Hitler's Commanders (33 page)

Naval Lieutenant Guenther Prien, the commander of
U-47
and the first major naval hero in the history of the Third Reich. In early October 1939, Prien worked his way through the defenses of the major British naval base of Scapa Flow, where he sank the British battleship
Royal Oak.
Prien and the entire crew were killed in action on March 8, 1941
Source:
Courtesy of John Angolia

German assault troops cross a river under enemy artillery fire, Western Front, 1940.
Source:
United States National Archives

Naval Captain Wolfgang Lueth, a native of Estonia, became the number two U-Boat ace of World War II. As commander of the Naval School at Muerwik/Flensburg, he was killed by a German sentry on May 14, 1945, after he gave the wrong password. The sentry was acquitted by a court-martial.
Source:
Courtesy of John Angolia

Captain Erich Topp, the number three U-Boat ace of World War II. He later became a West German admiral and an architect.
Source:
Author’s personal collection

SS Colonel General Paul Hausser, the father of the Waffen-SS. A former army lieutenant general, he did well as an SS panzer division commander, but was not as successful in higher commands.
Source:
United States National Archives

SS Colonel General “Sepp” Dietrich, the former commander of Hitler’s bodyguard regiment who rose to the command of the 6th (later 6th SS) Panzer Army.
Source:
United States National Archives

SS-Brigadefuehrer and Generalmajor der Waffen-SS Helmut Becker, a former concentration camp guard and the last commander of the 3rd SS Panzer Division “Totenkopf.” Captured by the Soviets at the end of the war, he was executed for sabotage in 1953.
Source:
United States National Archives

Right to left: Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, SS General Sepp Dietrich, and Adolf Hitler attend the funeral of a Nazi killed in the street fighting of the early 1930s.
Source:
Nazi Party photo album from 1933, loaned to the author by former Captain Waldo Dalstead

Left to right: Colonel General Bruno Loerzer and Hermann Goering confer with Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler and Albert Bormann (the brother of Martin Bormann) outside Fuehrer Headquarters in 1944. Loerzer, former commander of the II Air Corps (1940–1943), was chief of personnel armament at the time.
Source:
United States National Archives

A dead German infantryman killed in the Battle of Cherbourg. He is still clutching a live hand grenade, which is why no one had removed his body.
Source:
United States National Archives

Utah Beach during the Allied build-up, June 9, 1944.
Source:
United States National Archives

Luftwaffe officers go for a walk near Fuehrer Headquarters in East Prussia. Left to right: Field Marshal Baron Wolfram von Richthofen, Colonel Nicholaus von Below (Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant), Colonel General Hans Jeschonnek (chief of the General Staff of the Luftwaffe) and General of Paratroopers Kurt Student, commander of the XI Air Corps.
Source:
United States National Archives