Ernst Schirlitz

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Ernst Schirlitz (born September 7, 1893 in Christburg , † November 27, 1978 in Glücksburg ) was a German naval officer , most recently Vice Admiral of the Navy in World War II .

Life

Schirlitz was born as the son of the Evangelical Lutheran pastor Bruno Schirlitz and joined the Imperial Navy as a sea ​​cadet on April 1, 1912 after graduating from the Royal High School in Elbing .

Imperial Navy

Schirlitz received his first training on the great cruiser SMS Hertha , joined the naval airship department during World War I and took part in numerous reconnaissance missions in the North Sea and in attacks on England as an officer on watch on various airships. The promotion to lieutenant at sea took place on March 22, 1915. After the loss of the airship L 33 via London , he was from September 24, 1916 to December 3, 1919 in English captivity . On August 21, 1919, he was promoted to first lieutenant at sea , with seniority being set to December 25, 1917.

Weimar Republic and the time of National Socialism

After his release from captivity, he was accepted into the Reichsmarine , where he has proven himself as a watch officer, company commander and adjutant in various on-board and land commands. On April 1, 1923 he became lieutenant captain , on December 1, 1930, corvette captain and on April 1, 1936 he was appointed frigate captain. At that time Schirlitz was doing his service as first officer on the ironclad Germany . After further uses u. a. As head of the clearance office of the Kriegsmarine he was from June 8, 1938 to September 23, 1939 chief of staff for the inspection of the naval education system.

During the Second World War, he was first Chief of Staff at the Commander of Securing the Baltic Sea and on October 28, 1939, Chief of Staff at the Sea Lion Company . On March 1, 1942, he was appointed rear admiral . As such, he was first commander of the Bretagne naval defense on June 16, 1942 and then came to Brest . On March 1, 1943, he became Commanding Admiral Atlantic Coast. On April 1, 1943, Schirlitz was promoted to Vice Admiral. As Commanding Admiral Atlantic Coast , he also became fortress commander in La Rochelle on August 20, 1944 .

Like all fortress commanders, Schirlitz had extensive destruction orders for the La Rochelle / La Pallice port facilities in the event that he could not withstand enemy attacks on the fortress La Rochelle. Schirlitz was under 18,000 men (naval units, land forces and German civilians employed in the arsenals). At the same time, however, 60,000 French were included. In the event of fighting with associations of the resistance movement, the German fortress commanders had an express order from the Fiihrer to shoot as "snipers" all prisoners of these FFI ( Forces françaises de l'intérieur ) associations, which were not recognized by the German leadership .

At the time of the interregnum - the Petain government, which was no longer capable of governing due to the withdrawal of German troops, and the not yet fully constituted government in exile, as well as the French armed forces being reconstructed - the Capitaine de Frigate Hubert Meyer (born in Lorraine) began to work ) as a parliamentarian with the fortress commander Schirlitz. Through a provisionally deployed French naval command, he received the general order u. a. To prevent the destruction of La Rochelle. Right from the start, Meyer and Schirlitz established a basis of trust. The negotiations initially led to the FFI units being recognized as soldiers - on condition that they were identified by armbands. On 18./20. In October 1944, after numerous meetings, there was finally a standstill agreement, the so-called Convention of La Rochelle: With two safety belts to be wrapped around the landward part of the fortress, the inside of which the German troops, the outside of which the French had to see as the border, became a kind of no man's land created, which was available to both sides as a practice and combat zone. The German fortress commander undertook to guarantee the inviolability of the port facilities, provided that the French troops comply.

The La Rochelle Convention saved La Rochelle / La Pallice from the danger of last-minute struggle and destruction.

On the day of the unconditional total surrender of the Wehrmacht, the city of La Rochelle and the La Pallice port facility were handed over to France intact.

After the war

On May 9, 1945, Schirlitz was taken prisoner by the French and had to appear before a French court martial . He was acquitted of this after the French chief negotiator Meyer - now with the rank of rear admiral - appeared before the military tribunal in Bordeaux with exonerating material against false testimony. He was released in October 1947. He then worked for a number of years as an employee in Kiel and lived here since 1951 as a pensioner.

The memorial service for Schirlitz took place on November 30, 1978 at the Kiel North Cemetery with military honors by a delegation of the German Navy .

Awards

literature

  • Manfred Dörr: The knight's cross bearers of the surface forces of the navy. 2 volumes. Biblio Publishing House. Osnabrück 1995/96. ISBN 3-7648-2453-0 , ISBN 3-7648-2498-0
  • Dermot Bradley (eds.), Hans H. Hildebrand, Ernest Henriot: Germany's Admirals 1849-1945. The military careers of naval, engineering, medical, weapons and administrative officers with admiral rank. Volume 3: P-Z. Biblio Publishing House. Osnabrück 1990. ISBN 3-7648-1700-3 . Pp. 221-222.
  • Jacques Mordal: The last bastions. Gerhard Stalling Publishing House. Oldenburg and Hamburg 1966.
  • Robert Kalbach, Olivier Lebleu: Meyer et Schirlitz, les meilleurs enemis. Geste éditions 2005. ISBN 2-84561-173-0 .
  • Amiral Meyer: Entre Marins. 1966. ISBN 2-9512261-0-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ranking list of the German Reichsmarine. Ed .: Reichswehr Ministry . Mittler & Sohn . Berlin 1929. p. 45.
  2. ↑ 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. 662.
personal data
SURNAME Schirlitz, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer, most recently vice admiral in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH September 7, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Christburg
DATE OF DEATH November 27, 1978
Place of death Glücksburg (Baltic Sea)