Hitler, Donitz, and the Baltic Sea (25 page)

Hitler hoped to safeguard Königsberg by recapturing the entire Samland Peninsula. To establish a secure link from Königsberg to Pillau, he ordered the divisions coming from Memel to attack in conjunction with forces north of Königsberg and to gain a line from the city to the southwestern tip of the Kurisches Haff. Yet by the time this order arrived, XXVIII Corps had already started an attack to reach German lines in the western part of the peninsula. Despite this and the ever-worsening situation in East Prussia, in the following weeks Hitler persisted in his demand for the reconquest of Samland. The army group had no interest in retaining the peninsula.
⁴¹
At the end of January Hitler reiterated his conviction that possession of Königsberg was of decisive significance to Germany’s overall situation. Dönitz readily agreed and urged Hitler to order an attack to regain contact between Pillau and Königsberg, maintaining that he could guarantee Army Group North’s supply only if both cities were firmly under German control. Hitler assured Dönitz that plans for this operation were already in the making.
⁴²

Dönitz demonstrated his eagerness to assist the army in this task. Upon learning of the army group’s plan of attack in Samland, he informed Guderian the navy would send the Second Task Force and several smaller vessels to support the operation. To gain the greatest benefit from the warships’ artillery, Dönitz suggested the army shift its attack closer to the coast. Guderian agreed, and promised to inform Rendulic accordingly. A few days later Hitler spelled out the reasons for his insistence on holding Königsberg. Guderian conveyed Hitler’s command that it was of decisive importance to hold a broad area around Königsberg in the long run, both for the link to Army Group Courland as well as to ensure domination of the Baltic.
⁴³

Dönitz had no cause to object to Hitler’s strategy in this theater, but Rendulic was not quite so enthusiastic. At the beginning of February he protested that his army group was short of ammunition and fuel and warned that casualties had reached alarming levels. Later that month Rendulic claimed that unless he received replacements and supplies, Fourth Army could not maintain its front south of Königsberg. He requested permission to shift Fourth Army eastward toward Königsberg to prevent its isolation and destruction.
⁴⁴
Hitler viewed the situation in a different light. He saw no reason to move Fourth Army closer to Königsberg, because Dönitz had guaranteed this army’s supply. Fourth Army, Hitler commanded, must hold
its present front along the Haff to prevent the Soviets from gaining positions from which they could shell Pillau from the south.
⁴⁵

Dönitz’s role in ensuring that Fourth Army would defend the Haff coast south of Königsberg offers yet another example of his direct interference in army operations. In support of Rendulic’s appeal to redeploy Fourth Army toward Königsberg, Guderian warned Hitler that ice conditions in the Haff would jeopardize Fourth Army’s supply. Dönitz countered that the route over the Haff was nearly free of ice already and that delays would be minimal. The next day he guaranteed Hitler the navy could deliver 2,000 tons of supplies per day to Fourth Army, despite Guderian’s admission that the army could not ready that amount for shipment on a daily basis. Dönitz also promised that the continued supply of Königsberg and the Samland posed no problem as long as Pillau and the sea canal to Königsberg remained in German hands. Hitler instructed Guderian that in light of Dönitz’s statements, Army Group North’s most vital task was to ensure possession of Pillau and its link to Königsberg. A few days later Dönitz pointed out the importance of holding the coast south of the sea canal, cautioning that if the Soviets gained this sector they could disrupt shipping to Königsberg. He also warned Hitler the Soviets could take Pillau under direct artillery fire from the Balga Peninsula.
⁴⁶
On 11 March Hitler ordered Army Group North, now with Second Army attached, to defend its present positions to protect the ports of Danzig, Gdynia, and Pillau. He again commanded Rendulic to expand the corridor linking Fourth Army with Königsberg, but only after recapturing the entire Samland Peninsula. Two days later the Soviets attacked and severed Fourth Army’s link to the city. At a situation conference on 20 March Dönitz angrily refuted Army Group North’s claim that the navy could ferry Fourth Army, totaling about 150,000 men, and its equipment to Pillau in five nights. Dönitz insisted this was far beyond the navy’s means, asserting that with additional shipping the navy could transport at most 7,000 troops per night—without their equipment. Later that day Hitler informed the army group of the navy’s actual capabilities and refused its request to evacuate the coast, a decision he confirmed the following day.
⁴⁷

The Soviets continued to hammer away at Fourth Army, inflicting frightful casualties. Nevertheless, Hitler commanded Army Group North to hold its positions on all fronts and again turned down a proposal to concentrate the army group’s forces in one area. Once more he insisted the most important task remained the defense of the fortresses Hela, Gdynia, Danzig, and Königsberg. Hitler claimed that possession of Samland was essential for Königsberg’s defense and demanded daily reports on the city’s
supply status. Although on 24 March Hitler agreed to Fourth Army’s evacuation, he insisted the army maintain a bridgehead on the Balga Peninsula. Dönitz feared that Soviet artillery there could shell Pillau, and he secured Hitler’s agreement to defend the peninsula as long as possible.
⁴⁸
Fourth Army managed to hold on until the morning of 29 March, when its last remnants were ferried over the Haff. Fourth Army’s chief of staff later claimed that he had proposed a breakthrough attack at the end of February and again on 10 March but that Hitler rejected this plan. When Hitler finally ordered the attack around 20 March, it was too late, because contact with Königsberg had been lost.
⁴⁹
Dönitz’s demands to protect Baltic ports had exacted a heavy toll upon the army.

Hitler still had not abandoned his plan to recapture Samland. Guderian instructed Army Group North on 26 March to use Fourth Army’s troops for an assault to regain the line Königsberg-Brokist Bay. Weiss, the army group’s commander, obediently informed OKH that he would attempt this after reorganizing his units and reinforcing the Samland front against an expected Soviet offensive. In the following weeks Hitler insisted on sparing no effort to ensure Königsberg’s supply and demanded that troops in and around the remaining Baltic fortresses hold their positions to tie down Soviet forces. When the Soviet assault on Königsberg began, Hitler ordered Fourth Army to hold the city under all circumstances. He flew into a rage upon learning of Königsberg’s surrender, sentencing Lasch (the city’s commander) to death in absentia and ordering his family’s arrest.
⁵⁰
Even after the loss of Pillau, Jodl commanded Gen. Dietrich von Saucken (who assumed command of Second Army after Weiss became the army group commander) to hold his current positions, in order to tie down enemy forces, maintain the supply link to Courland, and deny the Soviets use of Pillau.
⁵¹
In his final month Hitler ordered several organizational changes. On 30 March he decided to evacuate the staff of Army Group North from East Prussia. Fourth Army assumed command of German forces in Samland and Königsberg from 2 to 10 April, when Hitler ordered its staff evacuated as well. For the period after 11 April, Second Army, renamed the Army of East Prussia, directed all German troops in East and West Prussia. Finally, on 28 April Hitler placed the Army General Staff under Keitel’s command, thereby giving OKW control of the Eastern Front.
⁵²

Problems with Army Group North’s supply repeatedly came up in discussions between Hitler and Dönitz. On several occasions Dönitz criticized the army in Hitler’s presence, claiming that the navy could ship more goods to East Prussia if only the army would deliver the supplies to ports.
⁵³
In mid-February Hitler reprimanded Guderian when he learned that Army Group
Courland, with fewer men and then not under attack, had received more supplies than Rendulic’s hard-pressed forces in East Prussia. Assmann reported that from 1 to 12 February, 8,000 tons of supplies had reached East Prussia, an amount far below the minimum required. Dönitz repeated his claim that the navy could deliver more supplies if the army provided them. In the last days of March the supply situation in East and West Prussia, especially with regard to ammunition, continued to deteriorate, despite Hitler’s repeated demands for improvement.
⁵⁴

Dönitz’s desire to hold Königsberg surpassed that of his Führer. When the Soviets cut the last rail link from East Prussia to the Reich, the army group insisted that it must restore land contact, because the delivery of sufficient supplies by sea was inconceivable. Yet Dönitz never admitted this, and at the end of February the Skl declared that there was adequate shipping space to fulfill Guderian’s request to deliver three months’ supplies to Königsberg—even though at this time German troops in Courland complained of various shortages. Also, the previous day the Skl had noted that losses to merchant shipping in January had been more than double the average of previous months. This situation only grew worse. On 9 March the Skl revealed that half of its vessels in the Baltic were no longer operational and that besides Swinemünde, the only serviceable port for warships in the entire Baltic was Kiel.
⁵⁵
In the final weeks of the war, supply problems proved insurmountable. Weiss and then Saucken pleaded for ammunition, reporting that lack thereof had caused the collapse of both Second and Fourth armies, as well as the inability to launch Hitler’s long-awaited offensive in Samland.
⁵⁶
But control of events by this time had slipped from Dönitz’s grasp. The end of coal deliveries from the Ruhr in late March and the Allied advance toward the Elbe in mid-April denied the navy of fuel for its supply ships and escorts. On 13 April Hitler called upon the Skl to send warships to support the fighting in the Samland, but Dönitz reported that this was impossible due to lack of fuel. At the end of the month OKW concluded that troops in East Prussia had supplies for approximately three more weeks.
⁵⁷

West Prussia and Pomerania were no less important to Dönitz than East Prussia. The Soviet advance to Pomerania threatened the West Prussian ports of Danzig and Gdynia. These two cities ranked at the top of Dönitz’s list of vital Baltic ports. Danzig was a major center for naval construction, one of only three assembly sites for the new Type XXI U-boats, and Gdynia served as home port for both surface and subsurface naval vessels. Danzig had been declared a fortress by October 1944, but Gdynia’s significance to the navy had also been apparent early on. At the beginning of
October, with the front still a good distance away, the Skl had begun to prepare for Gdynia’s defense. The previous month Guderian had notified the Skl that the army did not plan to set aside troops to defend the city, but at the end of October Meisel requested Guderian to incorporate Gdynia into West Prussia’s defensive system, due to its decisive importance to the navy. As a result Guderian declared the city a fortress and ordered it strengthened against attacks by land or sea.
⁵⁸
Still the navy was not satisfied. Claiming that use of Gdynia as a fleet base was impossible without possession of the Hela Peninsula, the Skl next requested the peninsula’s inclusion into Gdynia’s fortress area. Again, OKH agreed.
⁵⁹

During the Soviet advance from the Vistula to the Oder, Dönitz’s fear for the safety of these ports mounted. On 19 and 21 January Dönitz explained to Hitler that loss of the Bay of Danzig would cripple the U-boat war. At a meeting in the Skl on 22 January, Dönitz declared, “According to the Führer’s decision the U-boat war remains the navy’s primary task. . . . The U-boat war hinges upon use of the Bay of Danzig and the central Baltic for training. The importance of this area, therefore, demands that the navy exhaust every possibility to support the defense of this essential base of operations.”
⁶⁰

The following day Dönitz again saw Hitler. On this occasion Hitler asserted that the key strategic areas on the Eastern Front were, first of all, the oil fields in Hungary and the Vienna Basin, and secondly the Bay of Danzig and Upper Silesia’s industrial area.
⁶¹
Dönitz had succeeded in convincing Hitler of the Bay of Danzig’s vital importance to the war effort. When Hitler transferred several divisions to the Eastern Front from the West in mid-January, he ordered them sent to Hungary and the Pomeranian coast for offensive operations. The Stargard offensive in Pomerania failed, but Hitler had had high hopes for its success.
⁶²

As the Soviets approached the Oder, Dönitz pressed his demands for the protection of additional Baltic ports, particularly Stettin and Swinemünde. On 29 January the Skl proposed Swinemünde’s elevation to fortress status. In the following days when Dönitz met with Hitler he stressed the importance of Stettin and Swinemünde, whose ports and shipyards were essential to the navy, especially for shipping to and from the East. To indicate his willingness to help, Dönitz offered Himmler three naval infantry regiments to protect the Stettin sector. Guderian and Keitel also recognized the importance of this area for its hydrogenation plant and the link to Pomerania and West Prussia. Hitler declared that everything possible had to be done to protect this region, emphasizing Stettin’s importance for the overall conduct of the war and insisting that Army Group Vistula bear this in mind.
⁶³
The Skl noted with satisfaction that OKW
intended to declare Swinemünde a fortress, and Dönitz personally visited both ports to determine their preparedness.
⁶⁴