On
this date, December 24, 1980, Hitler’s successor, Admiral Karl Dönitz, died of heart attack. I will
post information about him from Wikipedia and other links.
Karl Dönitz
|
President
of Germany
|
|
In
office
30 April 1945 – 23 May 1945 |
|
Chancellor
|
Joseph Goebbels
Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk (Leading Minister) |
Preceded by
|
Adolf Hitler
(as Führer) Paul von Hindenburg (in title) |
Succeeded by
|
|
Personal
details
|
|
Born
|
16 September 1891
Grünau, Berlin, German Empire |
Died
|
24 December 1980
(aged 89)
Aumühle, Schleswig-Holstein, West Germany |
Nationality
|
German
|
Political party
|
National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)
(1944–45)[1]
|
Spouse(s)
|
Ingeborg Weber
|
Children
|
3
|
Religion
|
|
Military
service
|
|
Nickname(s)
|
Der Löwe (The Lion)
|
Allegiance
|
German Empire (1910–18)
Weimar
Republic (1920–33)
Nazi
Germany (1933–45)
|
Service/branch
|
|
Years of service
|
1910–18
1920–45 |
Rank
|
|
Commands
|
SM UC-25 (February–September 1918)
SM UB-68 (September–October 1918) Torpedo Boats (1920s) Emden (1934–1935) 1st U-boat Flotilla (1935–36) FdU (1936–39) BdU (1939–43) OBdM (1943–45) Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht (April–May 1945) |
Battles/wars
|
World
War II Battle of the Atlantic |
Awards
|
U-boat War Badge with Diamonds
World War I U-Boat War Badge 1939 Clasp to the 1914 Iron Cross 1st Class Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves |
Karl Dönitz
(16 September 1891 – 24 December 1980), sometimes spelt Doenitz in
English, was a German admiral who played a major role in the Naval history of
World War II. He began his career in the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche
Marine) before World War I. In 1918, while he was in command of UB-68,
the submarine was sunk by British forces and Dönitz was taken prisoner. While
in a prisoner of war camp, he formulated what he later called Rudeltaktik
("pack tactic", commonly called "wolfpack"). At the start
of World War II, he was the senior submarine officer in the Kriegsmarine.
In January 1943, Dönitz achieved the rank of Großadmiral (Grand Admiral)
and replaced Grand Admiral Erich Raeder as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy (Oberbefehlshaber
der Kriegsmarine).
On
30 April 1945, after the death of Adolf Hitler and in accordance with Hitler's last will and testament, Dönitz was named
Hitler's successor as Staatsoberhaupt (Head of State), with the title of
Reichspräsident (President) and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.
On 7 May 1945, he ordered Generaloberst Alfred
Jodl to sign the German instruments of
surrender in Rheims, France. Großadmiral Dönitz remained as head
of the Flensburg Government, as it became known, until it was dissolved by the
Allied powers on 23 May. At the Nuremberg trials, he was convicted of war
crimes and sentenced to ten years imprisonment; after his release, he lived
quietly in a village near Hamburg until his death in 1980.
Early
life and career
Inter-war
period
World
War II
Commander
of the submarine fleet
Commander-in-chief
and Grand Admiral
President
of Germany
Flensburg
government
Dönitz's
relationship to Jews and Nazism
Despite
his postwar claims, Dönitz was seen as supportive of Nazism during the war.
Several naval officers described him as "closely tied to Hitler and Nazi
ideology." On one occasion, he spoke of Hitler's humanity. Another event,
in which he spoke to Hitler Youth in what was defined as an "inappropriate
way", earned him the nickname of "Hitler Youth Dönitz." He
refused to help Albert Speer stop the scorched earth policy dictated by Hitler,
and is also noted to have declared, "In comparison to Hitler we are all
pipsqueaks. Anyone who believes he can do better than the Führer is stupid."
Several
antisemitic statements by Dönitz are known. When Sweden
closed its international waters to Germany, he blamed this action on their fear
and dependence on "international Jewish capital." In August 1944 he
declared, "I would rather eat dirt than see my grandchildren grow up in
the filthy, poisonous atmosphere of Jewry."
On
German Heroes Day (12 March) of 1944, Dönitz declared that without Adolf Hitler
Germany would be beset by "the poison of Jewry", and the country
destroyed for lack of National Socialism,
which, as Dönitz declared, met an uncompromising ideology with defiance. At the
Nuremberg trials, Dönitz claimed the
statement about the "poison of Jewry" was regarding "the
endurance, the power to endure, of the people, as it was composed, could be better
preserved than if there were Jewish elements in the nation." Initially he
claimed, "I could imagine that it would be very difficult for the
population in the towns to hold out under the strain of heavy bombing attacks
if such an influence were allowed to work."
Author
Eric Zillmer argues, that from an ideological standpoint, Dönitz was anti-Marxist and antisemitic. Later, during the Nuremberg
trials, Dönitz claimed to know nothing about the extermination of Jews and declared that
nobody among "[his] men" thought about violence against Jews.
Dönitz
told Leon Goldensohn,
an American psychiatrist at Nuremberg, "I never had any idea of the
goings-on as far as Jews were concerned. Hitler said each man should take care
of his business, and mine was U-boats and the Navy". Dönitz also told Dr.
Goldensohn of his support for Admiral Bernhard Rogge, who was of Jewish descent,
when the Nazi Party began to persecute him.
Nuremberg
war crimes trials
Later
years
Wife
and children
In
popular culture
Summary
of career
Dates
of rank
Service
history
Decorations
and awards
INTERNET SOURCE: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_D%C3%B6nitz
Karl Dönitz
(September 16, 1891 – December 24, 1980) was a German naval leader who
commanded the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) during the second half of World
War II. He became a Großadmiral (Grand Admiral) and served as Commander
of Submarines and later was Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy. Under his
command, the U-boat fleet fought the Battle of the Atlantic. He ended the war
as a prisoner-of-war of the British. After the war, Dönitz was charged and
convicted of "crimes against peace" and "war crimes" at the
Nuremberg Trials and served ten years. He died of a heart attack on Christmas
Eve, 1980.
Sourced
- No attempt of any kind must be made at rescuing members of ships sunk, and this includes picking up persons in the water and putting them in lifeboats, righting capsized lifeboats, and handing over food and water. Rescue runs counter to the most primitive demands of warfare for the destruction of enemy ships and crews. Be hard, remember that the enemy has no regard for women and children when he bombs German cities.
- Orders issued on September 17, 1942, after an American Airplane bombed a U-boat carrying survivors. Quoted in "The Trial of the Germans" - Page 406 - by Eugene Davidson - History - 1997
- The north German does not go in for extremes. He has broader horizons than the men from the mountains of Bavaria and Austria.
- To Leon Goldensohn, March 3, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
- I'm an old man at 54, without teeth, and with rheumatism.
- To Leon Goldensohn, March 3, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
- Is to accept the leadership of a crumbling country a crime? Is to prevent the Russians, the natural enemy of Germany, from obtaining our arms and manpower a crime? In Russian eyes it probably is. But I'm referring to the eyes of a westerner. I knew that we had to capitulate and I wanted it to be to the Americans and British, and not to the East. I'm not even accused of war crimes in the sense of the atrocities. It's clear they have no case against me. I came into a powerful position in 1943. How can I be accused of a conspiracy?
- To Leon Goldensohn, May 2, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
- The trial can only end in a mistake because it is founded on one. How can a foreign court try a sovereign government of another country? Could we have tried your President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Secretary Henry Morgenthau, or Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden, if we had won the war? We could not have done so and would not have. And trying that went on would have to be done by the nation itself and the courts set up there.
- To Leon Goldensohn, May 2, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
- To think of Russians sitting on a bench in Nuremberg, trying German leaders! The Russians sank a German boat with men, women, and children aboard. I know of the case. But is that investigated? You Americans weren't completely without fault, either. You armed merchant boats before the U.S.A. was in the war.
- To Leon Goldensohn, May 2, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
- I read sometime around 1938 of Jewish fines and some street actions against them. But I was too concerned with U-Boats and the naval problems to be concerned about Jews.
- To Leon Goldensohn, May 2, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
- By placing these people with foreign ideas in camps, German blood was saved. Would it have been better to have a civil war?
- To Leon Goldensohn, May 2, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
- If Hitler had not thrown the Communists into camps in 1933, there would have been civil war and bloodshed. The Communists would have revolted against the legally-elected government. The greatest danger of civil war in Germany came in 1932, when it was clearly a choice between Communism and National Socialism. So Paul von Hindenburg and the other conservative bourgeois elements chose Hitler. So did I, and I would do it again if a choice between Communism and Nazism arose.
- To Leon Goldensohn, May 2, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
- Your American admiral said that he held me in the highest esteem, and thought that I conducted my defense perfectly. He said through his chief of staff that my conduct was beyond reproach and he had the greatest admiration for me.
- To Leon Goldensohn, July 14, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
- With the new weapons like the atom bomb, Russia would have it, too, and use it first. It is a very difficult world. But that trouble is imminent is obvious.
- To Leon Goldensohn, July 14, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
- I accept responsibility for U-boat warfare from 1933 onward, and of the entire navy from 1943 on, but to make me responsible for what happened to Jews in Germany, or Russian soldiers on the east front — it is so ridiculous all I can do is laugh.
- To Leon Goldensohn, July 14, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
- Certainly inside my heart I know degrees of difference. But I can't blame any of these men who share a common fate with me. The big folly of this trial is that it lacks the two men who are to blame for anything which is criminal, namely Hitler and Himmler.
- To Leon Goldensohn, July 14, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004
- This took me completely by surprise. Since July 20, 1944, I had not spoken to Hitler at all except at some large gathering. … I had never received any hint on the subject from anyone else.... I assumed that Hitler had nominated me because he wished to clear the way to enable an officer of the Armed Forces to put an end to the war. That this assumption was incorrect I did not find out until the winter of 1945-46 in Nuremberg, when for the first time I heard the provisions of Hitler's will.... When I read the signal I did not for a moment doubt that it was my duty to accept the task … it had been my constant fear that the absence of any central authority would lead to chaos and the senseless and purposeless sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives … I realized … that the darkest moment in any fighting man's life, the moment when he must surrender unconditionally, was at hand. I realized, too, that my name would remain forever associated with the act and that hatred and distortion of facts would continue to try and besmirch my honor. But duty demanded that I pay no attention to any such considerations. My policy was simple — to try and save as many lives as I could ...
- April 30, 1945, quoted in "Memoirs: Ten Years And Twenty Days" - Page 442 - by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz - History - 1997
- The Führer has nominated me as his successor. In full consciousness of my responsibilities I therefore assume the leadership of the German people at this fateful hour. My first task is to save German men and women from destruction by the advancing Bolshevist enemy. It is to serve this purpose alone that the military struggle continues. For as long as the British and the Americans continue to impede the accomplishments of this task, we must also continue to fight and defend ourselves against them. The British and the Americans in that case will not be fighting in the interests of their own peoples, but solely for the expansion of Bolshevism in Europe.
- May 1, 1945, quoted in "Memoirs: Ten Years And Twenty Days" - Page 445 - by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz - History - 1997
- Our losses...have reached an intolerable level. The enemy air force played a decisive role in inflicting these high losses.
- May 24, 1943, quoted in "A Time for Courage: The Royal Air Force in the European War, 1939-1945" - Page 449 - by John Terraine - History - 1985
- The enemy holds every trump card, covering all areas with long-range air patrols and using location methods against which we still have no warning...The enemy knows all our secrets and we know none of his.
- 1943, quoted in "World War II Almanac, 1931-1945: A Political and Military Record" - Page 293 by Robert Goralski - History - 1981
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