Karl Dönitz
Despite his postwar claims, Dönitz was seen as supportive of Nazism during the war.[13] Several naval officers described him as "closely tied to Hitler and Nazi ideology".[13] On one occasion, he went as far as to boast about Hitler's humanity.[13] Another event, in which he spoke to Hitler Youth scouts in what was defined as an "inappropriate way", earned him the nickname of "Hitler Boy Dönitz".[13] He refused to assist Albert Speer in stopping a scorched earth policy dictated by Hitler[13]and is also noted as saying, "in comparison to Hitler we are all pip-squeaks...Anyone who believes he can do better than the Führer is stupid".[13] There are several antisemitic statements on part of Dönitz known to historians.[13] When Sweden closed its international waters to Germany, he blamed this action on their fear and dependence on "international Jewish capital."[13] In August 1944, he declared, "I would rather eat dirt than see my grandchildren grow up in the filthy, poisonous atmosphere of Jewry".[13] On German Heroes' Day (12 March) 1944, Dönitz declared, without Adolf Hitler, Germany would be beset by "poison of Jewry", the country destroyed due to lack of National Socialism which, as Dönitz declared, gave defiance of an uncompromising ideology.[14] At the Nuremberg Trials, Dönitz claimed the statement about "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 was allowed to work".
Ideologically, Dönitz was antisemitic.[15] He was also recorded on several occasions of speaking about Jews in the "tone of Gauleiters".[citation needed] Later, during the Nuremberg Trials, Dönitz claimed to know nothing about the extermination of Jews and declared nobody among "his men" thought about violence against Jews.[14] 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".[16] To Goldensohn, Dönitz also spoke of his support for Bernhard Rogge, who was of Jewish descent, when the Nazi Party began to persecute the admiral.
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War crimes trial
Following the war, Dönitz was held as a prisoner of war by the victors, who accused him of war crimes. He was indicted as a major war criminal at the Nuremberg trials on three counts: (1) conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity; (2) Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression; and (3) crimes against the laws of war. Among the war-crimes charges, he was accused of waging unrestricted submarine warfare for issuing War Order No. 154 in 1939, and another similar order after the Laconia Incident in 1942, not to rescue survivors from ships attacked by submarine. By issuing these two orders he was found guilty of causing Germany to be in breach of the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936.[3] However, as evidence of similar conduct by the Allies was presented at his trial, his sentence was not assessed on the grounds of this breach of international law.[3][17]
Dönitz was found not guilty on count (1) of the Indictment, but guilty on counts (2) and (3) and was sentenced to ten years in prison. However, in view of all the facts proven, and in particular of an order of the British Admiralty announced on 8 May 1940, according to which all vessels should be sunk on sight in the Skagerrak, and the answers to interrogatories by Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, wartime commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, stating unrestricted submarine warfare had been carried on in the Pacific Ocean by the United States from the first day that nation entered the war, Dönitz's order to conduct unrestricted submarine warfare was not officially included in his sentence.[3] Dönitz disputed the righteousness of his trial at Nuremberg, saying, "One of the ‘accusations' that made me guilty during this trial was that I met and planned the course of the war with Hitler; now I ask them in heaven's name, how could an admiral do otherwise with his country's head of state in a time of war?"[18]. Numerous Allied officers also sent letters to Dönitz conveying their disappointment over the fairness and verdict of his trial.[3] [4] He was imprisoned for ten years in Spandau Prison in West Berlin.
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Later years
Dönitz was released on 1 October 1956, and he retired to the small village of Aumühle in Schleswig-Holstein in northern West Germany. There he worked on two books. His memoirs, Zehn Jahre, Zwanzig Tage (Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days), appeared in Germany in 1958 and became available in an English translation the following year. This book recounted Dönitz's experiences as U-boat commander (ten years) and President of Germany (twenty days). In it, Dönitz explains the Nazi regime as a product of its time, but argues he was not a politician and thus not morally responsible for much of the regime's crimes. He likewise criticizes dictatorship as a fundamentally flawed form of government and blames it for much of the Nazi era's failings.
Dönitz's second book, Mein wechselvolles Leben (My Ever-Changing Life) is less known, perhaps because it deals with the events of his life before 1934. This book was first published in 1968, and a new edition was released in 1998 with the revised title Mein soldatisches Leben (My Life as a Soldier). Most editions today combine Mein wechselvolles Leben and Mein soldatisches Leben into a single volume.[citation needed]
Late in his life, Dönitz's reputation was rehabilitated to a large extent[citation needed] and he made every attempt to answer correspondence and autograph postcards for others. Unlike Albert Speer, Dönitz was unrepentant regarding his role in World War II[19][20][21] since he firmly believed that no one will respect an individual who compromises with his belief or duty towards his nation in any way, whether an individual's betrayal was small or big. Of this conviction Dönitz writes (commenting on Himmler's major betrayal):
The betrayer of military secrets is a pariah, despised by every man and every nation. Even the enemy whom he serves has no respect for him, but merely uses him. Any nation which is not uncompromisingly unanimous in its condemnation of this type of treachery is undermining the very foundations of its own state, whatever its form of government may be.[22]
Dönitz died of a heart attack on 24 December 1980, in Aumühle. As the last German officer with the rank of Grand Admiral, he was honored by many former servicemen and foreign naval officers who came to pay their respects at his funeral on 6 January 1981. However, he had only received the pension pay of a captain because the West German government ruled all of his advances in rank after that had been due to Hitler.
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Portrayal in popular culture
Karl Doenitz has been portrayed by the following actors in film, television and theater productions;[23]
- Gert Hänsch in the 1976 Czechoslovakian film Osvobození Prahy
- Richard Bebb in the 1973 British television production The Death of Adolf Hitler.[24]
- Raymond Cloutier in the 2000 Canadian/U.S. T.V. production Nuremberg
- Peter Rühring in the 2005 German T.V. miniseries Speer und er
- David Mitchell in the 2006 British T.V. sketch comedy That Mitchell and Webb Look: Episode #1.6
- Simeon Victorov in the 2006 British television docudrama Nuremberg: Nazis on Trial
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Footnotes
- ^ "DOENITZ: On 30 January 1944 I received from the Fuehrer, as a decoration, the Golden Party Badge; and I assume that I thereby became an honorary member of the Party.". The Avalon Project at Yale Law School
- ^ Karl Dönitz. uboat.net. Retrieved on 2007-12-21.
- ^ a b c d Judgement: Dönitz the Avalon Project at the Yale Law School.
- ^ Dönitz, Karl, Grossadmiral, translated by Stevens, R.H. Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days. (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1959) (tr from Zehn Jahre und Zwanzig Tage).
- ^ Dönitz, Memoirs.
- ^ Otto Kretschmer preferred to run surfaced for exactly that reason. Robertson, Terrence. The Golden Horseshoes. (London, Pan, 1957).
- ^ Dönitz, Ten Years and 20 Days.
- ^ Commonly Drumbeat, with connotations of "tattoo" or "thunderbolt" in German
- ^ von der Porten, op. cit.
- ^ Blair, Silent Victory
- ^ William Shirer. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Fawcett Crest. New York. 1983. ISBN 0-449-21977-1
- ^ Dollinger, Hans. The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Library of Congress Catalogue Card # 67-27047, Page 242
- ^ a b c d e f g h i The Impact of Nazism: New Perspectives on the Third Reich and Its Legacy by Alan E. Steinweis, Daniel E. Rogers, University of Nebraska Press 2003 pages 186-188.
- ^ a b "What would have become of our country today if the Fuehrer had not united us under National Socialism. Split by parties, beset with the spreading poison of Jewry and vulnerable to it, because we lacked the defence of our present uncompromising ideology, we would long since have succumbed under the burden of this war, and delivered ourselves up to the enemy who would have mercilessly destroyed us". The Avalon Project at Yale Law School
- ^ Eric A. Zillmer. The Quest for the Nazi Personality: A Psychological Investigation of Nazi War Criminals. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1995.
- ^ Leon Goldensohn. The Nuremberg Interviews. Vintage Books. New York. 2004. ISBN 1-4000-3043-9
- ^ In addition, Dönitz in Ten Years & Twenty Days and Edward P. Von der Porten in The German Navy in World War Two argue that by being armed and reporting the position of submarines to Royal Navy forces, British merchantmen placed themselves beyond the protection of international law.
- ^ Dönitz, Karl. Memoirs: Ten years and Twenty days
- ^ Grand Admiral Karl Donitz: Last President of a United Germany
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ Ten Years and Twenty Days, page 190, first edition
- ^ Karl Doenitz (Character) (English). IMDb.com. Retrieved on May 20, 2008.
- ^ The Death of Adolf Hitler (1973) (TV) (English). IMDb.com. Retrieved on May 8, 2008.
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References
- Dönitz, Karl, Grossadmiral. Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days. Da Capo Press, USA, 1997. ISBN 0306807645. (reprints 1958 German-language Athenäum-Verlag edition).
- Guðmundur Helgason. "Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote (BdU) Karl Dönitz." at Uboat.net.
- Padfield, Peter. Dönitz: The Last Führer. Cassell & Co, UK, 2001
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Background information
- Cremer, Peter. U-Boat Commander: A Periscope View of the Battle of the Atlantic. 1984. ISBN 0870219693
- Davidson, Eugene. The Trial of the Germans: Account of the Twenty-two Defendants Before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. 1997. ISBN 0826211399
- Hadley, Michael L. U-Boats Against Canada: German Submarines in Canadian Waters. McGill-Queen's University Press: 1985. ISBN 0773508015.
- Macintyre, Donald. U-boat Killer. 1999. ISBN 0304352357
- Werner, Herbert A. Iron Coffins: A U-boat Commander's War, 1939–45. 1999. ISBN 0304353302
- Prien, Gunther. Fortunes of War: U-boat Commander. 2000. ISBN 0752420259
- Herwig, Holger H. Innovation ignored: The Submarrine problem in Murray, Williamson and Millet Allan R. ed. "Military Innovation in the Interwar Period". Cambridge University Press 1998
- Failure to Learn: American Anti-submarine Warfare in 1942 in Cohen, Eliot A. and Gooch, John. Military Misfortunes Vintage Books 1991
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Further reading
- Jason Pipes The Reichsmarine 1919–1935
- Jason Pipes Kriegsmarine - The Navy 1935–1945
- Re-birth of the U-boat
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External links
| Preceded by Erich Raeder |
Grand Admiral of the Navy of Nazi Germany (Kriegsmarine) 1943-1945 |
Succeeded by None |
| Preceded by Adolf Hitler (as Führer and Reich Chancellor) |
President of Germany 1945 |
Succeeded by Allied military occupation 1945–1949 Divided into East and West in 1949 West Germany: Theodor Heuss East Germany: Wilhelm Pieck |
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| Persondata | |
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| NAME | Dönitz, Karl |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | President of Germany; Nazi military commander |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 16 September 1891 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin, Germany |
| DATE OF DEATH | 24 December 1980 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Aumühle, near Hamburg |
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