Karl Dönitz was a German navy officer who following Adolf Hitler's suicide, succeeded him as head of state of Nazi Germany in May 1945, holding the position until the dissolution of the Flensburg Government following Germany's unconditional surrender to the Allies days later. As Supreme Commander of the Navy beginning in 1943, he played a major role in the naval history of World War II.
The Kriegsmarine was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war Reichsmarine (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches, along with the Heer and the Luftwaffe, of the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces from 1935 to 1945.
The wolfpack was a convoy attack tactic employed in the Second World War. It was used principally by the U-boats of the Kriegsmarine during the Battle of the Atlantic, and by the submarines of the United States Navy in the Pacific War. The idea of a co-ordinated submarine attack on convoys had been proposed during the First World War but had had no success. In the Atlantic during the Second World War, the Germans had considerable successes with their wolfpack attacks but were ultimately defeated by the Allies. In the Pacific, the American submarine force was able to devastate Japan’s merchant marine, though this was not solely due to the wolfpack tactic. Wolfpacks fell out of use during the Cold War as the role of the submarine changed and as convoys became rare.
The Oberkommando der Marine was the high command and the highest administrative and command authority of the Kriegsmarine, a branch of the Wehrmacht. It was officially formed from the Marineleitung of the Reichswehr on 11 January 1936. In 1937 it was combined with the newly formed Seekriegsleitung (SKL). There were two major re-organisations, in November 1939 and May 1944. It was part of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht.
German submarine U-30 was a Type VIIA U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine that served during World War II. She was ordered in April 1935 in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, which prevented the construction and commissioning of any U-boats for the German navy, and as part of the German naval rearmament program known as Plan Z. She sank the liner SS Athenia (1922) on 3 September 1939, under the command of Fritz-Julius Lemp. She was retired from front-line service in September 1940 after undertaking eight war patrols, having sunk 17 vessels and damaging two others. U-30 then served in a training role until the end of the war when she was scuttled. She was later raised and broken up for scrap in 1948.
Hans-Rudolf Rösing was a German U-boat commander in World War II and later served in the Bundesmarine of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, of Nazi Germany.
SM U-68 was a Type U 66 submarine or U-boat for the German Imperial Navy during the First World War. She had been laid down in December 1913 as U-9 of the U-7 class for the Austro-Hungarian Navy but was sold to Germany, along with the others in her class, in November 1914. Under German control, the class became known as the U 66 type and the boats were renumbered; U-9 became U-68, and was redesigned and reconstructed to German specifications. She was launched in June 1915 and commissioned in August.
Convoy SC 104 was the 104th of the numbered series of World War II Slow Convoys of merchant ships from Sydney, Cape Breton Island to Liverpool. During October 1942, a U-boat wolf pack sank eight ships from the convoy. The convoy escorts sank two of the attacking submarines.
Friedrich Guggenberger was a German admiral, who in his earlier career was a U-boat commander in the Second World War. From November 1940 until his capture in July 1943, he was credited with sinking 17 ships for a total of 66,848 gross register tons (GRT) and damaging another for 6,003 GRT. He sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal in November 1941. For these achievements he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves of Nazi Germany. After the war he became the Deputy Chief of Staff in the NATO command Allied Forces Northern Europe.
Günter Hessler was a German naval officer during World War II. He commanded the Type IXB U-boat U-107, sinking twenty-one ships on three patrols, totalling 118,822 GRT of Allied shipping. Hessler was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and was commissioned after the war to write an account of the U-boat war by the British Ministry of Defence.
Erich Würdemann was a German submarine commander in World War II and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross of Nazi Germany.
SM U-70 was a Type U 66 submarine or U-boat for the German Imperial Navy during World War I. She had been laid down in February 1914 as U-11 the final boat of the U-7 class for the Austro-Hungarian Navy but was sold to Germany, along with the others in her class, in November 1914.
SM UC-25 was a German Type UC II minelaying submarine or U-boat in the German Imperial Navy during World War I. The U-boat was ordered on 29 August 1915 and was launched on 10 June 1916. She was commissioned into the German Imperial Navy on 28 June 1916 as SM UC-25. In 13 patrols UC-25 was credited with sinking 21 ships, either by torpedo or by mines laid. From March to September 1918, she was commanded by Karl Dönitz, later grand admiral in charge of all U-boats in World War II. UC-25 was scuttled at Pola on 28 October 1918 on the surrender of Austria-Hungary.
Eberhard Godt was a German naval officer who served in both World War I and World War II, eventually rising to command the Kriegsmarine's U-boat operations.
The post of Führer der Unterseeboote (FdU) was the senior commanding officer of U-boat forces in a theatre of war. The submarine service in the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the Kriegsmarine of World War II, used the title for several senior commands during those conflicts. It was senior to Flotilla chief (Chef) and was introduced as U-boat forces in an area expanded beyond flotilla size. In 1917 the posts of FdU were themselves subordinated to an overall "Commander of the U-boats". The post of FdU was revived in the 1930s with German re-armament and was held from January 1936 and until 17 October 1939 by Karl Dönitz. On that date he was named BdU, and two subordinate FdU posts were established, FdU West and FdU Ost . In the further course of the war, several further posts were created for the commanders of U-boat regions
Operation Regenbogen was the code name for the planned mass scuttling of the German U-boat fleet, to avoid surrender, at the end of World War II.
Otto Schultze was a Generaladmiral with the Kriegsmarine during World War II and a recipient of the Pour le Mérite during World War I. The Pour le Mérite was the Kingdom of Prussia's highest military order for German soldiers until the end of World War I. As a U-boat commander during World War I, he was credited with the sinking of 53 merchant ships for a total of 132,567 gross register tons, and HMS Falmouth of 5,275 long tons (5,360 t) displacement.
A type commander in the Kriegsmarine was a permanently assigned administrative officer in the organization of the Kriegsmarine which oversaw the development, deployment, and in some cases operational activities of the various classes of German naval vessels. Due to cross jurisdiction with the Navy group commanders, who tactically commanded all vessels at sea, some type commanders were little more than ceremonial officers who held a title with little authority. Others, such as Karl Dönitz who commanded the German U-boat force, exercised near total independence and held enormous authority, both operationally and administrative.
Erhard Maertens or Eberhard Maertens was a German Vizeadmiral of the Kriegsmarine during World War II. From 16 June 1941 to 5 May 1943, he was Chief of Office of Naval Intelligence, Naval War Command in the Oberkommando der Marine. Maertens was known for underestimating British intelligence, and specifically, overrating the security of the Naval Enigma cipher machine. In 1941, he held a naval enquiry into the strength of Naval Enigma security after the capture of U-boat U-570, and attributed all the suspicious losses in U-boats at the time to the British Huff-Duff. In the second enquiry, ordered by the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Karl Dönitz, in May 1943, he investigated a number of areas, which exculpated Enigma security in the end, for the second time, incorrectly blaming British 9.7 centimetre centimetric radar for the massive losses in U-boats by mid 1943.
Kriegsmarine 
