Dönitz, Grand Admiral Karl

Dönitz, Grand Admiral Karl (1891–1980),gifted German C-in-C U-boats, then C-in-C of the German Navy from January 1943 to April 1945, and finally Hitler's chosen successor to lead Germany.

Dönitz entered the German Navy in 1910 and commanded U-boats in the Mediterranean during the First World War. While trying out a new tactic—a surface night attack—on a convoy in October 1918, he penetrated the destroyer screen unobserved and sank a merchantman. Between the wars he rose to the rank of commodore and in 1935, when the London Naval Agreement allowed Germany to build submarines (see Versailles settlement), Hitler—who had a fervent admirer in Dönitz—made him Commander of U-boats.

The agreement permitted the construction of 70 U-boats, but by September 1939 only 56 had been built, no more than 22 of which were capable of operating in the Atlantic. But 1,168 were eventually constructed, and by employing them in wolf-packs, a concept he introduced and which he closely controlled, Dönitz caused severe Allied shipping losses. Brilliant, too, was his reversal of the universally acknowledged role of the submarine—attacking by daylight while submerged—by employing them in surface night attacks as he had himself done in 1918.

His planning and direction of the U-boat attack on the British battleship Royal Oak in Scapa Flow in October 1939 brought him promotion from commodore to rear-admiral, and further promotions came in 1940 (vice-admiral) and 1942 (admiral). In January 1943 he replaced Raeder as C-in-C of the German Navy while remaining C-in-C of U-boats, and was promoted grand admiral. Though promoted largely beyond his capabilities (as shown by his handling of Axis naval forces in the battle for the Mediterranean, his failure to bring about a reversal of German fortunes in the battle of the Atlantic, and an increasing propensity to indulge in hare-brained schemes), Dönitz's loyalty to the Führer never wavered. Before Hitler committed suicide on 30 April 1945 he nominated Dönitz to succeed him and he ruled Germany as president until he was arrested on 22 May 1945. At the Nuremberg trials he was tried for issuing the order to sink the Laconia. He was acquitted, but was found guilty of two other charges and given a ten-year sentence.

Bibliography

Carver, M. (ed.), The War Lords (London, 1976).
Dönitz, K. , Memoirs (London, 1959).