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Karl Dönitz. Karl Dönitz (sometimes spelled Doenitz; German: [ˈdøːnɪts] ⓘ; 16 September 1891 – 24 December 1980) was a German admiral who briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as head of state in May 1945, holding the position until the dissolution of the Flensburg Government following Germany's unconditional surrender to the Allies days later.
- Grand Admirals
Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) 30 January 1943 Italy. The rank of...
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- Grand Admirals
- World War I
- U-boats
- Interwar Years
- New Strategies and Tactics
- World War II Begins
- Battle of The Atlantic
- Grand Admiral
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- Final Years
With the commencement of hostilities in August 1914, Breslau and the battlecruiser SMS Goebenwere ordered to attack Allied shipping. Prevented from doing so by French and British warships, the German vessels, under the command of Rear Admiral Wilhelm Anton Souchon, bombarded the French Algerian ports of Bône and Philippeville before turning for Mes...
Assigned as a watch officer aboard U-39, Doenitz learned his new trade before receiving command of UC-25 in February 1918. That September, Doenitz returned to the Mediterranean as commander of UB-68. A month into his new command, Doenitz's u-boat suffered mechanical issues and was attacked and sunk by British warships near Malta. Escaping, he was r...
Shifting to torpedo boats, Doenitz progressed through the ranks and was promoted to lieutenant commander in 1928. Made a commander five years later, Doenitz was placed in command of the cruiser Emden. A training ship for naval cadets, Emden conducted annual world cruises. Following the re-introduction of u-boats to the German fleet, Doenitz was pro...
In 1937, Doenitz began to resist the naval thinking of the time which was based on the fleet theories of American theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan. Rather than employ submarines in support of the battle fleet, he advocated for using them in a purely commerce raiding role. As such, Doenitz lobbied to convert the entire German fleet to submarines as he b...
Promoted to commodore and given command of all German u-boats on January 28, 1939, Doenitz began to prepare for war as tensions with Britain and France increased. With the outbreak of World War II that September, Doenitz possessed only 57 u-boats, only 22 of which were modern Type VIIs. Prevented from fully launching his commerce raiding campaign b...
Promoted to rear admiral on October 1, his u-boats continued attacks on British naval and merchant targets. Made a vice admiral in September 1940, Doenitz's fleet began to expand with the arrival of larger numbers of Type VIIs. Focusing his efforts against merchant traffic, his u-boats began to damage the British economy. Coordinating u-boats by ra...
Promoted to grand admiral on January 30, 1943, Doenitz replaced Raeder as command-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine. With limited surface units remaining, he relied on them as a "fleet in being" to distract the Allies while focusing on submarine warfare. During his tenure, German designers produced some of the most advanced submarine designs of the war ...
With the Soviets nearing Berlin, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. In his will he ordered that Doenitz replace him as the leader of Germany with the title of president. A surprise choice, it is thought that Doenitz was selected as Hitler believed that the only the navy had remained loyal to him. Though Joseph Goebbels was designated to be...
There Doenitz was accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, largely relating to the use of unrestricted submarine warfare and issuing orders to ignore survivors in the water. Found guilty on charges of planning and waging a war of aggression and crimes against the laws of war, he was spared the death sentence as American Admiral Chester W....
- Early career. Karl Dönitz entered the German Imperial Navy in 1910 at the age of nineteen. Commissioned as an officer in 1913, he requested a transfer to the submarine force in 1916, passing out of submarine school in 1917.
- The interwar years. Dönitz chose to remain in the Navy after Germany surrendered in 1918. Over the next seventeen years, he rose through the ranks. In 1935, two years after the Nazis rose to power, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, the head of the German Navy, put Dönitz in charge of Germany’s submarine fleet.
- World War II. Britain declared war on Germany on 3rd September 1939. Within hours, the British ocean liner SS Athenia was sunk by the U-boat U-30. It was the opening salvo of the Battle of the Atlantic - the longest and most complex battle of the Second World War.
- The Battle of the Atlantic. From the beginning of the war, Britain organised its transatlantic merchant ships into convoys which were escorted by warships of the Royal Navy.
With defeat only weeks away, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz did his best to evacuate civilians and soldiers from the area while disobeying Hitler’s orders to hold fast. The Germans retreated into a defensive pocket on the Courland Peninsula (Latvia), where 200,000 Germans and Latvians, 33 divisions in all, fought with their backs to the sea ...
Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz is considered by many as one of the greatest naval tacticians and strategists of WWII. His vision, integrity and pioneering tactics in Submarine warfare came close to costing the Allied powers final victory in Europe. Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz. A native son of Germany, Doenitz was born on 16 September 1891 in Grunau ...
May 21, 2024 · World War II: Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz’ Broadcast Informing the German People of Their Unconditional Surrender (May 8, 1945) (Jewish Virtual Library) Nuremberg Trial Defendants: Karl Doenitz (Jewish Virtual Library)
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Jun 11, 2018 · At the end of World War II, Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz (1891-1980) was hand-picked to succeed Adolph Hitler as reich president and supreme commander of the armed forces. He stood trial at Neuremberg for war crimes, but received the relatively light sentence of ten years in Spandau Prison. Throughout the trial and sentencing, Doenitz expressed ...
