Bernhard Rogge (naval officer)

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Bernhard Rogge (born November 4, 1899 in Schleswig , † June 29, 1982 in Reinbek ) was a German naval officer , most recently rear admiral in the German Navy .

Life

First World War and the Imperial Navy

In 1915, Rogge joined the Imperial Navy as a war volunteer and took part in the First World War. He completed his training on the great cruiser Freya . From October 24, 1915, he was initially commanded on the large cruiser Moltke and, from August 1916, briefly on the small cruiser Stralsund . From October 2, 1916 until the end of the war, he was a member of the small cruiser Pillau . On December 13, 1917, Rogge was appointed lieutenant at sea . After the end of the war he was a member of the 3rd Marine Brigade under Wilfried von Loewenfeld . On November 13, 1919, he voluntarily resigned from the service, but on September 9, 1920 he was returned to the Reichsmarine . A few months later he was promoted to lieutenant at sea .

Until September 1922, Rogge was employed as a company and orderly officer in the coastal defense. He was then an officer on watch with the Second Flotilla (1922-1924) and on the small cruiser Amazone (1924-1926). At the beginning of 1928 promoted to lieutenant captain, Rogge served as a sailing officer on the station yacht Asta (1928) and the sailing training ship Niobe (1928–1930). Then he made the fourth training trip of the light cruiser Emden as a cadet officer. From February 1932 to August 1935 Rogge worked as a consultant for the education inspection. During this time he was promoted to corvette captain .

Navy and World War II

In August 1935, Rogge became first officer of the light cruiser Karlsruhe , which was used as a training ship , on its last major voyage abroad from October 21, 1935 to June 13, 1936. The cruiser visited Tenerife , Sao Thome , Lobito , Durban , Port Victoria on the Seychelles , Batavia , Ilo Ilo , Hong Kong and several Japanese ports. He then ran into the North Pacific to Dutch Harbor . On the voyage it became apparent that the ship was built too lightly to comply with the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty . In April, San Diego had to be called to repair damage . Then the cruiser ran back home through the Panama Canal via Saint Thomas and Pontevedra .

The Karlsruhe finished its job as a training ship and Rogge was transferred as commandant to the sailing training ship Gorch Fock , which he commanded from December 10, 1936 to January 30, 1938. On February 12, 1938, he put the third sailing training ship in the Navy, the Albert Leo Schlageter, into service. Their first trip abroad to South America had to be interrupted because of a collision with a British freighter in the English Channel . Rogge visited Copenhagen with the training ship in autumn 1938 and made another trip to Brazil from April to June 1939 before it was temporarily decommissioned on September 5, 1939 because of the outbreak of war.

At the beginning of the Second World War , he took over command of the auxiliary cruiser Atlantis (ship 16) as a sea ​​captain . With this ship he ran on March 31, 1940 Kiel in order cruiser war to lead. The trip led around the world and was the longest uninterrupted war effort of a German warship with over 600 days . The Atlantis was most active in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean . A total of 19 ships with almost 128,000 GRT were sunk and three ships with 18,253 GRT were raised as prizes .

Rogge also had an influence on the Japanese invasion of British possessions in the Pacific in 1942: The freighter Automedon , which was attacked by Atlantis on November 11, 1940, had extensive British secret material on board that was made accessible to Japan. For this, Rogge received a samurai sword from Emperor Hirohito on April 27, 1942 as an award . Besides him, only two other foreigners received this award, namely Hermann Göring and Erwin Rommel .

On November 22, 1941, the Atlantis was sunk by the British heavy cruiser Devonshire between Brazil and West Africa . The crew was initially taken from the German submarine supply ship Python , which sank on December 1, 1941 after the sighting of the cruiser Dorsetshire . The sailors returned home with the help of German and Italian submarines by December 29, 1941. For his achievements, Rogge received the oak leaves for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on his return .

After working as head of the Navy Education Inspectorate, Rogge was in command of the Baltic Sea Fleet Training Association at the end of the war and, with this association, took part in the last months of the war to a considerable extent in the rescue of German refugees across the Baltic Sea . His last rank in the Navy was that of a Vice Admiral .

Rogge as war judge

Rogge confirmed the court, Mr on 5 May 1945 three death sentences against German naval personnel Willi Albrecht, Karl-Heinz Freudenthal and Günther Källander. These were the same day at the Marine shooting Twedter field in Flensburg-Mürwik shot . On May 11, 1945, three days after the total surrender of the Wehrmacht , after the judgment had been confirmed by Rogge the day before, private Johann Christian Süß was also shot at the Twedter Feld naval shooting range because he was committed to the "undermining of male discipline" through "corrosive speeches" guilty. Suss, who had already received ten disciplinary punishments, commented negatively on an order on May 7, but carried it out. On May 9th, he refused to honor a senior petty officer and left the room in “a completely unmilitary attitude”, slamming the door “heavily” behind him. Rogge refused a plea for clemency from Suss, in which he referred to two fallen brothers and his pregnant wife. In 1965, the public prosecutor's office in Flensburg initiated an investigation against him because of these convictions. Rogge appealed to the need to maintain "discipline and order" and to avoid military disintegration. The case against him has been dropped. With reference to these death sentences, Rogge was listed together with 1,800 business leaders, politicians and leading officials of the Federal Republic in the Brown Book published in 1968 by the German Democratic Republic for propaganda purposes .

Post-war period and the German Navy

After the end of the war in 1945, the British military government temporarily appointed Rogge as a provisional district administrator in Schleswig.

In June 1957, Rogge joined the German Navy as a rear admiral and became commander in Defense Area I ( Schleswig-Holstein / Hamburg ). During this time, the storm surge of February 17, 1962 fell in Hamburg. Rogge did not hesitate to deploy soldiers when the Hamburg Senator of the Police Department Helmut Schmidt requested the deployment of the Bundeswehr , even though this was not permitted under the version of the Basic Law at the time.

Gravestone of Bernhard Rogge

Retired on March 31, 1962, he was an advisor for civil defense matters to the state government of Schleswig-Holstein until 1965. From May 1962 to 1973 Rogge was the first chairman of the German high seas sports association HANSA . The then Federal President Karl Carstens praised him on his 80th birthday on November 4, 1979 with the words: "I know you as a naval officer who served in four German navies and has proven himself in war and peace!" Rogge died in 1982 and was raised the cemetery of Reinbek buried.

Awards (selection)

Works

Rogge published his experiences in 1955 with Wolfgang Frank as co-author under the title Schiff 16. Factual Report. The pirate trips of the heavy auxiliary cruiser Atlantis on the seven seas . From 1957 the book was also published in English, under the titles Under Ten Flags and The German Raider Atlantis . The work was filmed in Italy in 1960 by the director Duilio Coletti under the title Under ten flags ( Sotto dieci bandieri ), with the American actor Van Heflin playing the role of Bernhard Rogge.

literature

  • Jochen Brennecke: The German auxiliary cruisers in World War II. 4th edition. Koehler, 2001, ISBN 3-782-20828-5 .
  • Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford.
  • Jörg Hillmann :  Rogge, Bernhard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 755 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Otto Mielke: Auxiliary cruiser "Atlantis". The most successful auxiliary cruiser of the Second World War. Stade, Kiel 2004, ( Ships - People - Fates, Fates of German Ships. 125, ZDB -ID 1325248-3 )
  • Ulrich Moor, Arthur Sellwood: Atlantis - pirate voyage and 10 flags. Heyne, Munich 1975, ISBN 3-453-00502-3 .
  • Paul Schmalenbach: The German auxiliary cruisers 1895-1945 , Gerhard Stalling AG, Oldenburg, Hamburg (1977), ISBN 3-7979-1877-1 .
  • Kurt Sontag: "In Asia and Africa", the 4th trip abroad of the cruiser Emden (1932).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hildebrand, on Atlantis
  2. ↑ Hildebrand, to Karlsruhe
  3. ↑ Hildebrand, on Albert Leo Schlageter
  4. ↑ S. Currently shot . In: Der Spiegel . No. 28 , 1965, p. 30th f . ( online ).
  5. ^ The downfall in Flensburg in 1945. (PDF) State Center for Civic Education Schleswig-Holstein , p. 17 , archived from the original on October 20, 2016 ; accessed on June 30, 2017 (presentation on January 10, 2012 by Gerhard Paul ).
  6. ↑ Gerhard Mauz : You don't just sign something like that . In: Der Spiegel . No. 43 , 1965, p. 69 f . ( online ).
  7. ^ Jörg Hillmann: Rogge, Bernhard . In: "New German Biography" (NDB). Vol. 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, pp. 755 f.
  8. ↑ Norbert Podewin (ed.):Brown book( Memento from November 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). War and Nazi criminals in the Federal Republic and West Berlin. State, economy, administration, army, justice, science . Edition Ost, Berlin 2002. ISBN 3-360-01033-7 (reprint of the 3rd edition from 1968).
  9. ↑ Schleswiger Nachrichten January 25, 2011
  10. ^ Karl-Friedrich Merten : According to compass , memoirs of the commander of U 68
  11. ↑ Interview Spiegel online 02/17/2008
  12. ↑ Yacht 1962 No. 10 p. 15
  13. ↑ Yacht 1973 No. 24 p. 14
  14. ↑ Statement not proven
personal data
SURNAME Rogge, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Schleswig (city)
DATE OF DEATH June 29, 1982
Place of death Reinbek