Read Hitler, Donitz, and the Baltic Sea Online
Authors: Howard D. Grier
According to his memoirs, once Dönitz took over the government he saw that he must conclude peace after saving as many people as possible from the Russians. But his actions at the time do not bear this out. Admiral Godt, one of Dönitz’s closest advisers throughout the war, claimed that after Hitler’s death Dönitz underwent a complete transformation. A few days earlier Godt had considered it likely that Dönitz would continue the fight, regardless of the consequences.
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Keitel’s memoirs indicate that only on 3 May was Dönitz ready to end the war,
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and this is borne out in documentary evidence. Although on the morning of 2 May Dönitz recognized that the military situation was hopeless, he insisted that the war continue, not only to gain time to prevent soldiers and civilians from falling under Soviet control but also
because the Russians strove for the destruction of Germany’s “national character”
(Volkstum).
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Several of Dönitz’s contemporaries believed that he intended to follow Hitler’s aim of splitting the enemy alliance.
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Speer would state that in Spandau Dönitz expressed outrage that West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer had renounced the
Anschluss
with Austria, confiding that he had wanted to continue the war against the Soviets in May 1945 but that the Western Allies prevented him from doing so.
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Dönitz appointed Hans-Georg von Friedeburg to succeed him as commander in chief of the German Navy. On 28 April Friedeburg instructed U-boat commander Erich Topp, about to put to sea in a Type XXI submarine, that the navy would continue the struggle from Norway if the enemy captured Germany. Should Germany also lose Norway, Topp was to take his U-boat to sea until he ran out of fuel and then “go on land and fight the enemy with whatever you have left to fight with.” Topp met with Dönitz that day, and he gained the impression that the grand admiral believed all was not yet lost. Another U-boat commander received orders on 3 May to continue operations near New York.
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On the night of 3 May the Skl instructed the U-boat operations staff that if the enemy occupied all of northern Germany, the U-boat war would be continued from Norway. For that reason Dönitz had dispatched Godt and Hessler to Norway that afternoon.
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After Dönitz succeeded Hitler he attempted to evacuate as many German troops from Courland and East Prussia as possible, and on 3 May he radioed Hilpert to withdraw into bridgeheads around Libau and Windau. Dönitz wanted fighting troops to aid in northern Germany’s defense, and he instructed Hilpert that seasoned divisions had top priority in the evacuation. The next day Lt. Col. Ulrich de Maizière, operations officer of OKH’s operations section, flew to Courland and East Prussia to coordinate plans for the evacuations.
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Why would Dönitz insist that fighting troops receive priority unless he planned to continue to fight? Dönitz still had not given up. It was only on the afternoon of 6 May, following several attempts to make a separate peace with the Western powers, that the Dönitz government unequivocally stated that its main task was to end the war on all fronts.
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The German Navy in World War II could not be accused of surrendering at five minutes before twelve. It had held out until there remained very little left to hold. Germany lay in ruins, its defeat total.
“A Kind of Mesmerism”
H
OW WAS IT POSSIBLE
for intelligent people who knew the true state of affairs to continue to believe Hitler could win the war? According to
contemporaries, at least part of the reason lies in Hitler’s perceived ability to inspire confidence. Admiral Ruge described it as follows:
It was a kind of mesmerism which acted on different men in different ways. Susceptibility to this influence seemed to be dependent on some kind of resonance which some types of men possessed to a high degree. It was particularly striking with Doenitz, to a slightly lesser extent with Kesselring. The situation might be darker than ever and their spirits at a low ebb when they went to Hitler’s headquarters, but they returned radiating an optimism not at all warranted by general conditions. A similar case was Vice Admiral Voss, Doenitz’s representative in Hitler’s headquarters, who was completely under this spell as late as April 1945.
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Ulrich de Maizière expressed it almost identically, stating that “Hitler possessed an inexplicable, I am not afraid to say demonic, personal radiation of power, which can scarcely be described, can all the more not be grasped, and which only a very few people were able to avoid. Even older, life-experienced and high-ranking people were overcome.”
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Neither Ruge nor Maizière was tainted by Nazi crimes, and each later held top positions in the West German military, Ruge as inspector of the Navy in the Ministry of Defense and Maizière as inspector general of the Bundeswehr. These individuals in particular were not employing a “Hitler made me do it” defense to justify their actions. People who commented on this trait usually referred to Hitler’s effect on others, not upon themselves, as if to imply that they were less susceptible.
Hitler’s strange ability to influence others is one of the most inexplicable traits he possessed. Ruge commented that although difficult to explain, this characteristic of Hitler’s had not been sufficiently explored. One must avoid the pitfall of simply declaring that Hitler hypnotized the German people, but at the same time, his uncanny ability to change people’s minds cannot simply be ignored. Most people who came into frequent contact with Hitler mention this trait, but historians have tended to downplay or ignore it, mainly because it is empirically unverifiable and appears to involve accepting first-hand accounts uncritically. This study makes no attempt to explain it but merely recognizes that many of those around Hitler perceived the effects. Examples previously discussed in this study include Küchler and Friessner, but there are numerous others. According to Speer, in April 1945 Hitler convinced Field Marshal Albert Kesselring that it would be possible to drive the Western Allies from Germany by launching a flank attack at Eisenach with one hundred tanks. “Such was the magic of Hitler!”
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Hitler’s secretary described how grizzled generals would go into conferences determined to stand up to Hitler but be unable to do so once they were in his presence.
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Speer described this phenomenon in even more detail, obviously struggling to understand the attraction Hitler had for him personally. He regarded the people constantly in Hitler’s presence as slaves, with no will of their own. Speer maintains that the men Hitler influenced were not only weak-willed lackeys, such as Keitel, but also courageous men who had commanded troops at the front in World War I. He too had seen commanders arrive at Führer headquarters determined to contradict Hitler but after a few moments in his presence come around completely to his point of view. Hitler retained this ability to persuade others even in the years of defeat. Although obviously exhilarated by Hitler’s presence, Speer claimed to have become tired, exhausted, and empty if he remained around Hitler too long. He asserted that the only way he could preserve his independence was to visit Hitler’s headquarters no more than every two to three weeks. Speer discussed this phenomenon with Dönitz at the beginning of 1944, and the grand admiral claimed Hitler had a similar effect upon him.
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Near the end of his life Speer told journalist and author Gitta Sereny, “I am still convinced now that this was his greatest gift: to convey, not in words but by a kind of mass—and individual—hypnosis, that he cared about each of us, even, if you forgive the term, that he loved us.”
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Meisel, one of Dönitz’s closest colleagues during the war, claimed to have felt relieved and unburdened when in Hitler’s presence; Hitler, he asserted, radiated strength. He also stated that Dönitz visited Hitler’s headquarters more and more frequently so that he could draw strength from Hitler.
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Anyone reading Goebbels’s diaries is sure to be struck by his near-worship of Hitler and the obvious rejuvenation he experienced in Hitler’s presence. Elke Fröhlich has described how, to the very end, Goebbels’s visits with Hitler served to reenergize the propaganda minister, restoring his confidence and determination.
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Dönitz visited Hitler more and more often in the war’s final months, and like Goebbels, he drew inspiration from these visits. He seemed to find the strength from Hitler to continue to demand unconditional obedience and to fight on regardless of the cost. Confidence that Hitler could turn the tide of the war was not as rare as people today might think. Dönitz was one of those whose faith in Hitler endured, and he did his utmost to help his Führer win the war militarily. Furthermore, several witnesses maintain that even in the final weeks Hitler, despite his appalling physical deterioration, retained the ability to inspire his followers.
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Dönitz’s decisive role in shaping German strategy in the final two years of the war is evident in his success in convincing Hitler to defend decisive sectors in various theaters. Although one of Germany’s most prominent naval historians asserts that Dönitz won Hitler’s confidence “by pleading
the Navy case, while scrupulously avoiding meddling with the affairs of the Army,”
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the evidence points elsewhere. As is apparent from the example of Norway and the bridgeheads along the Baltic coast, Dönitz had a definite interest in ensuring that several key areas remained in German hands, and he did everything he could to convince Hitler—usually successfully—to command the army to defend these sectors. Moreover, these were not the only theaters of the war where Dönitz intervened in army affairs. There is conclusive evidence of Dönitz’s role in the defense of the Crimea.
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However, the navy also demanded the retention of Odessa as a supply port for troops in the Crimea. Dönitz considered possession of Odessa crucial for control of the Black Sea, and he insisted on the city’s defense also to deny the Russian Black Sea Fleet an advanced base.
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The similarities to Dönitz’s policy in the Baltic are obvious. Dönitz repeatedly meddled in the army’s affairs for the navy’s benefit. He urged Hitler to order the army to defend a position on land that served to maintain control of the sea.
Dönitz also pointed out the importance of holding certain areas in the West. In the Mediterranean, Dönitz urged the defense of Tunisia and Sicily. At the beginning of September 1944 Voss reported that upon Dönitz’s recommendation, Hitler had declared the west bank of the Scheldt River near Vlissingen a “fortified site,” to be held to the end.
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The following month Dönitz informed Hitler that defending the Dutch island of Walcheren, at the mouth of the Scheldt River, was vital to blocking the river and thereby denying the Allies use of Antwerp as a supply port. Furthermore, on at least three occasions in February 1945 Dönitz called for the defense of the west bank of the Rhine to allow shipment of coal on the river.
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Dönitz also tried to impress Hitler with his offensive spirit, and in doing so he often advocated questionable operations. When he briefed Hitler on the collapse of the U-boat war in May 1943, Dönitz complained that the Allies had concentrated their defenses in the Bay of Biscay, the only feasible route by which submarines could enter and exit the Atlantic from their French bases. To remedy this situation, Dönitz suggested that Germany occupy Spain and Gibraltar. Not only would this provide the navy with more bases from which to send its U-boats into the Atlantic, but possession of Spain also would threaten the Allies’ flank in North Africa and completely alter the situation in the Mediterranean. In a reversal of the normal perception of affairs, it was Hitler who injected reality into the discussion, explaining that he did not have the forces for this operation.
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Although this proposal was clearly unreasonable in view of Germany’s overall situation in May 1943, Dönitz nonetheless showed that he had not given up the fight and, like his Führer, still thought of conducting the war offensively.
Another example of Dönitz’s desire to demonstrate his aggressive stance was the operation of the battle cruiser
Scharnhorst
in late December 1943. Dönitz ordered the
Scharnhorst
to intercept and destroy a convoy in the Arctic Ocean, but instead of finding a convoy, it ran into several British cruisers. The German vessel attempted to escape but ran into another group of British warships and was sunk, losing all but thirty-six of its crew of nearly two thousand. The
Scharnhorst
had engaged the enemy without a destroyer escort or reconnaissance support from either aircraft or submarines, in conditions of poor visibility, and with inadequate detection equipment.
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Yet it had sailed. Again, Dönitz had demonstrated his spirit of attack.
Dönitz’s insistence on bringing the electro-submarines into action was somewhat problematic in itself. Although high-speed underwater travel enhanced the ability to evade detection and elude pursuit, it also drastically curtailed a submarine’s range of observation. A sailor with binoculars on a U-boat’s conning tower had a much greater field of vision than that afforded by a periscope. For this reason air reconnaissance was absolutely essential for the success of the new U-boats. Unfortunately for Dönitz, this had been a serious problem for years. One of his most frequent complaints since the war began had been the lack of reconnaissance aircraft.
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Even before the collapse of the U-boat war Dönitz considered this the greatest problem facing his submarines—in effect, the ability to find convoys. In mid-December 1943 Dönitz sent Hitler a personal message emphasizing that for the upcoming campaign with the electro-submarines, air reconnaissance was a higher priority than previously. Hitler ordered Göring to increase output of long-range reconnaissance aircraft for this purpose, but actual production fell far below Dönitz’s needs.
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Over and over again Dönitz protested that air reconnaissance was essential to the success of his new U-boats.
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Even though it clearly was not forthcoming, however, he never considered halting the new submarine program. If Dönitz had been able to send the Type XXI submarines into the Atlantic, their actually finding targets to attack would have been purely a matter of chance.