Dönitz: The Last Führer (57 page)

For the move southwards to attack the Gibraltar convoys in mid-November had brought no more success than achieved in the north, despite the fact that the co-operation of the local air group had been gained. Dönitz personally directed the first operation in the south—at least this is suggested by the name of the group formed, Schill, a hero of the German freedom fight against Napoleon, and by a most unusual wireless message to the group signed ‘C-in-C’.

The action started on the 17th when a convoy of some 60 merchantmen was reported by air reconnaissance 400 miles from the Spanish coast steering north at seven knots; the boats were disposed in three patrol lines across its track and the next day the convoy ran into the southern line; one boat was rammed and forced out of the action, in return one of the escorts was hit by a
Zaunkönig
and disabled. Despite the strength of the defence, a boat under Werner Henke held on and sent touch-keeping reports, and at 10.45 that evening Dönitz sent the signal: ‘Group Schill. Up to Henke! Beat them to death! [
Schlagt sie tot!
]
Oberbefehlshaber
[C-in-C].’
¹⁰⁶

This might have been the kind of hyperbole he was wont to employ in his
Feuersprüche
—or morale-boosting slogans—an interpretation which is supported by the fact that it went out as a personal message rather than one from U-boat Command. In its literal sense, however, it could only apply to the crews of the merchantmen and their escorts.

The escorts had been strengthened meanwhile; Bletchley Park had read the disposition signals, and a support group and air support had been sent to the convoy which from the 19th was protected by a double screen of nineteen warships and round-the-clock air cover. It was not surprising that the boats scored no further successes and during the following two night battles two boats were destroyed and a third the day after when the attack was called off. The merchantmen came through unscathed, the sole achievements of the 31 boats involved were the crippling of a sloop and two aircraft shot down on the last day.

There could be no reasonable doubt by now that the acoustic torpedo was not as effective as had appeared, and that pack operations were no longer feasible. Nevertheless, it was not until several more groups had been formed and had failed and several more U-boats had been lost that
group tactics were finally abandoned. Before this the size of the groups had again been reduced to just three boats—an interesting reversion to Dönitz’s pre-war ideas. There was no instance of a convoy picked up by one of the three being found by either of its two fellows, so no point in continuing even this disposition, and on January 7th 1944 Dönitz was forced to the conclusion that henceforth his boats must patrol singly; as the U-boat war diary put it: ‘one boat will now have to attack the whole escort and after discovery endure the enemy counter-measures alone’. The entry concluded: ‘
A successful mass U-boat campaign with existing types and those planned for the future is only possible if the boats are directed to the convoy by continuous air reconnaissance
.’
¹⁰⁷

It was a feature of Dönitz in defeat that he himself was never to blame. And of course there was a large scapegoat to hand in the
Luftwaffe
and its decadent chief. In a sense he was correct; the lack of a naval air arm, and the failure of the Air Force to devote sufficient resources to the sea war was a major factor in the defeat of his packs. Yet in view of the overwhelming air superiority of the enemy and the demands on the
Luftwaffe
from every embattled front and over the cities of Germany, it was a narrow view indeed that showed up Göring’s failure to help the U-boats as an isolated phenomenon. The root of the trouble was Germany’s inferior industrial capacity; this was exacerbated by the Führer system and the ever more arbitrary decisions of the Führer himself. Dönitz, the most successful of the current flatterers at court, had gained in the free-for-all that passed for decision making, thus contributing to the shortages in the air. Blaming the other services did not help, it simply increased the anarchy at the top. Besides this it was not simply
Luftwaffe
failure which had caused the defeat of his packs; the existing U-boat had been overtaken by allied technology.

Dönitz knew this; as he told Hitler on December 16th, the time for surface attack was over, in future it had to be submerged attack.
¹⁰⁸
All his hopes now were pinned on the ‘Electric’ and Walter boats whose series construction in sectional form had been started at various inland factories without waiting for prototypes. Yet even these new types with high underwater speed would be useless, he explained, if they could not
find
the convoys, and he categorically demanded the production of Junkers 290 aircraft for the future U-boat war.

He returned to this theme three days later at the
Wolfschanze
, this time demanding the entire output of Junkers 290 exclusively for long-range naval reconnaissance. He also stressed the need for original
research in high frequency detection, and said that he and Speer would make a report on this ‘which would recommend removal of a large area of research from the direct control of the
Reichsmarschall
’, Göring! Hitler fully agreed his points.

It is apparent again that Dönitz was not simply a courtier under the spell of the Führer. In naval affairs he took the offensive and was almost always successful—successful, that is, in extracting promises. Undoubtedly he was now one of the chief props of the Führer, therefore of the Nazi State; undoubtedly the Navy had gained thereby, but his commitment came from the heart not the head; his reports were carefully constructed to match every disaster with three or four pieces of hopeful news or, if news were lacking, optimistic opinion, yet this had always been his way of deceiving himself. He continued to deceive himself and Hitler because of his commitment to Führer and Fatherland—one and the same in his eyes—as well as to his own service and his U-boats especially.

This shows clearly through an important speech he made at a
Tagung
for Flag Officers just two days before his
Wolfschanze
meeting with Hitler; he began:

He carried on in this vein at some length; it was a nonsense to say that the soldier or the officer should be unpolitical; the soldier embodied the State, he was its representative, its outstanding exponent, therefore he had to put his full weight behind the State.

‘We have to travel this path from deepest conviction. The Russians do.
In this struggle we can only hold our own if we follow it with holy ardour, with complete fanaticism.’

Then turning to the war situation, he reaffirmed his conviction that England had forced the war because she did not wish to allow Germany to become great. ‘The Anglo-Saxon is the chief enemy—of that there is no doubt. Without the policy of the English the war would never have occurred.’

It was as clear as the sun, he went on, when the war came in 1939 it was going to be a long one. For they were opposed by two giant seapowers with all their potential for gradually developing strength from the resources of the world. Sea wars were economic wars, and lasted an extraordinary time. The Führer had employed the only correct strategy by acquiring the economic space to enable Germany to survive such a war. Europe was put in the bag, the east won essentially for economic reasons—so that they could survive and not, as in the First War, be forced under by blockade. Now the enemy was trying to squeeze this economic space and undoubtedly the position in the east was hard and serious; nevertheless it should not be forgotten that the other side had suffered monstrous losses, was tired and exhausted and lacked strength to capitalize its gains.

‘We will deploy fresh forces and there is no doubt that the east will be held under all circumstances. I am an adherent of not giving up anything in the east that is not unconditionally necessary. I have strongly advised holding the Crimea—I have exerted my influence so far as I am able to. Because the Crimea protects the Balkans like a shield, we will hold the Crimea …’

So he reviewed the position on all fronts in line with official policy; the Russians would be contained; there was in any case plenty of space in the east, a long way for the enemy to drive before Germany itself was endangered. The position in the west, however, was different. The Anglo-Saxons would certainly attempt an invasion early next year; if they were to succeed and break through they would be close to the borders of Germany and the vital industrial regions of the Rhine and Ruhr; such a breakthrough had to be prevented under all circumstances.

‘The Navy, lying off the coasts and manning the coastal fortifications will in such a case [invasion] have a task demanding the most fanatical and complete commitment in which there is no yielding—not a metre.’

Only thus would it be possible to defend the coasts successfully. And
the enemy, once beaten back, would not try a second landing. This then was the ‘war-decisive’ battle.

‘War-decisive’—
Kriegsentscheidend
—had been a
leitmotif
of German naval discussion from Tirpitz’s time; it reveals a particular way of thinking, or perhaps the word itself directs thought along cataclysmic lines. But it was nonsense to talk in one breath of economic war and in the next of a ‘war-decisive’ battle. The problem is to decide how much of the speech Dönitz believed, how much was deliberate deception to counter the arguments of the ‘defeatists’. He knew the overwhelming material/economic/manpower odds against the
Reich
; he had virtually said as much when he spoke of the two giant seapowers building up their strength gradually from the resources of the world. He knew Germany’s strategic resources were strained beyond the limit; the heavy ships he had rescued from Hitler’s decree could not be sent to sea for training because of oil shortage. Yet it is probable these considerations weighed with him as little as statistical considerations during the May crisis in the Battle of the Atlantic. It was not in the German military tradition to give up; it was not in the soldier’s code to make individual judgements, only to obey his orders and do his duty. And the order from the Führer was to continue the struggle, opposing material odds with burning fanaticism until the enemy found the cost of destroying Germany too great or the allied coalition cracked. It was Dönitz’s duty to inspire this fanaticism in his service. This was the purpose of the speech, and there can be no doubt from the esteem in which his name is held in naval circles that it touched a responsive chord in his audience and among naval officers generally; the seniors were determined the shame of the mutinies and the naval surrender should never be repeated, the younger ones, brought up in the fanatical atmosphere created by the Nazi Party, were conditioned to go down the path outlined with holy ardour, with complete fanaticism.

His speech begged every rational question about war strategy, about the necessity to regain control of the air over the
Reich
if there was to be any hope of defeating an allied invasion, of gaining air mastery over the Atlantic if there was to be any hope of renewing the U-boat war with success, above all perhaps where the reserves of men were to come from who were to plug the gaps in the eastern theatre, beat back the ‘second front’ in the west, man the necessary aircraft
and
the massive new fleet of the building programme 43. There is no reason, in view of his record, to put it all down to deliberate deception—unconscious self-deception and fanatical commitment played their part.

Certainly these two played a major role later that month when he sent the battlecruiser
Scharnhorst
out on a desperate gamble into the Arctic night. Probably this decision was also influenced by the nature of the deal he had struck with Hitler when he won the preservation of the big ships. He had said as much at the end of April: after a somewhat ‘defeatist’ appreciation by the northern command Admirals of the chances of a successful sortie, he commented that he, Dönitz, had done all he could to preserve the fleet from the Führer, but the question could only be resolved ‘by bravely venturing a sortie and achieving success’.
¹¹⁰

In fact Battle Group North, headed by the
Tirpitz
and
Scharnhorst
, had been playing a considerable role in allied naval planning without moving from their moorings; powerful naval forces and their escorts had been held in the north against an attempted break-out, and the Arctic convoys to Russia had been discontinued while attempts were made to destroy the force; the latest had been in September; midget submarines penetrated the fjord where the
Tirpitz
lay and succeeded in exploding charges beneath her which so damaged the main engines as to put her completely out of action. With the chief threat removed, the Admiralty had re-started the Arctic supply convoys to Russia in November, providing each with a close escort and a heavy covering force at a distance to deal with the
Scharnhorst
should she intervene.

So far as the Commander of Battle Group North, Admiral Kummetz, and his immediate superior in Kiel, Admiral Schniewind, were concerned, there was little prospect of this. Besides the damage to the
Tirpitz
, the cruiser
Lützow
had been sent home for refit with five destroyers, and only the
Scharnhorst
and five destroyers remained operational in the north. The main point, however, was that the almost perpetual darkness of the northern winter provided the worst possible conditions for a gun action by the German forces and the best possible conditions for enemy torpedo attack on a heavy unit such as the
Scharnhorst
. Moreover, German radar was inferior to British—as proved in the action of the previous December which had been the immediate cause of Raeder’s downfall—and since radar transmissions could give away a ship’s proximity German ships were wont to use their sets as little as possible if there was a chance of enemy forces in the area. Added to this was the difficulty, indeed virtual impossibility, of obtaining a clear picture from air reconnaissance during the dark and often severe conditions of the winter months—particularly as reliance had to be placed on whatever
Luftwaffe
planes were made available at the time.