Read Hitler, Donitz, and the Baltic Sea Online
Authors: Howard D. Grier
Dönitz even developed his own variation of the
Wellenbrecher
doctrine. In May 1943, and frequently thereafter, he reported to Hitler that despite the heavy losses his submariners currently suffered, the U-boat war had to continue, because it tied down enormous Anglo-American air and naval forces. Hitler immediately agreed, declaring that any reduction in the war at sea was out of the question. The Atlantic served as his western perimeter, and if he had to fight on the defensive he preferred to do so at sea rather than on Europe’s coast.
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Dönitz maintained that the submarine war had to continue also because it would prove impossible to resume the war at
sea if it stopped completely. To sustain the struggle was a tactical, technical, and most of all a psychological necessity. If all U-boats remained in port a large number of aircraft, including many heavy bombers, would be free to attack German cities. Furthermore, the multitude of destroyers and other vessels currently engaged in convoy protection could embark upon raids against German coastal shipping or support the expected invasion of Europe. Dönitz claimed that the diversion of enemy forces could not be underestimated, and it would continue only as long as U-boats put to sea. In addition, sustained operations were essential to keeping abreast of enemy antisubmarine tactics so the new type U-boat crews could be trained accordingly. For these reasons the navy had to persevere, whatever the cost.
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In October 1944 Dönitz estimated that the Allies employed 3,000–4,000 aircraft, thousands of escort vessels, and about one million people to combat German submarines.
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The Durchhalt Strategy
H
ITLER
’
S STRATEGY IN
1944
AND
1945 has been referred to as the
Durchhalt
strategy, holding out at all costs.
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Although many former German generals claim it consisted of nothing more than clinging tenaciously to every foot of ground and hoping for the best, it was actually a broad strategy with military, political, and economic aspects. Hitler’s first concern was to retain the areas economically essential to continue the war. Speer’s August 1944 study of raw materials helped him determine some of the boundaries of the reduced Reich. The Wehrmacht’s dependence on oil required the inclusion of Hungary, and this explains why in January 1945, after the Ardennes Offensive failed, Hitler shifted troops from the West to Hungary rather than to East Prussia or Poland. Dönitz’s demands to defend the shores of the eastern Baltic and Norway for the new U-boat offensive meant that Hitler had to hang on to these areas as well. With raw materials and strategically vital geographic regions in German hands, Hitler could concentrate on the other military and political aspects of the
Durchhalt
strategy. A cable from Assmann to the Skl in July 1944 contains the best brief description of this strategy:
Our strategy on all fronts is now focused upon gaining time. At present, a few months could easily be decisive to save the Fatherland. Thus, every square meter of ground must be defended most bitterly tooth and nail. With complete appreciation for the heavy fighting and the burden upon our brave fighting troops, tough leadership and clinging to every kilometer is in the interest of the entire nation, and thus necessary.
We must gain time in order to restore the balance of forces, especially in the air. The Führer sees this as the guiding principle for the further conduct of battle. Our armaments justify great expectations—continuous increases in our production, fighter production highly satisfactory, heavy tanks, assault guns. The development of V-1s and A-4s [V-2s] gives great hopes. We have sure expectations for new successes in the U-boat war with new submarine types. Everything is in progress—with results in a foreseeable period of time—thus the demand to fight, to defend, to hold, to strengthen the morale of troops and officers. We must nail down the front where it now stands. The Führer fanatically fulfills his duty to safeguard the future livelihood of the German people. Demands cannot be considered in regard to individual soldiers or local difficulties. Holding every strip of ground is the absolute necessity for the salvation of the nation.
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Hitler hoped to crush the Allied invasion of the continent on the beaches, so he could turn against the Soviet Union with nearly all his strength. Once the Normandy invasion succeeded, he had to hold out until Germany could launch the Ardennes Offensive. Hitler’s secretary Traudl Junge recalled that in late August 1944, upon asking whether Germany could still win the war, those in Hitler’s entourage always gave the same answer—the situation looked bad but they just had to hold out until the new weapons were available.
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Even after the Ardennes offensive Hitler believed he had a number of chances to regain the initiative. He placed enormous hopes on the new jet aircraft and V-2 rockets, with which he would turn back the Allied bomber offensive and repay the British for the destruction of German cities; the vengeance weapons, he hoped, would cause such destruction and demoralization that the English people would demand peace.
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The new submarine offensive, which Dönitz kept promising was almost ready to begin, would isolate Britain from America and end the war in the West. The day after Assmann sent his report outlining Hitler’s strategy, the Skl noted that the first Type XXI would be ready for operations around 1 January 1945.
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Hitler also hoped that fanatically defending every foot of ground would make the invasion of Germany so bloody that the Western Allies’ morale would collapse and they would come to terms.
Along with jet aircraft and unmanned rockets, which are better known, the Type XXI U-boats represented one of the miracle weapons integral to the
Durchhalt
strategy. From mid-1943 on Dönitz advocated the defense of every foot of ground, especially in the East, to buy time for the new U-boat force. Dönitz was determined to do his part to make sure the navy did not falter. On 11 October 1944—the day after the Soviets isolated Army Group North in Courland—Dönitz gave a speech to officers
and high-ranking civil servants in the Naval High Command. Considering the date and content of this speech, it is worth quoting at length as evidence of Dönitz’s thoughts at that time:
The war situation, along general lines, is well known to you. Both in the East as well as in the West, we have not been able to hold the large areas we gained in the first years of the war, areas that we exploited to our greatest strategic and economic advantage in the years they were under our control. Our enemies’ superior numbers in people and materiél forced us to reduce our operational area and withdraw to shorter lines. In this connection, the superiority of the enemy air force, especially in the West, has played the decisive role. It is now important to gain time until new divisions, newly equipped, are available. It is therefore decisive that in the West, for example, we hold on to the ports we possess as long as possible, and if we lose them, turn them over to the enemy only in a thoroughly destroyed condition so that the enemy cannot obtain supplies through these ports. The effort to hold the ports as long as possible has already worked extraordinarily to our advantage in the West. . . . The holding of the large Dutch port cities, the retention most of all of Antwerp and Dunkirk is therefore of great importance.
In the East, since 20 July the extraordinarily skillful leadership of General Guderian, by concentrating his forces and using mobility, has succeeded in stabilizing the front to an unexpected extent. Even if it has been necessary recently to withdraw Army Group North, this had to take place for reasons of manpower, in order to be able to withstand a renewed Russian assault at some other place on the Eastern Front in the coming winter months. In the East as well the important thing is to gain time; if we gain a few weeks’ time, until we are able to throw new forces into the defense, the situation will be mastered.
The political results of the withdrawal of the Eastern Front have been immense. The friendly attitude of the Turks ended when we gave up the Crimea. The withdrawal of the front to the Romanian border caused the defection of the Romanian state. This also led to the defection of Bulgaria. Our difficulties in the East and the West brought about the collapse of Finland. Russia thereby gained a considerable increase in political and strategic power in the East. We need waste no words about the results of the capitulation for these states. They now belong to Asia; they have lost their racial and political independence.
Our military tasks in the presently reduced sphere of influence are now basically the following:
1. It is important at all costs to hold the Reich. This task will be fulfilled with the new divisions and with new weapons, which are in the process of being delivered. It is evident here that Germany’s sources of manpower had not as yet been exhausted.
2. The second requirement is that we put a roof over Germany; that is, that we prevent the air attacks which, after the reduction of the area, could hit Germany more heavily than before. This roof is to be gained as soon
as our big fighter program has become reality. At that point it will be a matter of protecting, above all, the sources of our armaments power, our war production itself and our transportation routes. As painful as the destruction of our German cities is and will be, nevertheless their preservation cannot be our primary goal, since their destruction is not decisive.
3. It is important that we retain possession of the exits from the Baltic Sea, the waters in the Baltic and Norway. That is necessary for economic reasons; most of all, however, in order that we do not lose the training areas in the Baltic, and the sally-port of the Baltic entrances for our naval war. We shall succeed, under any circumstances, in fulfilling these three great tasks of the German armed forces. Thereby the continuation of the war is ensured. The raw materials for the continuation of the war economy are available in the Reich. The food supply is guaranteed.
Of the three basic military missions mentioned above, the last—the retention of Norway, the Baltic, and the Baltic entrances—concerns the most vital interests of the Navy. The first and second tasks, the holding of our army’s fronts in the East and West, and the reduction of air raids by increased fighter protection, are purely defensive tasks. The Navy alone has the offensive mission, to continue and again to intensify the war at sea in its most effective form—the tonnage war. . . .
The main effort of the attacks on the sea routes, however, by the nature of things, has lain with the U-boat force. . . . We should not forget that for years the enemy in this war has designated the U-boat war as the number one danger, that even this year Churchill declared that the elimination of the U-boat war had been the most critical and decisive success of all events in the course of the war, that the technical achievements which deprived the U-boat war of its great successes had saved the fatherland.
But even today the U-boat war continues and ties up several thousand aircraft, several thousand destroyers, corvettes, frigates and other warships, and nearly a million Englishmen, which otherwise could be sent into action at other places. Besides, as long as the U-boat war is effective by its mere presence, even with only few successes as at present, the enemy is not in a position to give up his convoy system. . . . It is therefore absolutely clear for us that compared with all our other tasks, the main task of the navy is again to intensify the tonnage war. . . .
The above-mentioned offensive task of the navy is, however, only possible if we protect our coasts from incursions, if we retain our sally-port out of the Baltic and our training areas in the Baltic. It is therefore required to strengthen our coastal defense as much as possible, and the artillery and flak protection of our fortresses. It is above all else necessary likewise to build all those naval vessels which can serve to protect our Baltic, our Baltic entrances, and our coastal approaches on our own coast and off occupied areas. . . .
This is the way it is: in every war there are only two possibilities. Either one fights or one asks for peace, one capitulates. . . .
If we were to go this way and ask for peace and capitulate, and the enemy would thereupon disarm us, do you believe that he then would have the least regard and the slightest interest in us? . . . The Russian has his own industry. . . . [W]hat he needs is labor in order to bring his industry, and what has been destroyed of his land to order again, and to make up for his large demographic losses. German people of both sexes would be shipped to Russia in unimaginable numbers. These people would never see Germany again. . . . The result of it would be the complete annihilation of the German people. For us, therefore, this path is totally out of the question. We would have to be ashamed in front of all those who have fallen in this war, in front of all the victims who would have made sacrifices in vain. We would have to be ashamed in front of our children and grandchildren, who then would point with their finger at us, “You have sold us, out of cowardly fear for your own fate, you were too weak, and now we have to suffer for it.” If such a path, to ask for peace, is not acceptable, then there is only one other way: to fight on inflexibly and resolutely with all our energy. Anything in between is impossible. . . .
For an officer’s unambiguous, determined and tough attitude toward unconditional and ruthless fighting, however, the following is necessary: