Adalbert von Blanc

Adalbert von Blanc 1962

Adalbert von Blanc (born July 11, 1907 in Wilhelmshaven ; † November 7, 1976 in Flensburg - Mürwik ) was a German naval officer , most recently a flotilla admiral in the German Navy .

Life

Reich and Kriegsmarine

Blanc joined the on April 1, 1926 the Navy one. After officer training and promotion to lieutenant at sea on October 1, 1930, he initially served in several training units on land. From 1933 to 1938 Blanc went through various uses on minesweepers , including from 1936 as commander of the boat M 110 of the now navy . After further training, in August 1939 he was transferred as first officer to the construction instruction for the auxiliary cruiser Orion .

Second World War

After the outbreak of the Second World War , Blanc took part in the pirate voyage of the Orion under the leadership of frigate captain Kurt Weyher , which lasted from April 6, 1940 to August 23, 1941 and was one of the most successful German auxiliary cruisers. After his return, Blanc served in various staffs in the area of ​​coastal protection.

On September 8, 1943, he became chief of the 2nd minesweeping flotilla and on April 1, 1944, leader of the 2nd Security Division , both of which were deployed in the English Channel area. After the dissolution of the 2nd Security Division, he took over the leadership of the 9th Security Division on October 10, 1944 , with which he participated in various evacuation companies in the eastern Baltic Sea. This also included the Walpurgisnacht company . In this company, the 9th Security Division evacuated some 30,000 refugees, 10,000 wounded soldiers and partly remains of during the night of 4 to 5 April 1945 VII. Panzer Corps , the north of Gdansk were included on the Hel Peninsula before Gdańsk Bay . At the end of the war, Blanc was taken prisoner by the British .

post war period

On August 15, 1945, Blanc joined the British mine clearing service and took over the leadership of the 1st mine clearing division in Kiel . After the dissolution of the German mine clearance service on December 31, 1947, Blanc changed to its successor organization, the Cuxhaven Mine Clearance Association , which continued the task of mine clearance on the German coasts.

In December 1950, Blanc received the order to remove the students René Leudesdorff and Georg von Hatzfeld , who had occupied the island of Helgoland in order to save it from destruction by the British occupying forces. He refused and was removed from his post, but was reinstated after a short time.

In June 1951, the Cuxhaven mine clearing association was dissolved, and Blanc joined the Federal Border Police (See) with some of the personnel and material , where he worked as the head of the school and repair group in Cuxhaven and Kiel. In early 1956 he was briefly chief of the staff of the Coastal Border Guard.

Federal Navy

On July 1, 1956, Blanc was taken over by the newly founded German Navy as captain at sea, where he was initially commissioned as chief of staff to set up the command of naval training in Kiel. On October 1, 1958, he became the commander of the minesweepers' command . On August 1, 1961, he was promoted to command of the Naval Training Command and on September 8, 1961, promoted to Flotilla Admiral. On February 1, 1962, Blanc was appointed commander of the Central Naval Command in Wilhelmshaven and remained there until his retirement on September 30, 1964.

Promotions

In the course of his career, Adalbert von Blanc held the following ranks:

• Sailor on April 1, 1926
• Midshipman on October 12, 1926
• Private on April 1, 1927
• Ensign at sea on April 1, 1928
• Chief Petty Officer on July 1, 1928
• Oberfähnrich zur See on June 1, 1930
• Lieutenant at sea on October 1, 1930
• First lieutenant at sea on April 1, 1933
• Lieutenant on April 1, 1936
• Corvette Captain on April 1, 1941
• Frigate captain on April 1, 1944

• Staff captain (Federal Border Police) on July 1, 1951
• Oberstabskapitän (Federal Border Police) on June 24, 1954

• Sea captain on July 1, 1956
• Flotilla Admiral on September 8, 1961

Awards

• Iron Cross (1939) 2nd and 1st class
• War badge for minesweeping, submarine hunting and security associations
• German cross in gold on September 11, 1942
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on November 27, 1944
• Great Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1964

literature

• Hugo Heydel: Obituary . In: Marineforum Nr. 12 - 1976, MOH-Mitteilungen, MOV-Nachrichten . P. 68 *
• Fritz Poske: The sea border protection 1951-1956. Reminder - report - documentation . Koblenz / Bonn 1982. ISBN 3-7637-5410-5

Individual evidence

1. ↑ focus-online: Company Walpurgis Night , accessed on April 5, 2015
2. ↑ Mine clearing association Cuxhaven at mandors.de ( Memento of the original from September 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ CV in the German Naval Archives
4. ↑ ^{a b} Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 1939–1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 224.