Hitler's Commanders (43 page)

Except for the U-boat war, 1941 was not a good year for the German Navy. The battleship
Bismarck
was sunk, the few German commerce raiders were run down, and the German battleships found their new French bases vulnerable to RAF attacks. The grand admiral and his staff had underestimated the value of aircraft against naval targets—one reason why Germany never did have an aircraft carrier. They did have one under construction, but it had a low priority and was an on-again, off-again affair.

Also in 1941, Adolf Hitler began to interfere more and more in naval matters at the operational level.

Hitler opposed the idea of sending the
Bismarck
on its fateful raid into the Atlantic, but Raeder insisted, backed by his yes-man fleet commander, Luetjens. Despite his personal misgivings, Hitler let them have their way. The huge 42,000-ton battleship was sunk off the French coast on May 27, 1941, taking more than 2,000 officers and men to their deaths.

After this disaster, Hitler became more and more critical of Raeder and the surface fleet, and less and less inclined to give him a free hand. On November 13, 1941, Raeder asked permission to send the battleships out on a fresh foray into the North Atlantic in February 1942. Hitler rejected the idea and asked if it were possible to bring the ships home (to German waters) via a surprise breakout through the English Channel. Raeder and his staff doubted it, but on January 12, 1942, Hitler ordered it done nevertheless. And it worked. Raeder’s stock dropped even lower in the Fuehrer’s eyes.

In late December 1942, Vice Admiral Oskar Kummetz led a task force consisting of the
Hippel
, the
Luetzow
, and six destroyers in a raid from Trondheim into the Arctic Ocean and Barents Sea. Its object was to intercept and destroy Allied Convoy PQ-17; which was heading for Russia with every conceivable type of war material. Unfortunately, bound by SKL orders not to take any major risks, Kummetz accomplished very little. His force was superior to the screen of British destroyers that blocked his path to the convoy, but he could not penetrate it without risk. Even so, as he withdrew from the battle he was surprised by two British cruisers, which had come up unseen from the opposite direction. The
Hipper
was damaged and a destroyer was lost with all hands.

Meanwhile, back at his Rastenburg headquarters in East Prussia, Adolf Hitler anxiously awaited news of the foray for three days. He was so nervous that he could not sleep. On January 1, 1943, he finally heard what had happened and flew into a rage. He decided on the spot to pay off the heavy ships and reduce them to scrap. Their guns, he said, could be used as coastal defense artillery. He demanded that Grand Admiral Raeder appear before him at once.

Back in Berlin, however, Raeder feigned illness. This bought him five days. He hoped that Hitler would calm down in that amount of time. The Fuehrer did not. When he saw Raeder on January 6, he launched into a roaring monologue that lasted two hours. The grand admiral never said a word as Hitler recited the list of failures of the German surface fleet, damning it every way he could think of. He ended his tirade by repeating his order to disband the surface fleet. When Hitler finally finished, Erich Raeder resigned his post as commander-in-chief of the navy. The Fuehrer immediately softened his attitude and tried to dissuade him from quitting, but Raeder insisted. He had heard too much. To preserve the fiction of harmony within the High Command, Raeder retired on January 30, 1943—the 10th anniversary of Hitler’s assumption of power. He was also given the honorary title of inspector general of the navy—a strictly ceremonial position. Ironically it was his successor, U-boat Fuehrer Karl Doenitz, who convinced Hitler not to disband the remnants of the surface fleet.

Erich Raeder’s resignation came too late to help the German Navy. One by one the remaining ships of the surface fleet were destroyed by Allied submarines or air attacks, and the U-boat offensives were smashed by an enemy that was both quantitatively and technologically superior. Meanwhile, the Allied ground forces closed in, and in May 1945, Erich Raeder and his wife were captured by the Russians. The former admiral suffered a near-fatal heart attack on May 20, but as soon as he had recovered enough to travel, he and his spouse were flown to Moscow. That fall he was indicted as a war criminal and brought to Nuremberg to stand trial. On the stand he spoke of how Hitler deceived him many times and how he found the dictator impossible to get along with. In general, he tried to disassociate himself from the regime and minimized his own involvement as much as possible. On the issue of the invasion of Norway, he merely told the truth: all he did was beat the British to the punch. However, his attorney’s efforts to get the official British directives and plans introduced as evidence were rejected. Raeder’s conviction on the Norwegian charge is widely considered a travesty of justice, considering that the Allies were planning to do the same thing, but the tribunal was very selective about the evidence it would allow to be presented. On the other hand, however, Admiral Raeder could not dodge the fact that he passed on Hitler’s Commando Order of October 18, 1942, which ordered that Allied commandoes and paratroopers captured behind German lines were to be executed, whether they were in uniform or not.

Karl Doenitz, for one, was furious with Raeder’s testimony. “I cannot stand it when people turn their coats because the wind is blowing the other way,” he remarked. “I know how Raeder talked when he was the big chief and I was just a little man in the navy. It was altogether different then, I can tell you that. It gives me a pain to hear them change their tune now and say they always opposed Hitler.”
26

Despite Raeder’s evasions he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. When he heard the sentence, he implored the court to change it to death by firing squad. His request was denied. Raeder was sent to Spandau while his wife, who was never accused of committing any crime, remained a Soviet prisoner until September 1949. The couple was finally allowed to see each other again in March 1950, when they got to spend 15 minutes together. Raeder requested to be released long enough to attend the funeral of his only son, Hans, who died in Lippstadt on January 17, 1953, but this was denied him.

Much to his surprise, Erich Raeder was released due to his ill health on September 17, 1955, at the age of 80. He retired to Kiel, where he wrote his memoirs,
Mein lben
(
My Life
), a book that makes very interesting reading even though, in places, the author’s recollections are highly selective. Plagued by ill health in the last years of his life, Grand Admiral Raeder died in Kiel on November 6, 1960, at the age of 84.

* * *

gunther luetjens
, who succeeded Wilhelm Marschall as commander of the German fleet, was born in Wiesbaden on May 25, 1889, the son of a merchant. Enthralled from childhood by stories about the sea, he decided to make the navy his career and joined as an officer-cadet in 1907. In 1910, he graduated from the Naval Academy, ranking 20th in a class of 160. As befitted his high standing, he was assigned to a battleship. Ironically, Luetjens was uncomfortable on large ships. As soon as the opportunity arose, he transferred to the torpedo boats and served on them throughout World War I. In the Weimar days, he alternated between training and staff assignments (mainly involving transport vessels) and was considered an outstanding instructor. He served as commander of the 1st Torpedo Boat Flotilla (1929–1931) and, after a staff tour as chief of the naval officer personnel department (1932–1934), Luetjens was given command of the cruiser
Karlsruhe
in 1934 and spent the first half of 1935 in South American waters, showing the German flag. When he returned to Germany, he was named chief of staff of Naval District North Sea, serving in that capacity until March 16, 1936, when Erich Raeder named him head of the naval personnel office. The grand admiral needed a staff officer of proven ability for the rapidly expanding navy, and the experienced and dependable Captain Luetjens was his man.

Gunther Luetjens was a taciturn officer with a monk-like devotion to his calling. His friends considered him quite charming once they got beyond his stoic exterior. A confirmed monarchist, he never used the Nazi salute or carried an admiral’s dagger with a swastika on it, preferring instead to wear his old Imperial Navy dirk. He even lodged a protest against Hitler’s treatment of the Jews, but it was buried by Hermann Boehm, the fleet commander at the time.

In 1938 Raeder named Luetjens commander-in-chief of Reconnaissance Forces, and in late 1939, as a rear admiral, he took part in the mining operations off the English coast. He was promoted to vice admiral effective January 1, 1940. After Luetjens’s cruisers took part in the Norwegian campaign, Erich Raeder appointed him fleet commander (
Flottenchef
) on June 18, 1940. In him, the grand admiral found exactly the man he wanted to command the surface fleet: an officer of the old school he could trust to obey every order SKL gave him without too many questions or objections. The fact that Luetjens had spent the bulk of his career in the torpedo boat and cruiser arms did not make him particularly well qualified to command the fleet, but this did not seem to bother Raeder, who had Luetjens promoted to full admiral on September 1, 1940.

Meanwhile, at Raeder’s urging, Luetjens attempted to take the
Gneisenau
and the
Hipper
out on a raid into the Atlantic on June 20, 1940, but (as we have seen) his flagship
Gneisenau
was torpedoed the same day and out of action for months. Meanwhile, Admiral Luetjens was in charge of the naval portion of Operation Sea Lion, under the overall supervision of Admiral Raeder.

Repairs on the
Gneisenau
were completed by December, when Luetjens went out to sea again with it and the
Scharnhorst
. However, he ran into a gale, and both ships were damaged by heavy seas, forcing him to return to base again. On his third attempt, in early 1941, Admiral Luetjens finally succeeded in breaking out into the North Atlantic and fell on the British shipping lanes with the
Scharnhorst
and the
Gneisenau
. They sank 13 British merchant ships and tankers before being confronted by the British battleship
Rodney
and its escorts. In accordance with the take-no-risks orders of Raeder and Hitler, Luetjens felt obliged to retire rather than engage in a surface battle. On the morning of March 23, 1941, he entered the port of Brest, France. He was then summoned to Berlin.

On Saturday, April 26, 1941, Gunther Luetjens took his leave of Grand Admiral Raeder after having been briefed on his next mission: he was to conduct a raid in the Atlantic with the heavy cruiser
Prinz Eugen
and the
Bismarck
. It would be the maiden voyage of Germany’s monstrous 42,000-ton battleship.

Luetjens voiced some valid objections to this plan. The difference between the endurance of the two ships would prevent them from operating together as a homogeneous force, he pointed out. Luetjens wanted to wait until the
Scharnhorst
was repaired and the
Tirpitz
, the sister ship of the
Bismarck
, completed her crew training period, which would be in about four months. As a combined force, these three ships would be very difficult indeed to defeat. Otherwise, the German Navy would be committing its forces piecemeal. Raeder, however, argued the opposite case. Each pause in the Battle of the Atlantic helped the enemy; also, it was essential to create a diversion in the Atlantic, to force the British to withdraw naval forces from the Mediterranean, thus reducing pressure on the Italian-German supply routes to North Africa.

Although he had by far the stronger argument, Luetjens let himself be persuaded. He would obey the grand admiral’s wishes. When Adolf Hitler visited Gotenhafen (now the Polish port of Gydnia) on May 5, to inspect both the
Tirpitz
and the
Bismarck
, he also expressed doubts about the advisability of this operation; Luetjens, however, strongly supported Raeder’s point of view. Had Luetjens said what he really thought and agreed with Hitler, it is quite likely that the tragedy of the
Bismarck
would have been avoided. However, faced with the united front of his naval experts, Hitler decided not to interfere with Raeder’s plans, despite his personal reservations. The stage was set for yet another naval disaster.

Once again, as with Marschall, the fleet commander was cautioned again and again against taking unnecessary risks. Raeder told him to use “prudence and care” and not to stake too much for the sake of a limited success of dubious value. At his SKL briefing, Luetjens was told that “the primary objective is the destruction of the enemy’s carrying capacity. Enemy warships will be engaged only in furtherance of this objective, and provided such engagements can take place without excessive risks.”
27

After leaving Berlin, Gunther Luetjens paid a visit to his friend and predecessor Wilhelm Marschall, a champion of the right of freedom of action for a commander at sea. Marschall, now in retirement, warned him not to feel too closely bound by the Supreme Naval Staff’s instructions.

“No, thank you,” Luetjens said as he rejected Marschall’s advice. “There have already been two Fleet Commanders who have lost their jobs owing to friction with the Admiralty, and I don’t want to be the third. I know what they want, and shall carry out their orders.”
28

The
Bismarck
and the
Prinz Eugen
left port on May 18 and were spotted by British reconnaissance aircraft on May 22. The Home Fleet tried to prevent them from breaking out into the Atlantic, and on the morning of May 24, a classic naval battle took place in the Denmark Straits, between Iceland and Greenland. Firing from 10 miles away, the
Bismarck
sank the British
Hood
. One of the German 15-inch (380mm) shells hit her aft magazine, setting off 112 tons of high explosives. The 42,000-ton battle cruiser went down only six minutes after the
Bismarck
opened fire, taking 1,416 officers and men with her, including Vice Admiral Sir Lancelot Holland. Only three men survived.