Read Dönitz: The Last Führer Online
Authors: Peter Padfield
Towards the end of the month Hitler, who had begun to suffer severe pains in his eyes in addition to his other complaints, retired from the
Wolfschanze
to the
Berghof
, where he underwent a course of treatment and rest. He was still unfit when the time came for him to review the annual Heroes’ Memorial Day parade in Berlin; more probably he didn’t mean to come before the people—the real people he had led to disaster. It is a sign of the new order of precedence that he chose Dönitz to stand in for him—to the bitter chagrin of the old guard.
Dönitz was not a good public speaker. He was at his best in small groups where his burning sincerity and clear gaze compelled responding fervour; with large audiences he lacked the feel of Hitler or the conscious artistry of Goebbels; he came to them indeed as a plain man. Nevertheless it is evident that he worked hard over the speech he had to deliver after the parade for transmission on German Radio. Like Goebbels’ recent speeches it was couched in Churchill’s ‘Dunkirk’ idiom heightened with Party ideology. It was preceded by the heroic chords of Beethoven’s
Coriolan
overture.
German men and women—for the fifth time in this war we remember our dead, the fallen heroes on all fronts, on land, in all seas and in the air. We remember the men, women and children at home slaughtered in the air terror. In deep reverence we honour their sacrifice and proudly mourn their loss.
Today everyone knows that we are faced with a merciless struggle of the greatest harshness and seriousness. The events of this war and
the brutal aims of the enemy, which they have broadcast openly to the world, have shown us how it is. Our enemy forced this war on us. With ruthless and unscrupulous egoism, sanctimoniously professing the protection of Polish interests, they wished to veto Germany uniting with German brothers. The real reason was their fear of the power of the united German
Volk
; it was their recognition that our social community is the greatest ideological danger for their materialism and their degraded Jewish human enslavement. Without warning, therefore, but of necessity, they entered the war to exterminate our
Volk
.
Yet we know that we will endure this struggle of destiny. Thanks to a unique leadership which Providence bestowed on us in this mightiest struggle of history—the Führer, who leads us with foresight and broad vision, resolution and boldness, who cares for us indefatigably and carries his uniquely great burden forcefully and resiliently, will guide us surely through the battle for the existence of our
Volk
.
We will endure this war, thanks to the operational readiness and incomparable heroism of our soldiers on all fronts. In the last year the enemy attempted to break into our
Lebensraum
and that of our allies with great forces of men and materials. Nowhere has he gained a decisive breakthrough. What would have become of our German Fatherland, how would it be with our German
Volk
if the Führer had not spent ten years creating the
Wehrmacht
, which alone is in a position to counter the storming of our enemy into Europe. The flood of Bolshevism, which for the first time in this war, thanks to a systematic war-direction, has put its human and material resources to use on a grand scale, would have exterminated our
Volk
and eliminated European culture.
We will endure this battle of destiny, thanks to the hardness and resolution at home! We know about the quiet heroism of the millions of men and women who work selflessly at home for the defence and armament for the front. We know above all of the heroism of the areas of the homeland which, through the terror attacks, have become front areas, and whose people have shown an operational readiness and a toughness and dogged bearing comparable to that of the soldiers at the front. What would our homeland be today if the Führer had not united us in National Socialism? Divided in parties, permeated with the disintegrating poison of Jewry and vulnerable to it because we lacked the protection of our present uncompromising ideology, we would have succumbed long since to the burdens of this war and would have
been delivered up to the pitiless destruction of our enemy. We know, therefore, that every one of us must be the guardian of this priceless possession, this unity of our
Volk
, this unconditional loyalty to our Führer.
Every weakening from this—even the least—is a weakening of our power and a strengthening of the enemy’s. The more decisively and unconditionally each of us affirms our National Socialist community and leadership, the more he can—since he is not checked or weakened by any duality within—throw his whole heart, his whole conviction into the fulfilment of his duty and so do great things.
In this unity between leadership, fighting front and
Volk
at home lies our huge force. In this unity we are invincible. With this unshakeable bearing, which the sacrifices and trials of this war still demand, we will wrestle a German peace, the peace of a proud
Volk
, welded together by necessity, with a new great future in a true National and Social community …
130
He continued on these lines, concluding that the preservation of National Socialist unity was the best way to honour the fallen and the only way to ensure they had not died in vain. There could be no better thanks to the fallen than selfless ‘loyalty to
Volk
and Führer’.
This was a pure expression of Nazi ideology; God had been displaced; in His stead was inscrutable Providence which had given the German
Volk
a protector—the father imagery used by Dönitz is surely significant—a far-seeing guide who cared indefatigably for each one of them and who would lead them through the struggle against the monstrous forces without to a great new German future. The reference to the ‘poison of Jewry’ was couched in much the terms that Himmler had used at the Gauleiters’
Tagung
in October—although of course these ideas were from
Mein Kampf
, and common currency.
Total commitment to the Führer carried with it total commitment to what, to the west of the National Socialist State, were regarded as crimes. Dönitz did not shrink from this, and there were no categories in which the German Navy did not play some part. Whether two transports which sailed from Black Sea ports with Jewish refugees for Palestine were sunk by German U-boats is uncertain
131
—they may have been the victims of Russian attack—yet there is no doubt that in January 1944 Admiral Kurt Fricke, Commander of Navy Group South, and a fanatical Nazi, proposed to the High Command at ‘Koralle’ that Jewish refugee
ships found at sea should ‘clandestinely without the knowledge of our allies’ be ‘caused to disappear with their entire complements’. The naval staff referred the request to the Foreign Ministry!
132
But that such a proposal could be raised and treated at headquarters as routine is evidence that Dönitz was far from the only naval officer who knew of the programme of genocide.
The Navy was also involved in terrorism, both against civilian shipyard workers and uniformed enemy units. The latter started under Raeder, who passed on a notorious ‘Commando order’ of Hitler’s to all units in October 1942; this decreed that enemy forces engaged in ‘so-called Commando operations … in uniform or demolition troops, with or without weapons, in battle or in flight are to be exterminated to the last man’.
133
The idea, as described by the naval staff in February 1943, after Dönitz had succeeded Raeder, was to ‘act as a deterrent’ so that those taking part learned ‘that certain death not safe imprisonment awaits them’.
134
The order was classified top secret since it called for the ‘shooting of uniformed prisoners acting on military orders even after they have surrendered voluntarily’, but for deterrent value the deaths were to be published as resulting from the units’ annihilation in battle. The naval staff memorandum concluded, ‘… after consultation with the C-in-C to ensure that all interested positions are clear about the handling of members of Commando units …’; it is thus virtually certain that the issue was brought to Dönitz’s attention.
The first documented case concerning the Navy occurred in Raeder’s time. A seaman from a two-man submarine or ‘chariot’ was caught in Norway in November 1942 after an abortive attempt on the
Tirpitz
. He was interrogated by naval officers, then passed back to the Security Services who had first captured him, the notorious SD, in whose hands he was shot in January 1943.
135
A more blatant example occurred in July 1943: the entire crew of a torpedo boat on a minelaying operation in Norwegian waters was captured on their boat in uniform and taken to the Bergen headquarters of the naval commander, South Norway, Admiral von Schrader. There the men were interrogated by naval intelligence officers, who concluded they were entitled to treatment as normal prisoners of war. Despite this, von Schrader decided that they came within the scope of the ‘Commando order’ and handed them over to the SD for treatment as ‘pirates’. Early the following morning the men were taken to a rifle range adjoining a concentration camp and shot one by one; their bodies were loaded on a lorry and taken to the coast where
they were guarded until nightfall, then placed in coffins with explosive charges attached; the coffins were taken out to sea, thrown overboard and the charges detonated under water ‘according to the usual practice’.
136
Dönitz, of course, had been involved in terrorism against merchant service crews for some time. The orders of September 1942, including the ‘rescue ship’ order sent out again immediately after the Gauleiters’
Tagung
in October 1943, with its reference to the ‘desired destruction of the steamers’ crews’, were the visible signs of a secret policy. It is significant that after September 1942 Hitler, who waged the war with mounting ‘bitter hatred’ and calls for reprisals in every direction at every opportunity, never again mentioned slaughtering or taking reprisals against shipwrecked survivors, despite frequent discussions with Dönitz about the U-boat campaign. There can be no doubt about the reason for such an uncharacteristic lapse; he knew that behind Dönitz’s ostensible orders to take captains, Chief Engineers, Chief Officers and navigators prisoner, lay secret instructions, given orally to Commanders, to annihilate survivors—so long as this did not endanger the boat.
In convoy battles this was out of the question, but in remote seas against independent ships there were opportunities. Not all were taken—it depended on the Commander—but the most notorious proven example occurred that year on Heroes’ Memorial Day immediately following Dönitz’s broadcast speech. The boat was U 852, the Commander
Kapitänleutnant
Heinz Eck, and the evidence comes from his trial immediately after the war.
Before his departure he was briefed in Berlin, according to his own account by ‘the Commander of the U-boat flotilla’; his German defence counsel corrected this to BdU, and if correct this was of course Dönitz himself. Whether it was Dönitz or Godt, Dönitz’s obsession with the importance of U-boat warfare, the only offensive means left to Germany, came into the talk Eck heard. He was then given detailed instructions for his mission by
Kapitänleutnant
Schnee at U-boat Command, who apparently warned him of the extreme danger from aircraft; he was also given a book full of standing orders, including those from September 1942 about rescue contradicting ‘the most elementary demands of war for the destruction of ships and crews’ and the ‘Rescue ship’ order.
It was Eck’s first war cruise in command; he had transferred—according to his evidence ‘volunteered’—from minesweepers in early
1942. He sailed from Kiel on January 18th 1944 bound for the Indian Ocean and, after passing out of the Baltic, made his way up the Norwegian coast and north of the British Isles to mid-Atlantic, then southwards, travelling on the surface only at night, submerging by day. It was a tense and strenuous passage, as is made clear not only by his own evidence, but by a U-boat Command war diary summary of the extraordinary mental and physical strain on crews at this stage of the war:
Boats must always be prepared for surprise attacks by enemy aircraft … their whole behaviour is therefore largely influenced by their radar interception gear, on which unfortunately only the fact of their location can be observed, not the type, distance or bearing of the locating enemy. When location is observed by night the boat will dive instantly on the assumption that it is an aircraft location. In many cases the hydrophones will then show that the boat is being located by a destroyer or corvette now approaching its diving position and forcing it on the defensive. It must in most cases endure depth-charging. If—learning by this experience—the boat remains on the surface after next finding she is located, she will perhaps have to suffer bomb-attack. In this case her behaviour is also wrong. Since at present radar interception gear cannot pick up all location frequencies … sudden attacks by naval or air craft often occur without previous warning.
137
The summary concluded, however, that despite the ‘harshness of the battle the bearing of commanders and crews remains above all praise: although aware of the heavy losses, although constantly pursued and weary, the U-boat man remains undaunted. Hard on himself, resigned to a hard fate, hating the enemy, believing in his arms and victory, he continues the unequal struggle’.
Such it must be assumed was the attitude of Eck and his officers when in the late afternoon of March 13th, after three weeks of travel submerged continuously by day, the steamer
Peleus
was sighted. Eck shadowed and after dark fired two magnetic torpedoes whose detonation broke the ship apart. She disappeared almost immediately but it was apparent from torch lights, whistles and calls among the wreckage that there were a number of survivors. Eck surfaced and took his boat among them, picking up the third officer and a seaman from one of the several rafts but apparently made no attempt to find the captain or other key
personnel. After interrogating the two he had taken he allowed them back on their raft, then steered away.