by Unknown
By early 1914 the highly militarized states of Europe needed only a spark to precipitate war. Between universal conscription and a naval arms race of staggering proportions, few German-speaking young men could have doubted that their opportunity for glory would soon be upon them. Yet, it seemed that fate would deny at least one ardent, neophyte warrior the chance to validate his manhood. Twenty-five-year-old Adolf Hitler attempted to join the army of his native Austria in February—the army rejected his application.
Failure was not unknown to the brilliant but erratic Hitler. He had failed to gain his certificate from secondary school, failed in numerous odd jobs in and around Vienna, and failed as an aspiring artist. This time, a desperate Hitler determined to succeed. Using the last of his money (failure had also led to poverty and hunger), he purchased a train ticket for Bavaria, intending to enlist in a Bavarian army corps. Fatefully, Hitler shared a bench with Stabsoberbootsman (Senior Chief Boatswain) Günther Luck, returning to active duty from family leave. The garrulous Luck, impressive in his dress uniform, regaled Hitler with stories of the Imperial German Navy’s rapidly expanding Hochseeflotte (High Sea Fleet). As Luck explained, this expansion meant rapid promotion for any young man intelligent enough to grasp it. The stabsoberbootsman must have been an impressive, convincing, and somewhat generous man, for Hitler accompanied him (at Luck’s expense) to the German port of Kiel. There, with the support of his new mentor, the Austrian enlisted in the German Navy.
After a brief period of basic training, Hitler found himself assigned to the light cruiser Wiesbaden, on which Günther Luck served as senior petty officer. In a revealing letter to his wife, Luck wrote about the young seaman’s brilliance and desire to learn, and about the one thing that Hitler had to unlearn, as well:
He is an astounding young man, and reminds me of our poor Rudie [Luck’s son had been killed in a tragic accident aboard the battleship Posen a year earlier] in both appearance and the desire to learn. He saw a picture of our boy on my desk; now he wears that silly mustache like Rudie wore, and he reads, he reads constantly. He devoured my technical manuals in the first month on board, and asked for more. I told him to see his division officer, and was surprised to hear him mutter, “But he is a damn Jew.”
My darling, where do our children learn these things? We are a nation surrounded by enemies; we are sailors who constantly battle the sea for our survival. If we hate ourselves, what is left for our enemies but an easy victory? If we let race hatred divide our crews, will we not founder and drown? I explained this to Adolf, I reasoned with him, and I threatened to box his ears—he never had a real father to do that for him, you know—if I ever heard such words again. Then I took him to see his lieutenant and arranged for Adolf to borrow naval histories. Privately, I explained the boy’s prejudice, and asked the officer occasionally to discuss the books with Adolf.
Still, I worry. He will become a man of strong convictions, strong hates, strong loves. I can only hope that the war which I feel will soon be upon us will focus that hate away from good German citizens and toward our true enemies.1
Hitler thrived in his new environment. Hard work, naval discipline, and the encouragement of his mentor each played their part in a true sea change. Hitler discovered a capability to lead others. Between charisma, rapidly developing knowledge of seamanship, and the support of Günther Luck, he quickly rose to the rank of unteroffiziere-maat (petty officer). Perhaps more importantly, he developed a fanatical devotion to the twin institutions of the Imperial Navy and the German Empire. A voracious reader of naval history and theory when off duty, Hitler often shared those theories with his men. They, in turn, affectionately called him unser kleine admiral (“our little admiral”), and vowed to follow him anywhere—as long as it led to a tavern in Kiel, of course.2
After the beginning of the Great War in August 1914, the talk of every mess in the German Navy centered upon the British fleet. The news from abroad, though not unexpected, was bleak. Within months Great Britain had swept the seas clean of German surface units, and the few German successes did not balance the list of lost ships and forever absent comrades. Worse, the Royal Navy maintained a distant blockade of the Baltic, denying Germany imports, particularly the nitrates needed to fuel its munitions industry and as fertilizer for its agriculture. If the war continued (and the deadlock in France showed little change as the months dragged onward) then Germany faced a harsh choice—munitions or calories, feed the guns or feed the people.
Of course, if the Imperial Navy could force Great Britain to relinquish its blockade, that choice need not be made. But despite its aggressive building program in the early 1900s, the Imperial Navy could not match the quantity of British ships arrayed against it.3 Thus the admirals of the Hochseeflotte settled on a policy of attempting to isolate portions of the Royal Navy, defeat its vessels piecemeal, and prepare the way for a final confrontation on even terms somewhere in the North Sea. That policy failed, in part because British Intelligence monitored German wireless traffic and knew exactly when the Hochseeflotte sailed. German planning and British Intelligence efforts set the stage for the battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916.
Hitler would have died with Luck aboard the Wiesbaden at Jutland had not a curious event occurred in late March 1916. While enjoying a weekend pass, Hitler chanced to be reading a recent translation of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power Upon History while sitting in a small café near the naval base at Kiel. He acquiesced to the request of a well-dressed civilian to join him at his table, leading to a long discussion of the book in general and the importance of achieving a crushing, Trafalgaresque victory in particular. Impressed by the young petty officer’s knowledge and zeal, the “civilian” eventually revealed himself to be none other than Erich Raeder, chief of staff to Vice Adm. Franz von Hipper, commander of the Imperial Navy’s battle cruiser squadron. When asked if Hitler would value a place on Raeder’s own staff, the overwhelmed sailor could only nod. Four days later (and suffering from a tremendous hangover, courtesy of a farewell party staged by Luck and the crew of the Wiesbaden), Hitler transferred to the battle cruiser Lützow, Hipper’s flagship, as Raeder’s personal yeoman. Over the following weeks, Hitler continued to impress Hipper’s chief of staff with his theoretical knowledge of sea power and his fine memory for detail.4
Jutland not only brought the direct association of Raeder and his yeoman to an end, it almost spelled the end of Hitler himself. In the thick of the action, ten British heavy caliber shells and a torpedo eventually crippled the Lützow. Even as Hipper and Raeder prepared to transfer to another battle cruiser, an internal explosion laced the deck of the doomed flagship with shrapnel. Caught in the explosion, bleeding and concussed, it would be five days before Hitler, who had volunteered to lead a damage control party, regained consciousness.
Twice during Hitler’s three-month convalescence Raeder personally visited his favorite yeoman. Though newspapers declared Jutland a tactical victory for the Hochseeflotte based on tonnage lost, both men realized that the British blockade could never be broken by the weaker German fleet. This became clear during the first, and unofficial, visit. As Hitler later recorded in his autobiography, Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”), discussion turned to the future of the German Navy. Both men agreed that Great Britain would remain the greatest threat to Germany in this and any future war. Indeed, upon learning of the loss of the Wiesbaden and its entire crew—his dear comrades!—at Jutland, Hitler took the first steps toward developing a near pathological hatred of all things British. Raeder, steeped in conservative naval tradition, still favored the search for a single climactic battle to destroy the Royal Navy. Hitler openly agreed with the officer, but privately saw this approach as hopeless, and wondered if another means of destroying the Royal Navy was not already at hand—the Unterseebooten (U-boats, Germany’s submarines).5
At the end of Raeder’s second visit, to award the petty officer the Iron Cross First Class in recognition of his valor at Jutland, the chief of staff o
ffered to assist Hitler in any way possible. Hitler immediately requested a transfer to U-boats. Though shocked, Raeder recognized the young man’s desire to strike at the hated British, something no longer possible in the Hochseeflotte. He not only approved the transfer, but also pulled the necessary strings to promote Hitler to probationary leutnantzur-see. This made Hitler somewhat of an oddity: a volksoffizier, a commissioned officer raised from the ranks in an overwhelmingly aristocratic officer corps. But as Raeder undoubtedly surmised, this would matter little in the tight confines of the submarine service.6
Thus, in late September 1916, Hitler reported aboard U-39. He thrived; in fact the only criticism recorded in his fitness reports concerned the intensity of his hatred for the British foes, a hatred that his captain feared could lead to excessive risk-taking in Hitler’s zeal to sink British vessels. On the other hand, the lieutenant received the highest praise for the quickness with which he learned the complicated operation of the boat and grasped the tactics of both gun and torpedo, as well as for his leadership skills. Even the captain seemed somewhat mesmerized by the sheer intensity of the Austrian.
By January 1917, when Hitler was serving as (still probationary) second watch officer of U-39, a new watch officer joined the boat. As with Hitler, Karl Dönitz had begun his naval career in cruisers, then transferred to submarines. The two men became fast friends; in fact, Dönitz would later credit Hitler as his role model for the boldness and inspirational leadership that characterized his career.
During long watches and shared miseries, the officers often discussed the future of naval warfare. Decades later Dönitz would recall one miserable watch in particular. With the ship running on the surface at night and both men soaked to the skin, he envisioned fleets of submarines, each boat of tremendous size, range, and destructive power, which could circle the globe without once rising to the surface to replenish air, charge batteries, and soak watch officers. Hitler pointed to the waves that often towered above the fragile vessel. What point in such fleets, he questioned, if they could not even find the enemy? Or if they could project their firepower only over short distances? First, Hitler asserted, some method of discovering the enemy at a distance was needed; then, some method of killing that enemy at a distance; then, perhaps, whining third officers could stay dry. Dönitz recalled that he laughed, and asked if adding seaplane hangars to his new submarines would satisfy his friend. Perhaps, Hitler replied, or perhaps something more would be needed.7
By 1917, German unlimited submarine warfare offered the only chance of convincing Great Britain to leave the war and end its blockade. Instead, a starving Germany watched as a new enemy, the United States, entered the alliance against it. Fortunately, the collapse of Russia allowed the transfer of forces to the West, and a renewed offensive in France held hope that the war could be ended favorably before American troops arrived in quantity. As for the navy, the Hochseeflotte remained useless except as a fleet-in-being, and the U-boat force shouldered an increasingly heavy load. In March 1918, Hitler received a promotion to kapitänleutnant (lieutenant commander) and a transfer to U-71 as the executive officer of Korvettenkapitän (Commander) Kurt Slevogt. His friend Dönitz had been transferred to the Mediterranean, where he soon commanded a submarine of his own.
When U-71 unmoored at Kiel in October for a new patrol, few of its crew harbored doubts that the end of the war was close. Some sailors, in fact, might well have refused to sail if not for the silver tongue of their charismatic executive officer. Hitler, having just learned that Dönitz’s boat had been lost in action, called for one last strike against the English, one last blow for German honor, one last pound of British flesh to avenge dead comrades. To the last man, the crew cheered and vowed to follow their officers to Valhalla—or to Hell.8 On November 1, 1918, their chance to see one or the other of those locations appeared imminent. Driven deep by British escorts after torpedoing two merchant ships in a daring daylight surface attack, depth charges pounded U-71. Then a series of loud noises shook the boat, as if a hammer were repeatedly striking inside the vessel. Rushing from the control room to the engine room, Hitler saw that one of the quarter-ton pistons had been ripped from the engine by concussion and was banging at the thin inner wall of the boat. Knowing that if the noise did not pinpoint the submarine’s location for its attackers, the piston would soon punch through the hull and sink the vessel, he leaped to cushion the blows with his own body.
U-71 survived, and the engine was even repaired later that night. As the boat crept home, Adolf Hitler lay near death, his skull fractured by his heroic act. Admitted to Kiel Naval Hospital on November 10, he finally regained consciousness five days later. The following day the doctors gave him two pieces of news that would change his life forever. First, the young officer could never go to sea again. Irreparable damage to his inner ear would impact his sense of balance for the remainder of his life, guaranteeing symptoms similar to seasickness if he even tried to stand on a rolling deck again. Second, an armistice had been signed, and though negotiations continued, Germany had lost the war.
Broken in body and stripped of his career, it would be months before Hitler could function with any normalcy again. Many people would have abandoned hope as they lay in a hospital and watched a once great nation collapse around them. Even Hitler later admitted that he felt that despair, felt the temptation to suicide. But rather than surrender, he chose to focus on the enemy who had brought him to this crisis in his life. And in those dark days of 1919, an even greater enmity for all things British began to consume Adolf Hitler. It would be the strength of this hatred that allowed a new Germany to arise.
From the Ashes, 1919-39
From late 1918 through mid-1919, the Royal Navy continued its devastating blockade of Germany as the victorious allies ruminated in Paris on how best to punish their enemies and share the spoils of war. The Treaty of Versailles dismantled the German Empire, giving parts of its territory to France and the new nation of Poland. It hobbled the German military machine with limitations on manpower, weaponry, armaments industry, and even technological development. It crippled the spirit of the German people with its forced assumption of “war guilt,” demanding that they alone accept responsibility for causing the Great War.
Worse, perhaps, than all the damning clauses of that fatal treaty, during 1918 and 1919 the German people lost faith in the leadership of their statesmen, admirals, and generals. The sense of betrayal from the top coupled with economic chaos led to near anarchy, controlled only by the heavy-handed police force that had once been the mighty Imperial Army. From the ashes of empire, the Weimar Republic rose to fill the political void, and in the late 1920s it actually restored a facade of economic prosperity to the nation. The economic depression that swept the globe after 1929 revealed that facade to the German people, and, discontented with the elitist Weimar Republic, they quickly called for a man of the people as their leader. His name, of course, was Adolf Hitler.
Hitler’s meteoric rise owed much to his ties to the old Imperial Navy and to two officers in particular, Erich Raeder and Karl Dönitz. Raeder had rescued his protégé from the hospital at Kiel and taken him into his own home to recover from his near-fatal injuries. Two months later Dönitz knocked on the door, having been captured rather than killed with his U-boat. His stories of ill treatment as a British prisoner of war merely confirmed Hitler’s hatred of that nation. Clearly, the early months of 1919 marked the formation of the triumvirate that would build the new Kriegsmarine (German Navy) and found Das Dritte Reich (the Third Reich); and just as clearly, the least senior of the three men quickly assumed dominance of that triumvirate.
The post-Great War German Navy, limited to 15,000 officers and men and a handful of vessels (and no submarines) by the Treaty of Versailles, had little use for an officer who could no longer go to sea. Nonetheless, Raeder found a role for Hitler in the Ship Design Bureau, where he secretly developed plans for a new class of German warship, the aircraft carrier, and for the integration of ne
w technologies into the Kriegsmarine.
Hitler also became the political operative of the three men, insinuating himself into a tiny political party, changing its name to National Socialist German Worker’s Party (“Nazi,” for short), and rapidly developing its power base through personal charisma, funds initially tunneled from the German naval budget, and the physical prowess of his “Blueshirts.”9 His speeches enthralled the citizenry, especially when he ripped open his tunic to display the scars earned “for the glory of the Fatherland; for the survival of you, my German people!” The war, he harangued, had been lost by “those who never risked their lives for the Reich, who grew fat while German children starved during the Turnip Winter and those worse winters that followed.” The future of the nation properly belonged “with your heroes, not those cowards afraid to face the enemy’s fire.”10 With the swastika waving above him (he designed the banner of the Nazi party himself in 1920), Hitler captivated the German people and alarmed the government. In 1922 he officially resigned from the German Navy to pursue politics full-time, though the Ship Design Bureau retained his services as a civilian consultant.
In 1923 the Weimar government arrested Hitler for involvement in the Beer Hall Putsch, an attempt fronted by General Ludendorff (a senior general of the Great War) to seize control of Germany. While awaiting trial for treason, Hitler dictated his personal history and philosophic thoughts, later published as Mein Kampf, to fellow prisoner Rudolf Hess.11 The judge at the trial, a secret Nazi sympathizer himself, failed to convict Hitler, offering as his reasoning that the supporters of Ludendorff had worn brown shirts instead of the blue associated with the Nazi leader. It was a popular, though wrong, decision—Hitler had indeed been involved in the treasonous act.