Erich Topp

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Topp as the epitome of the submarine commander, special stamp of the Reichspost (1944)

Erich Topp (born July 2, 1914 in Hanover ; † December 26, 2005 in Süßen , Göppingen district ) was a German naval officer . He was highly decorated submarine - Commander of the Navy and most recently Rear Admiral of the German Navy .

Life

Promotions

As the son of the engineer Johannes Topp, Erich Topp attended high schools in Hanover and Celle .

Imperial Navy

After graduating from high school , he studied medicine in Kiel and in 1933 became a member of the Teutonia fraternity in Kiel . He gave up his studies and joined Crew 34 on April 8, 1934 as an officer candidate in the Reichsmarine . He completed the infantry basic training in the II. Department of the ship trunk division Baltic Sea on the Dänholm . He received his nautical training on the sailing training ship Gorch Fock (June 14, 1934 to September 26, 1934) and on the light cruiser Karlsruhe (September 27, 1934 to June 29, 1935).

Navy

At the Naval School Mürwik , he then completed the ensign course, which lasted until June 29, 1936. His further training led him to a two-week torpedo course. He then served from April 18 to October 4, 1937 as adjutant again on board the Karlsruhe , which was patrolling the Spanish coast in June 1937 during the Spanish Civil War .

After voluntarily reporting, he was transferred to the U-Boot -Waffe on October 5, 1937 . He received his training as a submarine driver at the Neustadt submarine school in Holstein . Since there was no vacancy on a submarine after completing his training on June 2, 1938, he was transferred to the Naval Sergeant Training Department in Friedrichsort , where he worked as a teaching officer. On September 26, 1938, he was transferred to the 7th U-Flotilla and on November 2, 1938, he began his service as 1st Watch Officer on the U-boat U 46 .

Kapitänleutnant Erich Topp on U 552 leaving submarine bunker (France, March 1942)

In June 1940 he took over the U 57 type II C boat , with which he sank six ships in two trips. When U 57 returned from the second mission, there was an accident off Brunsbüttel . A departing Norwegian freighter rammed the lighted boat, which sank within seconds. Six men were killed.

Topp took over the VII C boat U 552 in December 1940 . With this boat he made ten enemy voyages, on which 28 merchant ships were sunk and four others were damaged. In addition, on October 31, 1941, the destroyer Reuben James was sunk as the first US warship in World War II . In October 1942 he became chief of the 27th U-Flotilla in Gotenhafen . At the end of the war he was in command of U 2513 , a so-called type XXI electric boat . In January 1945 Erich Topp married Ilse Haupt , the daughter of a naval pastor, in Sopot .

In total, Erich Topp sank 34 ships with approx. 200,000 GRT, a destroyer and an auxiliary ship . This made him the most successful submarine commander of the Second World War after Otto Kretschmer , Wolfgang Lüth and Günther Prien . He was awarded the Knight's Cross for the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.

Federal Navy

From May 20 to August 17, 1945 Erich Topp was a prisoner of war in Kragerog ( Norway ). On June 4, 1946, he began studying architecture at the TH Hannover, graduating in 1950 as a graduate engineer . In 1957 he was a technical advisor for the film Sharks and Small Fish .

After his re-entry into the Navy on March 3, 1958 and a briefing with the naval command , he served from August 16, 1958 as Chief of Staff at the NATO Military Committee in Washington, DC From January 1, 1962, he served as commander of the amphibious armed forces and at the same time for a month as a commander on behalf of the submarine flotilla . Subsequently, on October 1, 1963, he was appointed Chief of Staff in the Fleet Command and from July 1, 1965, he was appointed head of the leadership subdivision in the naval command staff in the Federal Ministry of Defense . On November 15, 1965 he became Chief of Staff of the Navy and Deputy Inspector of the Navy .

In 1968 he was to be transferred to the NATO headquarters Northern Europe in Kolsås, Norway , as Head of the Plans & Policy department . In Norway at the time there was a lively debate about the country's NATO membership and its relationship with Germany. In order not to offer a target for the opponents of NATO and Germany, Topp was not sent because, among other things, he had sunk four Norwegian merchant ships during the war. In his place, Rear Admiral Friedrich Guggenberger , also a former submarine commander, was transferred to the NATO post. The NATO Commander in Chief Europe (SACEUR), the US General Lyman L. Lemnitzer , to whom the NATO command Northern Europe was subordinate, announced him there with the words “I am sending you an admiral who has only sunk British ships.” Topp remained on the command of the Navy and retired on December 31, 1969.

In 1969 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in honor of his efforts in rebuilding the navy and building the transatlantic alliance . After his retirement he was a technical advisor at Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft for several years .

He died at the age of 91 and left two sons - Kay-Peter Topp (1945-2014) and Michael Topp (* 1950) - and five grandchildren.

plant

Awards

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erich Topp as a fraternity member
  2. ↑ Erich Topp. Torches over the Atlantic . Herford 1990. ISBN 3 8132 0354 9 . P. 263 ff.

Web links

Commons : Erich Topp  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

literature

  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945 . Mittler, Hamburg. Volume 1: - The German submarine commanders, 1996, ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: Der U-Boot-Krieg, Vol. 5 - Knight's Cross bearer of the submarine weapon from September 1939 to May 1945 ISBN 3-8132-0509-6 .
  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 8: Supplement L – Z. Winter, Heidelberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8253-6051-1 , pp. 343-345.
  • Franz Kurowski: Erich Topp. In: Franz Kurowski: Hunter of the Seven Seas. The most famous submarine commanders of World War II. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1998 (2nd edition), pages 395-412. ISBN 3-613-01633-8 . (Biographical, representation of the patrols)
personal data
SURNAME Great, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH December 26, 2005
Place of death Cuties