Read Dönitz: The Last Führer Online
Authors: Peter Padfield
During that January, 1943, two U-boat ‘aces’, Erich Topp and Reinhart Suhren received invitations to the Berghof, where they were asked by Martin Bormann over a glass of wine what they would think if
Dönitz were to succeed Raeder as Commander-in-Chief. Although surprised, both immediately replied that this was the only way the U-boat war might be turned round. Bormann just listened; they had the impression that Hitler had already made up his mind (see
page 264
) and needed only confirmation.
20
That Dönitz during his time as Commander-in-Chief and particularly during the final months of the war was driven by National Socialist conviction rather than rational analysis cannot be doubted; thus the former U-boat Commander Unterhorst: ‘Dönitz’s speeches were full of threats of Court Martial. And he drove his Judges to perverted judgements’.
21
Another former officer states that Dönitz usually increased the sentences of the Navy Courts rather than reconsidering them with clemency—a lead that was quickly followed by the Navy Judges. Peter Hansen recalls many files being burnt at Kiel in the first week of May 1945: ‘particularly the Court Martial proceedings and the like were weeded, if not burned and destroyed altogether’.
22
As for Dönitz’s reputation as the saviour of millions of refugees from the east in the last stages of the war (see
pages 5
and
420
), the truth is that rescue operations did not match his belief in ultimate victory or the military tasks he had set himself, and he opposed using naval resources for rescue for as long as he could. The true organizers of the sea lift of refugees were Rear Admiral Conrad Engelhardt, Vice Admiral Theodor Burchardi, Captain Adalbert von Blanc, and in the latter stages Vice Admiral August Thiele. Against their pressure Dönitz at last gave way, consenting reluctantly to a naval response to the plight of the German easterners; and it was only at the very end that he lifted all restrictions. So are myths made.
Finally, to the most controversial issues in these pages: whether or not Dönitz encouraged his U-boat crews to kill survivors, and whether (see
page 468
) had he been ‘tried with the evidence and insights available today, he would have joined Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Jodl and the rest of the twelve condemned to death by hanging’. First it is necessary to clear up the term ‘unrestricted warfare’. It will be recalled that the US Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz stated at Nuremberg that he had ordered ‘unrestricted warfare’ from the first day of the Pacific war, and that it had become general practice not to attempt the rescue of survivors. Dönitz used the statement then and afterwards to vindicate his own conduct. But in the context of submarine warfare ‘unrestricted’ simply means attacking without search or warning; and ‘not to attempt the rescue of
survivors’ does not imply shooting them in the water. The question here is whether Dönitz encouraged the elimination of survivors with secret oral instructions and deliberate ambiguities in his written orders.
Unwritten, unattributable orders had a pedigree in the German service going back certainly to the fleet mutinies at the end of the First War when, for instance, Johann Spiess, commanding U 135, was instructed orally by Admiral von Trotha to take up a position from which he could torpedo the mutinous battleships,
Ostfriesland
and
Thüringen
–after which he was to ‘use his own judgement’. Possibly they went further back to the U-boat attacks on hospital ships and passenger liners. Conditions during the Weimar Republic between the wars, when the Navy regarded itself as a pillar of the traditional order virtually in opposition to the elected government, imprinted the concept deeper in the minds of officers like Dönitz whose duties were concerned with political subversion (see
page 110
).
Passing to the orders Dönitz issued in September 1942 after the
Laconia
incident (see
page 255
), we now have more information on some of the cases of British attacks on survivors under investigation by the German Naval Staff at the time—see
pages 253
–
4
. The submarine concerned in the most notorious of these was HMS
Torbay
, her commander one of the most decorated British naval officers who became Rear Admiral Sir Anthony Miers VC DSO and Bar. On the night of July 9th 1941, the
Torbay
sank a number of Greek caiques carrying German troops to Crete—then occupied by the Germans—afterwards firing at and killing the soldiers in the water. The surviving German skipper of one of the caiques, Fritz Ehlebracht, sent a report of his experiences to Berlin;
23
used at the time for anti-British propaganda in the German Army newspaper for Greece, it was studied in 1942 by the Naval Staff team investigating similar incidents, notably the
Ulm
.
A British Commando who was aboard the
Torbay
, retired Captain George Bremner, recently gave his account of another incident that night. Bremner led an explosives party aboard one caique, disarmed seven Bavarian Alpine troops, then shepherded them back to the
Torbay
’s casing and asked Miers’ permission to take them below. Miers ‘furiously refused, shouting that submarines never took any prisoners’.
24
Bremner spent some time searching vainly for a life raft to put them in; when later he asked some of the crew on deck what had happened to the Germans he was told they had been shot in the water. It is an incident that has haunted him ever after.
It has been argued that Miers was in a dangerously exposed position on the surface close inshore, that his instructions were to prevent troops and stores being landed, that submarines had no space for prisoners, and that to leave German combatants to be rescued by their own side would have been to add gratuitously to the enemy’s fighting power; further, that Miers’ judgement was vindicated by the Admiralty.
25
Whatever may be said with hindsight on either side, in September 1942 the German Naval Staff had reports of this and other instances of survivors being shot in the water or in boats by the Royal Navy. Moreover, the principal defence of Miers’ action, that the Germans, if rescued, would have added to the enemy’s fighting power, applies with more force to Dönitz’s situation in late 1942. He was fighting a desperate battle against fast-increasing merchant tonnage; this tonnage and the sailors required to man it were an essential part of the Allied war effort. The question of preventing sailors surviving to man the new tonnage and of deterring or terrorizing neutral sailors had been discussed at both Naval High Command and at Führer Headquarters. Raeder and Dönitz had rejected Hitler’s proposal to annihilate survivors on the practical ground that it would undermine the fighting spirit of the U-boat crews if they had to expect reprisals in kind. On the moral ground Dönitz would have argued that the Allies were, night after night, killing defenceless women and children in their area bombing of cities; indeed he did argue this in his
Laconia
orders (see
page 255
). And it is clear from a wide variety of sources that the Allied mass raids on German cities inspired hatred of the enemy. In the light of Dönitz’s National Socialist convictions, his own detestation of the enemy, his lack of temperamental balance, and particularly in the light of the ruthlessness he displayed towards his own servicemen found wanting in the closing stages of the war, can it be doubted that the wording of his
Laconia
order was deliberately and carefully ambiguous? ‘Rescue contradicts the most fundamental demands of war for the annihilation of enemy ships and crews’.
26
While the biographer may presume this, the evidence is not, as the Judges at Nuremberg and several reviewers of this book pointed out, sufficient to convict.
However, the assumption that Dönitz’s orders were intentionally ambiguous and supplemented by unwritten, unattributable encouragement to eliminate survivors was not the chief reason for suggesting that ‘tried with the evidence and insights available today’ he would have been sentenced to hang. The evidence and insights referred to are the recent revelations concerning the unity of the Navy under Dönitz with the Nazi
state, his close co-operation with Himmler and the masters of the slave-labour force, his knowledge of the fate of the Jews, which implies complicity in genocide—indeed his receipt on behalf of his U-boat crews of watches and other personal belongings stolen from the victims of the gas chambers—and his total identification with Hitler. It is, of course, easy to argue that the Allies were in no moral position to judge the defeated at Nuremberg, that Stalin’s hands were bloodier than Hitler’s, that the US President had obliterated whole Japanese cities and their inhabitants with atomic bombs, and Churchill had sanctioned the slaughter of civilians in the infernos ‘Bomber’ Harris created in so many German cities. That is not the point. The victors had the power and used it to try the vanquished. Given that process, it is now clear that Dönitz, like Albert Speer, made use of slave labour for naval construction, and from October 1943 at the latest knew that his colleague, Heinrich Himmler, was systematically annihilating European Jewry—and other categories—to the instructions of his war father, Adolf Hitler. It must be concluded that both Dönitz and Speer were fortunate to escape the gallows. This was an important point to make, for before first publication of this book the German naval and U-boat propaganda arm had spent nearly forty years washing the blood from Dönitz’s uniform and portraying him as an apolitical, decent, professional officer—with extraordinary success. And it is important to make the point again now that a whole school of revisionist historians has risen in Germany and elsewhere to relativize the crimes of the Third Reich and sanitize twentieth-century German history.
As for the officers and men of the U-boat arm, I am persuaded that, with exceptions as in all navies, and despite their youth and pernicious indoctrination, they fought honourably from the beginning and, especially in the later years, with extraordinary courage against overwhelming odds. In the process they lost around 30,000 of the 40,000 men who joined the service. It is fitting to end with the words of one of their number, written in 1959:
In Nuremberg Dönitz was sentenced to ten years. They would pass and he would be free again. He and the others. They would all be free and write their memoirs … They who had given the orders would appear with clean escutcheons and beat their breasts and declare they had always wanted the best [for Germany] …
27
The following abbreviations have been used in references:
| A/S R | British Admiralty monthly anti-submarine reports. |
| BA/MA | Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv , Freiburg, West Germany. |
| F/ Vorträge | C-in-C, Kriegsmarine , reports and discussions with the Führer . |
| Hindenburgreise | Unpublished typescript in diary form by Karl Dönitz of his Hindenburg Award travels. |
| IMT | International Military Tribunal; evidence and documents presented at the trials of the major war criminals, published Nuremberg, 1948. English-language edition. |
| IWM | Imperial War Museum, London. |
| KTB | War diary, referenced by command and date of entry only as sufficient for archival location. Thus: |
BdS KTB | war diary, Schnell -boat Command. |
BdU KTB (earlier, FdU KTB) war diary, U-boat Command. | |
OKW KTB | war diary. Armed Forces High Command (the entries here all from J. Schultz: Die Letzten 30 Tage , Stuttgart, 1951). |
1/Skl KTB A | war diary, Naval War Staff Operations Division. |
U 39 KTB | war diary, U 39 for 1917 (archival ref: PG 61587). |
| MGM | Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen (journal) |
| Nat. Mar. | National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England. |
| Nav. Lib. | Naval Library, Ministry of Defence, London. |
| P/Akte | personal records of Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (PG 31044). |
| PG number | archival reference given to captured German naval records by the British. |
| PRO | Public Record Office, London (Kew Gardens). |
| Raeder Akte | personal file of Grand Admiral E. Raeder (PG 34004). |
| Saville | A. W. Saville; The Development of the German U-boat arm, 1919–1935 , unpub. PhD, Washington Univ., 1963. |
ONE
Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden
1
Address published in
Marine Rundschau
, 1/1981, pp. 1–2
2
H. Jaenecke in
Stern
, Jan. 9, 1981, p. 61
3
See Pastor H.-J. Arp’s address in Dönitz:
Dokumentation
, pp. 16–20
4
Jaenecke above ref. 2
5
A. Schnee: ‘
Absented vom Grossadmiral
’ in
Schaltung-Küste
, Feb. 1981
TWO
The Imperial Naval Officer
1
P/Akte
2
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 18
3
ibid., p. 8
4
Frau Fidelak to author, 18.3.1982
5
Dönitz to Frau Dönitz from Spandau prison, cited Fishman, p. 192 (All these letters now apparently not extant)
6
Frau Fidelak to author, 18.3.1982
7
G. Sandhofer:
Dokumente zu militärischem Werdegang des Gr. admls Dönitz
, in MGM 1/1967, p. 60
8
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 9
9
v. Bülow, p. 270
10
McClelland, p. 168
11
ibid., p. 181
12
Dorpalen, p. 149
13
ibid., pp. 149–50
14
v. Bülow to Richthofen, 26.7. 1899, cited P. Kennedy: ‘German World Policy and the Alliance Negotiations with England, 1897–1900’ in
Journal of Modern History
, vol. 45, 4/1973, p. 618
15
P. Kennedy: ‘The Kaiser and German Weltpolitik’ in Röhl & Sombart, p. 148: see also P. Kennedy:
Anglo-German Antagonism
, pp. 361 ff.
16
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 13
17
ibid., p. 22
18
Frau Fidelak to author, 12.12.1982
19
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 17
20
ibid., p. 18
21
ibid., p. 20
22
ibid., p. 19
23
ibid.
24
Herwig:
Luxury Fleet
, p. 117
25
Herwig:
Naval Officer Corps
, p. 55
26
ibid., pp. 40–1
27
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 24
28
Frau Fidelak to author, 25.2.1982
29
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 25
30
ibid., p. 33
31
ibid., p. 25
32
Dönitz:
40 Fragen
, p. 9
33
ibid.
34
Herwig:
Naval Officer Corps
, p. 66
35
Naval Attaché Reports, Jan. 29, 1914, Nav. Lib., Ca 2053
36
Bebel’s letter enclosed in Angst to Tyrrell, Sept. 24, 1910, PRO ADM 116 940B
37
See Berghahn:
Tirpitz Plan
38
Capt. H. L. Heath (Nav. attaché, Berlin) to E. Goschen, Aug. 6, 1910, PRO ADM 116 940B
39
Capt. Dumas to F. Lascelles, Aug. 6, 1908, PRO ADM 116 940B
40
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 32
41
ibid., p. 33
42
ibid., p. 23
43
ibid., p. 38
44
Dec. 3, 1912: cited v. Tirpitz, Vol. I, p. 361
45
Three separate accounts of this meeting are in J. Röhl: ‘Admiral v. Müller and the Approach of War, 1911–1914’ in
Historical Journal
XII, 4/1969, pp. 661 ff.
46
See for instance P. Kennedy: ‘The Kaiser and German Weltpolitik’ in Röhl & Sombart
47
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 50
48
ibid., p. 53
49
v. Hase, p. 3
50
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 61
51
P/Akte
52
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 68
53
Berghahn:
Approach of War
, p. 140
54
See ibid., pp. 116 ff.: Fischer, pp. 34 ff.
55
See Berghahn:
Approach of War
, p. 152; Röhl:
Delusion
, p. 31
56
Berghahn:
Approach of War
, p. 186
57
See K. Jarausch: ‘Bethmann-Hollweg’s Calculated Risk, July 1914’ in
Journal of Central European History
, March 1969, pp. 54–5
58
V. Berghahn & W. Deist: ‘
Kaiserliche Marine und Kriegsausbruch 1914
;
Neue Dokumente
…’ in MGM 1/1970, p. 45
59
Memo. by Pr. Lichnowsky, Berlin, Jan. 1915; cited Röhl:
Delusion
, p. 83
60
Berghahn & Deist, above ref. 58, p. 46
61
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 72
62
Hopmann to v. Tirpitz, 20.7.1914; cited Berghahn & Deist, above ref. 58, pp. 53–4
63
ibid.
64
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 72
65
ibid., p. 73
66
ibid., p. 74
67
July 31, 1914: cited Balfour, pp. 350–51
68
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 74
69
cited Appendix: Grey
70
v. Müller diary, Aug. 1, 1914; cited Röhl: ‘Admiral v. Müller…’, above ref. 45, p. 669
71
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 77
72
ibid., p. 82
73
Report of detached service, H.M.S.
Gloucester
, Aug. 28, 1914, PRO ADM 137 3105
74
Adml. Limpus diary, Aug. 11, 1914, Nat. Mar. (uncatalogued)
75
Manten, p. 45
76
Corbett, vol. I, p. 360
77
Dönitz:
Breslau
, pp. 14–17
78
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 96
79
Corbett, vol. I, p. 71
80
Dönitz: Breslau, pp. 130–31
81
Manten, p. 166
82
ibid., p. 115
83
Dönitz:
Breslau
, pp. 119–20
84
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 101
85
P/Akte
:
Beurteilung
, Aug. 1915
86
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 102
87
Dönitz:
Breslau
, pp. 147–8
88
ibid., pp. 150–51
89
ibid., p. 153
90
ibid., p. 156
91
Manten, p. 264
92
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 106
93
P/Akte
:
Beurteilung
, 18.9.1916
94
quoted Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 107
95
P/Akte
:
Beurteilung
, Nov. 25, 1916
96
v. Holtzendorff memo., Dec. 22, 1916, cited Scheer, p. 249
97
ibid.
98
ibid., p. 252; see also Corbett, vol. III, pp. 345–6
99
Forstmann, p. 51; see also Herzog & Schomaekers
100
Forstmann, p. 99
101
ibid., p. 40
102
ibid., p. 59
103
Neureuther & Bergen, p. 90
104
ibid., p. 103
105
Kerr to Jackson, June 8, 1916; cited Marder, vol. III, p. 276
106
Forstmann, pp. 49–50
107
ibid., p. 63
108
U 39 KTB, 15.2.1917, 1H 30m Nm.
109
Forstmann, pp. 65–6
110
U 39 KTB, 15.2.1917, 1H 45m Nm.
111
Forstmann, p. 64
112
ibid., pp. 57–8
113
ibid., p. 108
114
Marder, Vol. IV, p. 102 for actual figures; Scheer, p. 261 for German estimates
115
Duff’s minute, April 26, agreed by Jellicoe; see Marder, IV, p. 159
116
Forstmann, p. 92
117
ibid., pp. 97–8
118
Spindler, vol. V, p. 166
119
U 39 KTB, 5.8.1917, 11H 9m Vm.
120
ibid., 11H 10m Vm.
121
Forstmann, p. 104
122
U 39 KTB, 9.8.1917, 3H 15m Nm.
123
Hindenburgreise
, p. 2
124
U 39 KTB, Sept. 18–Okt 14, 1917, endorsement on report
125
P/Akte
:
Beurteilung
Dec. 1, 1917
126
Dönitz to Forstmann, Feb. 1943; cited Herzog & Schomaekers, p. 72
127
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 109
128
Marder, vol. IV, p. 277 for actual figures; Scheer, p. 261 for German estimates
129
Spindler, vol. IV, pp. 567–8
130
from ibid., vol. V, p. 182
131
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 114
132
Spindler, vol. V. p. 183
133
ibid., p. 217
134
Interrogation of UB 68 prisoners, PRO ADM 137 3900
135
Interrogation of Captain of UB class boat, Mar. 23, 1918, PRO ADM 137 3900
136
Herzog:
60 Jahre
, p. 171
137
ibid., p. 173
138
This description from Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, pp. 118–19, and Dönitz,
10 Jahre, pp
. 7–8
139
Nav. W. O. Bohrmann’s account in interrogation of UB 68 prisoners, above ref. 134
140
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, pp. 119–20
141
Interrogation UB 68 prisoners, above ref. 134
142
ibid.
143
Hindenburgreise, p
. 114
144
ibid., pp. 113–14
145
ibid., and Dönitz:
Wechselvolles
, p. 127
THREE
Towards the Second World War
1
Dönitz:
Wechselvolles, p
. 130
2
Frank:
Sea Wolves, p
. 13
3
Kelley, p. 106
4
Herwig:
Naval Officer Corps
, p. 260
5
See Horn: also Herwig;
Luxury Fleet, p
. 254
6
See Bird, p. 42
7
v. Trotha to Kap. Michaelis: BA/MA Nachlass N 164, vol. 6, 39; cited Bird, p. 265
8
Dönitz:
10 Jahre, p
. 10
9
ibid.
10
v. Trotha, 9.1.1919: cited Dülffer, p. 29