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The German Navy is the navy of Germany and part of the unified Bundeswehr, the German Armed Forces. The German Navy was originally known as the Bundesmarine from 1956 to 1995, when Deutsche Marine became the official name with respect to the 1990 incorporation of the East German Volksmarine. It is deeply integrated into the NATO alliance. Its primary mission is protection of Germany's territorial waters and maritime infrastructure as well as sea lines of communication. Apart from this, the German Navy participates in peacekeeping operations, and renders humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. It also participates in anti-piracy operations.
The Volksmarine was the naval force of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1956 to 1990. The Volksmarine was one of the service branches of the National People's Army and primarily performed a coastal defence role along the GDR's Baltic Sea coastline and territorial waters.
Bernhard Rogge was a German naval officer who, during World War II, commanded a merchant raider. Later, he became a Konteradmiral in West Germany's navy.
Konteradmiral, abbreviated KAdm or KADM, is the second lowest naval flag officer rank in the German Navy. It is equivalent to Generalmajor in the Heer and Luftwaffe or to Admiralstabsarzt and Generalstabsarzt in the Zentraler Sanitätsdienst der Bundeswehr.
Vizeadmiral is a senior naval flag officer rank in several German-speaking countries, equivalent to Vice admiral.
West German rearmament began in the decades after the World War II. Fears of another rise of German militarism caused the new military to operate within an alliance framework, under NATO command. The events led to the establishment of the Bundeswehr, the West German military, in 1955. The name Bundeswehr was a compromise choice suggested by former general Hasso von Manteuffel to distinguish the new forces from the Wehrmacht term for the combined German forces of Nazi Germany.
The B-Dienst, also called xB-Dienst, X-B-Dienst and χB-Dienst, was a Department of the German Naval Intelligence Service of the OKM, that dealt with the interception and recording, decoding and analysis of the enemy, in particular British radio communications before and during World War II. B-Dienst worked on cryptanalysis and deciphering (decrypting) of enemy and neutral states' message traffic and security control of Kriegsmarine key processes and machinery.
Friedrich Oskar Ruge was an officer in the German Navy and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross of Nazi Germany. He served as the first commander of the post-war German Navy.
The German Mine Sweeping Administration (GMSA) was an organisation formed by the Allies from former crews and vessels of the Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine for the purpose of mine sweeping after the Second World War, predominantly in the North Sea and Baltic Sea, which existed from June 1945 to January 1948.
Otto Schniewind was a German General Admiral during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross of Nazi Germany.
Hans-Jürgen "Hansjürgen" Rudolf Reinicke was a Kapitän zur See, commander of heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, in Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during the Second World War and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
Hendrik Born was a Vizeadmiral of the East German Navy (Volksmarine) and the last chief of the People's Navy and its youngest Vizeadmiral.
Gerhard Wagner was a German naval officer, who ended his career as a Konteradmiral of the German Navy of West Germany.
The British Baltic Fishery Protection Service (BBFPS) was a front organization of the British intelligence service MI6. It was founded in 1949 - ostensibly to monitor the fisheries within the maritime borders of the British occupation zone in the Baltic Sea as a part of the Royal Navy, but in reality to carry out covert operations in the Baltic region.
Günter Luther was a German admiral who became Inspector of the Navy and Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe for NATO. During World War II, he served as a military pilot in the Kriegsmarine and a paratrooper in the Luftwaffe. After the war, he joined the newly founded West German Bundesmarine in 1956.
Arthur Harrison "Speedy" Graubart was a United States Navy captain, and the last commander of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen after the ship's transfer as a war prize from Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine to the US Navy.
Albrecht Obermaier was a German naval officer who served in the Kriegsmarine in World War II, and in the postwar Navy of West Germany. He reached the rank of Vizeadmiral, serving as the first chief of the Navy Office, and as commander of Naval Forces Baltic Approaches for NATO.
Naval regions and districts were the official shore establishment of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. The Kriegsmarine shore establishment was divided into four senior regional commands, who were in turn subordinated to the operational Navy Group commanders who commanded all sea and shore naval forces within a particular geographical region. Within each naval region were several subordinate naval districts who were responsible for all navy shore activities within their area of responsibility, most significantly were the various German ports of occupied Europe.
Theodor Arps was a German naval officer, most recently Deputy Admiral in World War II, from 1940 to 1945 Judge at the Reichskriegsgericht. Theodor Arps was notable for managing the German Naval Intelligence Service (German:Marinenachrichtendienst) from 1 October 1934 to 31 December 1939. Arps' time at the Marinenachrichtendienst was known for increased rearmament at the agency, a modernizing period, preparing and undertaking assurance testing on the Naval Enigma for secure message use cases, training and mobilization planning and an increasingly efficient and modern signal intelligence architecture that was the culmination of two decades of work during the interwar period.
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.
References
- Corum, James S. (2011). Rearming Germany Volume 64. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-20317-4.
- Greiner, Christian (1982): "Operational History (German) Section" und "Naval Historical Team". Deutsches militärstrategisches Denken im Dienst der amerikanischen Streitkräfte von 1946 bis 1950." In: Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Hrsg.): Militärgeschichte. Probleme - Thesen - Wege. Stuttgart.
- Peifer, Douglas (2002): "Forerunners to the West German Bundesmarine: The Klose Fast Patrol Group, the Naval Historical Team Bremerhaven, and the U.S. Navy's Labor Service Unit (B)". In: International Journal of Naval History, Vol.1, No. 1