Welcome to instalment two of our brief mini-series of weekly instalments focussed on the career of Admiral Karl Dönitz.
As most students of modern history will know it was in September 1939, that Germany invaded Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and World War II commenced.
The Kriegsmarine was caught unprepared for war as it had planned for war in 1945, The Z Plan was tailored for a war beginning in 1945, not as early as 1939. This plan called for a balanced Fleet with a greatly increased number of surface capital ships, including several aircraft carriers.
At the time that the war did start, Dönitz's U-boat fleet only included a mere 57 boats, many of them short-range, and only 22 oceangoing Type VIIs. He was forced to make do with what he had, while being harassed by Raeder and with Hitler calling on him to dedicate all U-boats to military actions against the British Fleet directly. These operations were generally unsuccessful, while the other boats continued to do well against Dönitz's primary targets of merchant shipping.
On the 1st of October 1939, Dönitz was appointed a Rear Admiral (Konteradmiral) and "Commander of the Submarines" (Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote, BdU.
On the 1st of September 1940, Dönitz was also made a Vice Admiral (Vizeadmiral).
By 1941, the delivery of new Type VIIs had improved to the point where operations were having a major impact on the British wartime economy. Although production of merchant ships increased in response, improved torpedoes, better U-boats, and much better operational planning led to increasing numbers of sinkings.
On the 11th of December 1941, following Adolf Hitler's declaration of war on the United States, Dönitz immediately planned for implementation of Operation Drumbeat (Unternehmen Paukenschlag).[8] This operation targeted shipping along the East Coast of the United States. This initiative was carried out in January 1942 , with only nine U-boats, however it had dramatic and far-reaching result. The U.S. Navy was unprepared for antisubmarine warfare, despite having had two years of British experience to learn from.
On at least two occasions, Allied success against U-boat operations led Dönitz to investigate possible reasons. Among those considered were espionage and Allied interception and decoding of German Navy communications (the naval version of Enigma). Both investigations into communications security came to the conclusion espionage was more likely, if Allied success had not been accidental.
Nevertheless, Dönitz ordered his U-boat fleet to use an improved version of the Enigma machine, the M4, for communications within the fleet, on the 1st of February 1942. The Navy was the only branch to use the improved version; the rest of the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) continued to use their then-current versions of Enigma. The new system was termed "Triton" ("Shark" to the Allies). For a time, this change in encryption between submarines caused considerable difficulty for Allied codebreakers and it took almost ten months before Shark traffic could again be read.
By the end of 1942, the production of Type VII U-boats had increased to the point where Dönitz was finally able to conduct mass attacks by groups of submarines, a tactic he called "Rudel" and became known as "wolfpack" (Wolfsrudel) in English. Allied shipping losses shot up tremendously, and there was serious concern for a while about the state of British fuel supplies.
During 1943, the war in the Atlantic had turned against the Germans, but Dönitz continued to push for more U-boat construction and technological development.
At the end of the war, the German submarine fleet was by far the most advanced in the world, and late war examples, such as the Type XXI U-boat, served as models for Soviet and American construction after the war.
Dönitz was very personally involved in operations, often contacting his boats up to seventy times a day with questions such as their position, fuel supply, and other trivia. This helped compromise his cyphers, by giving the Allies more messages to work from. The replies also enabled the Allies to use direction finding (HF/DF, called "Huff-Duff") to locate a U-boat using its radio, track it, and attack it often with aircraft.
On the 30th of January 1943, Dönitz replaced Erich Raeder as "Commander-in-Chief of the Navy" (Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine) and Grand Admiral (Großadmiral) of the Naval High Command (Oberkommando der Marine).
It was Dönitz who was able to convince Hitler not to scrap the remaining ships of the surface Fleet. Despite hoping to continue to use them as a fleet in being, the Kriegsmarine continued losing what few capital ships it had. In September, the battleship Tirpitz was put out of action for months by a British midget submarine. In December, Dönitz ordered the battlecruiser Scharnhorst (under Konteradmiral Erich Bey) to attack Soviet-bound convoys, but she was sunk in the resulting encounter with superior British forces led by the battleship HMS Duke of York.
On the 30th of April 1945, Hitler committed suicide. In his last testament, Hitler expelled both Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler from the Nazi Party. He surprisingly designated Dönitz his successor as Head of State (Staatsoberhaupt) and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.
Dönitz became President (Reichspräsident), a post Hitler had abolished years earlier. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels became Head of Government and Chancellor of Germany (Reichskanzler). However, on the 1st of May, Goebbels committed suicide, the day after Hitler's death. Hitler believed the leaders of the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer), Air Force (Luftwaffe), and SS (Schutzstaffel) had betrayed him. So, because the German Navy had been too small to affect the war in a major way, the leader of the Navy became the only possible successor by default.
On the 1st of May, following Goebbels' suicide, Dönitz became the sole representative of the crumbling German Reich. He appointed Count Ludwig Schwerin von Krosigk as Reichskanzler and they attempted to form a government. During his brief period in office, Dönitz devoted most of his efforts to ensuring the loyalty of the German armed forces and trying to ensure German troops would surrender to the British or Americans and not the Soviets. He correctly feared vengeful Soviet reprisals. However, after the signature of the unconditional surrender, the Dönitz government was not recognized by the Allies and was for some days more or less ignored.
The rapidly advancing Allied forces limited the Dönitz government's jurisdiction to an area around Flensburg near the Danish border, where Dönitz's headquarters were located, along with Mürwik. Accordingly his administration was referred to as the “Flensburg government”.
The following was Dönitz's description of his new government:
“These considerations (the bare survival of the German people) which all pointed to the need for the creation of some sort of central government, took shape and form when I was joined by Graf Schwerin-Krosigk. In addition to discharging his duties as Foreign Minister and Minister of Finance, he formed the temporary government we needed and presided over the activities of its cabinet. Although he was restricted in his choice to those men who were in northern Germany, he nevertheless succeeded in forming a workmanlike cabinet of experts.
The picture of the military situation as a whole showed clearly that the war was lost. As there was also no possibility of effecting any improvement in Germany's overall position by political means, the only conclusion to which I, as Head of the State, could come was that the war must be brought to an end as quickly as possible, in order to prevent further bloodshed.”
Late on 1 May, Himmler attempted to make a place for himself in the Flensburg government.
The following is Dönitz's description of his showdown with Himmler:
“At about midnight he arrived, accompanied by six armed SS officers, and was received by my aide-de-camp, Walter Luedde-Neurath. I offered Himmler a chair and I myself sat down behind my writing desk, upon which lay, hidden by some papers, a pistol with the safety catch off. I had never done anything of this sort in my life before, but I did not know what the outcome of this meeting might be.
I handed Himmler the telegram containing my appointment. "Please read this," I said. I watched him closely. As he read, an expression of astonishment, indeed of consternation, spread over his face. All hope seemed to collapse within him. He went very pale. Finally he stood up and bowed. "Allow me," he said, "to become the second man in your state." I replied that that was out of the question and that there was no way in which I could make any use of his services.
Thus advised, he left me at about one o'clock in the morning. The showdown had taken place without force, and I felt relieved.”
Himmler was ultimately named Minister of Interior but was dismissed on the 6th of May.
On the 4th of May, German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark, and northwestern Germany under Dönitz's command surrendered to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery at Lüneburg Heath southeast of Hamburg, signaling the end of World War II in western Europe.
On the 7th of May, Dönitz authorized the Chief of Staff of the German Armed Forces (Wehrmacht), Colonel-General (Generaloberst) Alfred Jodl, to sign the instrument of unconditional surrender of all German forces to the Allies. Jodl signed these surrender documents in Rheims, France. The surrender documents included the phrase, "All forces under German control to cease active operations at 23:01 hours Central European Time on 8 May 1945." On the 8th of May, shortly before midnight, General Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) Wilhelm Keitel repeated the signing in Berlin at Marshal Georgiy Zhukov's headquarters, and, at the time specified, World War II in Europe ended.
On the 23rd of May, the Dönitz government dissolved when its members were captured and arrested by British forces at Flensburg.
The next instalment will cover the post World War Two career of Karl Dönitz.
In compiling each instalment I make reference to a number of established reputable sources both web and reference books.
It is acknowledged that a part or portion of the above information may have been sourced from the following sources and credit is duly acknowledged:
Footnote
In compiling each instalment I make reference to a number of established reputable sources both web and reference books.
It is acknowledged that a part or portion of the above information may have been sourced from the following sources and credit is duly acknowledged:
Bibliography – websites
Wikipedia
www.u-boat.net/
www.u-boataces.com
www.historylearningsite.co.uk
www.uboatarchive.net/
www.u-boat-reich.co.uk
www.karl.donitz.com
Bibliography – books
U-Boats at War
U-Boats in Action Squadron/Signal
U-Boats Destroyed: German Submarine Losses in the World Wars by Paul Kemp
Dönitz and the Wolf Packs by Bernard Edwards
Wolf, U-Boat Commanders in World War II by Jordan Vause
German U-Boat Crews 1914-45 by Gordon Williamson and illustrated by Darko Pavlovic
Neither Sharks nor Wolves - The Men of Nazi Germany's U-Boat Arm 1939-1945 by Timothy P Mulligan
KRIEGSMARINE U-BOATS: 1939 - 1945 by Chris Bishop
Shooting the War: The Memoir and Photographs of a U-Boat Officer in World War II by Otto Giese and James E. Wise
U-Boats: The Illustrated History of the Raiders of the Deep by David Miller
Wolf Pack: The Story of the U-Boat in World War II (General Military) by Gordon Williamson
The U-Boat: The Evolution and Technical History of German Submarines by Eberhard Rossler
Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939-1942 (Modern Library War) by Clay Blair
Wolf: U-Boat Commanders in World War II by Jordan Vause
Silent Hunters: German U-Boat Commanders of World War II (Bluejacket Paperback Series) by Theodore P. Savas
The Reichsmarine 1919–1935 - Jason Pipes
Kriegsmarine - The Navy 1935–1945 - Jason PipesU-Boat Commander: A Periscope View of the Battle of the Atlantic. 1984. Cremer, PeterThe Trial of the Germans: Account of the Twenty-two Defendants Before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. 1997. Davidson, Eugene.U-Boats Against Canada: German Submarines in Canadian Waters. McGill-Queen's University Press: 1985. Hadley, Michael L.U-boat Killer. 1999. Macintyre, Donald.Iron Coffins: A U-boat Commander's War, 1939–45. 1999. Werner, Herbert A
Fortunes of War: U-boat Commander. 2000. Prien, Gunther
Innovation ignored: The Submarrine problem in Murray, Williamson and Millet Allan R. ed. "Military Innovation in the Interwar Period". Cambridge University Press 1998 Herwig, Holger H
Failure to Learn: American Anti-submarine Warfare in 1942 in Cohen, Eliot A. and Gooch, John. Military Misfortunes Vintage Books 1991
Grossadmiral. Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days. Da Capo Press, USA, 1997. Dönitz, Karl, (reprints 1958 German-language Athenäum-Verlag edition).
Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939-1945. Friedburg, Germany: Podzun-Pallas. Fellgiebel, Walther-Peer
"Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote (BdU) Karl Dönitz." at Uboat.net. Guðmundur Helgason.
Knight's Cross Holders of the U-Boat Service. Schiffer Publishing Ltd. Kurowski, Franz (1995).
.Dönitz: The Last Führer. Cassell & Co, UK, 2001 Padfield, Peter
Die Ritterkreuzträger der Kriegsmarine. Stuttgart, Germany: Motorbuch Verlag. Range, Clemens (1974).
Die Ritterkreuzträger Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Miltaer-Verlag. Scherzer, Veit (2007).
Doenitz: The Last Fuhrer by Peter Padfield
Doenitz at Nuremberg: A Re-Appraisal by H.K. Thompson and Henry Strutz
Capitulation 1945 by Dr. Marlis Steinert
