which might gang up on him, and this reinforced the mutual antagonisms and jealousies between branches of the armed forces. Already Raeder was seeking Hitler’s ear when Blomberg was not present. On this occasion he seized the opportunity when presenting to the Führer the Commander of a cruiser returned from abroad.

He started by discussing the displacement of two projected battlecruisers—which became the
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
. Hitler told him they must be described as improved 10,000-tonners, not as the 25,000-tonners they actually were, and the speed of 30 knots should not be given as over 26 knots! For the next part of the discussion Raeder’s own cryptic notes read:

Plainly this is an analogy between the situation before the First World War and the contemporary position: an alliance with Great Britain in 1899, he appears to have asked rhetorically, and what would the situation have been in 1914? In the light of
Realpolitik
, precisely the same: England must have sided with the alliance against Germany to preserve the continental balance and do down her chief trade rival. He therefore asked Hitler whether capital ships from 1936 onwards might be armed with 35-cm guns to match the latest British class; Hitler seems to have said, yes, if the money was available. The battleships of the 1936 and 1937 programmes,
Bismarck
and
Tirpitz
, were so armed.

An official note of the same meeting preserved in the German archives is explicit:

The next topic broached was U-boats. Materials, parts and yard space for the first fifteen, mainly of the smaller type, had been ordered, the first batch of executive officers, engineers and some 70 ratings had passed through a newly-established U-school long course which started in October 1933, and Raeder was only awaiting the Führer’s orders to start construction of the boats. Hitler told him he did not wish to upset things before a forthcoming plebiscite during which the inhabitants of the Saar region were to be asked whether they wished to belong to the
Reich
, and instructed him in the meantime to preserve full secrecy over the whole U-boat project.

Such was the position as Dönitz returned from his language leave in England; the nation and the Navy was poised to follow the Führer into unknown and dangerous waters.

Meanwhile the
Emden
had emerged from a major refit; he took her over at the end of September with an all-new complement including 160 officer cadets for training, and spent October working her up with his accustomed rigour. On November 2nd, on the eve of departure, he was introduced to Hitler by Raeder as was usual for a foreign-going Commander; what the navy chief said to him we do not know, but once again Raeder left a note of what he discussed with Hitler. He started by pointing out that the funds available to the armed forces for the following year, 1935, were a fraction of those demanded by the new plans and that the Navy’s schedule must therefore be set back. Hitler replied that he did not believe the funds would be greatly reduced and he went on to stress the need to rebuild the Navy quickly:

This is interesting for the light it throws on the Führer’s belligerent mood at this time and the remarkably matter-of-fact way in which it seems that he, Raeder and Göring viewed the consequences of the forthcoming public repudiation of ‘the fetters of Versailles’—‘the critical political position in the first quarter of 1935’—and indeed the chances of a continental war in three to four years’ time! And not a short war either if iron ore shipments from Scandinavia were a ‘vital necessity’. It is also an indication of the strength of the rearmament preparations Hitler had inherited from his Republican predecessors; he had not been two years in office yet here he was planning to unwrap a U-boat arm and a Luftwaffe and considering the chances of war against powerful rivals which had never disarmed.

The German naval historian Jost Dülffer believes that this meeting may have been the occasion on which Hitler told Raeder that the time was ripe for entering negotiations with Great Britain for the naval treaty they needed. If this was so, it is interesting to speculate whether Dönitz took any part in the conversation. He had recently returned from England; he was an ambitious officer, ever ready to push himself forward. Hitler was not stiff or formal and sought opinions keenly, especially from those who had experience of foreign lands, especially England, which he always regretted not having visited. On this occasion Dönitz recorded him saying, ‘I have always longed to spend a greater time in more distant foreign countries. Unfortunately it will not be permitted me.’
⁸³
This sounds like a reference to Dönitz’s forthcoming cruise, or possibly his Hindenburg journey; even so, both embraced parts of the British Empire and it is unlikely that the ever-fascinating subject of the English was not touched upon.

Dönitz may then have told him of the feeling in English conservative circles that Communism was a greater danger than Fascism, that many indeed looked for a strong Germany as a barrier against the spread of Communism. He may have told him that the notorious English ‘fair play’ was now operating in Germany’s favour; it was thought she had been humiliated enough for a war which after all, ‘old boy’, had been the fault of others as well! It was time to bring her back into the family of nations. Judging from his description of the circles in which his English hostess moved, this might well have been the impression he gained.

Once again it has to be speculation; Dönitz wrote scarcely a word about this, his first meeting with the Führer. There can be little doubt, however, that he was impressed. The erstwhile agitator with hollow
chest and bad teeth had been transformed by success and the trappings of martial power into the semblance of a statesman. His ‘hypnotic’ blue gaze, as ever, drew attention from the less pleasing aspects of his face, now, in the words of one close observer, beginning to be ‘caricatured by furrows along his nose and cheeks and by the start of pouches underneath his eyes and chin’.
⁸⁴
Beneath the patch moustache, the hard downward thrust of his lips hinting at the petulance of ego he had never outgrown would have been set to suggest iron will. And as always he knew exactly how to suit his manner and conversation to whoever he addressed.