The Naval Historical Team (NHT) was established by the US Navy in 1949. It was a group of German naval officers under American orders to reappraise the naval war history of World War II from the German perspective. The group was under control of the Office of Naval Intelligence. [1] At the end of 1952, the NHT was disbanded but it was re-established in Karlsruhe in 1954.
Under the leadership of Captain Arthur H. Graubart, Chief of Naval Intelligence in Germany, the NHT first met on 9 April 1949 in Bremerhaven. [1] The staff included Generaladmiral a. D. Otto Schniewind, [Note 1] Vizeadmiral a. D. Friedrich Ruge, Vizeadmiral a. D. Hellmuth Heye, Konteradmiral a. D. Gerhard Wagner and Oberst a. D. Gaul. Temporarily it was further augmented by Konteradmiral a. D. Eberhard Godt, Kapitän zur See a. D. Hans-Rudolf Rösing and Fregattenkapitän a. D. Karl-Adolf Zenker. [1]
The group considered itself an incubator of a future West German Navy, an aspiration culminating in Ruge's appointment as the first inspector of the Bundesmarine , with Wagner as his deputy, in 1957. [1] The primary interest of the US Navy was in the German war experiences fighting against the Soviet Navy, which the US Navy wanted to leverage in a possible war at sea with the Soviet Union. The findings of the NHT significantly influenced the conception of the new Bundesmarine formed in 1956. [1]
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.
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 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.
Hendrik Born was a Vizeadmiral of the East German Navy (Volksmarine) and the last chief of the People's Navy and its youngest Vizeadmiral.
The Main Administration Sea Police was an East German maritime organization established with support of the Soviet Navy on June 16, 1950. It was an armed organization of the East German Ministry of the Interior designed to protect the German Democratic Republic’s (GDR) maritime border and coastal areas. The HVS was established to organize, train and operate naval forces during a period in which East Germany officially had no military. The Sea Police initially were responsible for protection of fisheries and for anti-smuggling activities. At the same time it was intended from the beginning to use the force as the core of a future East German navy. One of the first tasks of the Sea Police was the clearance of mines in the coastal waters of the GDR.
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.
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.
Otto Daniel Livonius was a Vizeadmiral of the German Imperial Navy, serving in the predecessor Prussian Navy and the Navy of the North German Confederation.
The Himmerod memorandum was a 40-page document produced in 1950 after a secret meeting of former Wehrmacht high-ranking officers invited by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to the Himmerod Abbey to discuss West Germany's Wiederbewaffnung (rearmament). The resulting document laid the foundation for the establishment of the new military force (Bundeswehr) of the Federal Republic.
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 and from 1940 to 1945 a judge at the Reichskriegsgericht military court. Arps was naval director of 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.
The Marineoperationsschule (MOS) was a naval school and is the central training facility of the German navy for tactics, navigation and communication with headquarters in Bremerhaven and training group in Wilhelmshaven. Since 1 October 2012 she has been subordinate to the Head of Personnel, Training, Organization in the Navy Command in Rostock.
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