Leaders of the submarines

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In the Imperial Navy and the First World War, as well as in the Kriegsmarine and the Second World War, Führer der U-Boats (FdU) was initially the position of the weapon commander and, in the course of the wars, the regional weapon commander.

First World War

At the beginning of the First World War , the FdU's office was created on August 21, 1914. It had emerged from the submarine inspection and was occupied until it was continued as BdU on June 5, 1917, corvette captain , later frigate captain and commodore Hermann Bauer .

When the formation of larger submarine groups in Flanders and the Mediterranean later required the creation of a separate command structure, the FdU became the BdU position , which was occupied by Andreas Michelsen until the end of the war . Only the boats in the Baltic Sea were neither subordinate to the FdU / BdU nor formed their own department under an FdU, but were subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief of the Baltic Sea ( OdO ) until they were transferred to the other flotillas and the Submarine school were divided.

Area command Rank Surname Period
North Sea Submarines of the high seas Corvette captain / frigate captain / commodore Hermann Bauer August 21, 1914 to June 4, 1917
Baltic Sea OdO Lieutenant captain Hans Adam August 1914 to March 1915
Lieutenant captain Alfred Schött July 1915 to December 10, 1917
Channel coast U-Flotilla Flanders Lieutenant Commander / Corvette Captain Karl Bartenbach March 29, 1915 to September 30, 1917
FdU Flanders Corvette Captain Karl Bartenbach October 1 to December 10, 1917
Mediterranean Sea U-half flotilla Pola Lieutenant captain Hans Adam July 1 to November 17, 1915
U-Flotilla Pola Corvette Captain Waldemar Kophamel November 18, 1915 to June 8, 1917
FdU Mediterranean (Pola / Cattaro ) Sea captain / commodore Theodor Püllen June 9 to December 29, 1917
Sea captain / commodore Kurt Graßhoff December 29, 1917 to October 1918
Commodore Theodor Püllen October 1918

Third Reich and World War II

In the Navy of the Wehrmacht until October 1939 the name of the office of the commanding officer of the submarines of a region or function and it was also his service name, later the name only served as a division manager. From January 1936, Karl Dönitz held this position. In August 1939, the FdUs West and East were set up, with Dönitz taking over the position of FdU West and Frigate Captain Oskar Schomburg as early as September 1939. In the same month, however, these positions were dissolved again when the operations in the Baltic Sea ceased.

With the outbreak of the Second World War , the command posts FdU West were reorganized in July 1942. The FdU Ost followed in March 1943. Dönitz, who was meanwhile rear admiral , was placed under the staff of the FdU on October 17th as head of the BdU ( commander of the submarines ). In the further course of the war, the areas of responsibility were further divided.

separations

  • FdU educ. - Leader of the U-training flotilla (from March 1943 until the end of the war): Viktor Schütze from March 1943
  • FdU Italy - leader of the U-Boats Italy (from November 1941 to August 1943, then continued as FdU Mediterranean): Viktor Oehrn November 1941 to February 1942; Leo Kreisch from February 1942
  • FdU Mitte - Leader of the U-Boats Mitte (from May 1944 to August 1944): Karl-Friedrich Mertens May / June 1944
  • FdU Mediterranean (from August 1943 from FdU Italy until September 1944) - Leader of the Mediterranean submarines: Leo Kreisch until January 1944; Werner Hartmann from January 1944 to August 1944
  • FdU Nordmeer - leader of the submarines Nordmeer (from October 1944 from FdU Norway until the end of the war): Reinhard Suhren
  • FdU Norway - Leader of U-Boats Norway (from January 1943 to October 1943, then continued as FdU Nordmeer): Rudolf Peters from January 1943 to May 1944; Reinhard Suhren from May 1944
  • FdU Ost - leader of the submarines Baltic Sea (August / September 1939; March 1943 until the end of the war)
  • FdU West - leader of the submarines in the western area (August / September 1939; July 1942 until the end of the war): Hans Ibbeken August 1939; Hans-Rudolf Rösing from July 1942

See also

Famous pepole

literature

  • Andreas Michelsen: The U-Boat War 1914–1918. KF Koehler. Leipzig 1925.
  • Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966. Karl Müller, Erlangen 1996, ISBN 3-86070-036-7 , pp. 135-142, pp. 220-231.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bodo Herzog: German U-Boats 1906–1966. 1996, p. 137.
  2. ^ Jochen Brennecke : The turning point in the submarine war. Causes and consequences 1939–1943 (= Heyne books. 1, Heyne general series. No. 7966). Edition supplemented and revised by the author. Wilhelm Heyne, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-453-03667-0 , p. 488.