Friedrich Ruge

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Commodore Friedrich Ruge visiting a minesweeping flotilla in France (1941)

Friedrich Oskar Ruge (born December 24, 1894 in Leipzig , † July 3, 1985 in Tübingen ) was a German naval officer and military writer. He served in four German navies , most recently in the rank of Vice Admiral .

As a member of the Naval Historical Team and co-author of the Himmeroder memorandum , he was one of the founding fathers of the Bundeswehr and was one of the designers of the German Navy , whose first inspector he became in 1956. From 1962 to 1965 he was President of the Association of Reservists of the German Armed Forces .

family

Ruge came from an Evangelical Lutheran family from northern Germany . His great-grandfather, the doctor Christian August Ruge , took part in the Battle of Waterloo . Grandfather Sophus Ruge was an economic geographer. Uncle Reinhold Ruge served as a medical officer in the Imperial Navy. Friedrich's father Walther Ruge was a philologist and married Martha Friederike von Zahn in 1894, the daughter of a lawyer. Friedrich Ruge was born in 1894 as the first of three children. His father was then a high school professor at the König-Albert-Gymnasium in Leipzig.

Friedrich Ruge attended the St. Thomas School in Leipzig from 1904 to 1907 . The history teacher Konrad Sturmhoefel left a formative impression on him. In 1911 Ruge's father became director of the Bautzen humanistic grammar school , where Friedrich graduated from high school in March 1914 . He had been a member of the Wandervogel youth movement since 1912 and was introduced to German literature at an early age by a great uncle, the royal Saxon court book dealer Robert von Zahn .

His grandson Dieter Hartwig is a retired naval officer. D., political scientist and local politician (SPD).

Professional background

Imperial Navy and First World War

Promotions

Ruge joined the Imperial Navy on April 1, 1914 as a midshipman with crew 14 and completed infantry training at the Kiel-Wik naval school by May 10 . At the outbreak of World War II on 28 July 1914, he served until November 1914 on the as a training ship used Great cruiser SMS Hertha in the Baltic Sea . In between he served in August and September 1914 on the liner SMS Lothringen on the North Sea . This was followed by a radio operator course at the Mürwik Naval School and deployments on the small cruiser SMS Lübeck until February 1915 . He then served until November 30, 1915 on the liner SMS Elsass , which was involved in the advance into the Riga Bay . From December 1, 1915 to February 1916, he took part in a torpedo course of the Torpedo School Half-Flotilla and then until June 13, 1916 in an ensign artillery course on the artillery training ship SMS Kaiserin Augusta . On board the torpedo boat B 110 of the 4th torpedo boat semi -flotilla, Ruge served as an officer on watch from October 1916 until the end of the war in November 1918. For the outcome of the war he made the “strange lack of practical psychology, of leadership [...] which the changing situation took into account “responsible.

After the armistice of Compiègne (1918) Ruge became the commander of the torpedo boat B 112 of the 4th torpedo boat half-flotilla, which was interned with the entire ocean-going fleet in the British naval base Scapa Flow . On the orders of Admiral Ludwig von Reuter , he lowered his boat on June 21, 1919 in the self- sinking of the Imperial High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow to prevent extradition to the English. He later commented, “I felt a sense of relief when the boat capsized and sank. The sinking was the greatest event of my life ”.

Imperial Navy

After a British prisoner of war in Oswestry and Donington Hall returned Ruge on 31 January 1920 after Wilhelmshaven back. In Bautzen he married the doctor's daughter Ruth Greef (1897–1967), and the marriage resulted in four children. Taken over by the Reichsmarine , he was, among other things, adjutant to the commander of the coastal defense department in Kiel, which tested the laying, searching and blasting of sea ​​mines . During this time he became a mine defense specialist. From October 1924 to September 1926 he was sent to the Technical University of Charlottenburg to study the basics of science and at the same time completed language studies in Turkish , Swedish , Russian and Italian , which he completed in 1927 at the University of Kiel with the interpreter's exam in English . He also traveled to the USA (visiting Naval Station Norfolk , Virginia), Italy and England. From October 2, 1926 to September 1928, he was in command of the minesweeper M 136 in the 1st minesweeping flotilla . Subsequently, until September 1932, he was a clerk for mining and a consultant in the lock test and training command in Kiel. In October 1932 he became chief of the 1st minesweeping flotilla, which also included mine layers and submarine hunters.

Before the National Socialists came to power , he formulated the basic duties of a naval officer as follows: “What must a naval officer primarily be able to do? He has to be able to lead people. He must be able to guide ships. And he must be able to wield weapons. Everything else takes a back seat. "

Navy and World War II

Field Marshal General Erwin Rommel and Vice Admiral Friedrich Ruge on a tour of a submarine bunker in La Rochelle (1944)

From September 30, 1934, he was the 3rd Admiral Staff Officer (A III) on the staff of the Commanding Admiral of the Baltic Sea Station in Kiel, responsible for mine operations. Under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris he worked there for a short time in counter-espionage . From June 1937 he was leader of the minesweepers in Cuxhaven .

At the beginning of the Second World War on September 1, 1939, Ruge was appointed leader of the minesweepers East (FdMO) , whose boats took part in the attack on Poland . From October 1939 to February 16, 1941 he was the leader of the minesweepers West (FdMW) and took part in this position in the western campaign and during the Weser exercise in the occupation of Denmark and Norway . Afterwards, his boats prepared the Sea Lion , the planned but never carried out invasion of England, by clearing mines . On February 1, 1940, he was appointed commodore and in October of the same year he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his missions against England . On February 17, 1941 he was appointed commander of the Security West based in Paris. As such, he played a major role in the success of the Cerberus company , the breakthrough of German capital ships through the English Channel in February 1942. In the Wehrmacht report, he said: “In the success of our naval forces' breakthrough through the canal, they, under the leadership of Captain at Sea and Commodore Ruge standing minesweepers and clearing boats as well as security vehicles made an excellent contribution. ”At the same time, from March 12, 1941, he was chief of the special staff for Tunisia in the Italian Navy , responsible for escort issues. On April 1, 1941, he was promoted to rear admiral and on February 1, 1943 to vice admiral . On May 18, 1943, he succeeded Rear Admiral Wilhelm Meendsen-Bohlken as Commander of the German Naval Command Italy in Rome. After the capitulation of Italy , he spoke out against the armed intervention of Nazi Germany. He submitted his dismissal, but Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz did not get it. He himself was one of the few high-ranking officers who did not allow themselves to be instrumentalized by the system. Rather, he resolutely rejected the war crimes of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in the Eastern European countries, which he learned about from a friend in 1943.

On August 13, 1943, he was transferred to the Führerreserve . On November 10, 1943, he was appointed Admiral z. b. V. was assigned to the staff of Army Group B in Fontainebleau, with the task of improving the security of the North Sea and English Channel coast outside of the Reich territory. He had a friendship that lasted until his death in 1944 with the commander in chief of Army Group B, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel . After the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, from August 1944, he was initially head of the design office at the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, before becoming head of the Office for Warship Construction in the Navy High Command on November 1, 1944 . He held this position until the end of the war. On May 8, 1945, he was taken prisoner by the British at Eckernförde . He judged his fatherland: "The Germans are a warlike nation that has the talent to fight on the wrong front."

post war period

He was a camp interpreter in the Belgian POW camps in Jabbeke in 2224 and in Zedelgem in 2226. In 1946 he taught English as a foreign language to German prisoners of war in Munster camps and gave geography and history lessons . Released from prisoner of war on November 30, 1946, Ruge was the owner of a writing and translation agency in Cuxhaven until 1948. In the denazification process , he was initially classified as a follower and then as an unpolluted.

From 1949 to 1952 he was a member of the Naval Historical Team in Bremerhaven , which, under US supervision, processed the war experience of the Navy, especially in the fight against the Soviet Union . He was a member of the expert group set up by the federal government for security issues, which advised Chancellor Adenauer in his negotiations with the Western allies . In October 1950, in this capacity, he was one of the co-authors of the Himmeroder memorandum , which created the essential conceptual basis for the future West German armed forces. During this time he also became a member of the Working Group on Democratic Circles under the leadership of Hans Edgar Jahn and the Association of German Soldiers . As a board member of the German Navy Federation , he worked as an author for its magazine Leinen los! .

From the 1950s on, Ruge published several military history works that the US Army used as a template for its history . He took a stand in many discussions on military theory. He criticized the suicide of the captain Hans Langsdorff (December 20, 1939): "That was a wrong decision, probably due to the fact that this particularly capable officer was not robust enough for the mental stress caused by the long cruise and the difficult fight".

From 1952 to 1954 Ruge was a non-party member of the city ​​council of Cuxhaven , where he became chairman of the spa committee. Politically, he was close to the electoral association made up of the CDU , FDP and DP . He was also a member of the school committee and the main committee.

armed forces

In 1955 Ruge was appointed to the Blank office. On March 1, 1956, Federal Chancellor Adenauer appointed him head of Department VII - Navy in the Federal Ministry of Defense under Theodor Blank in Bonn , after examining the committee of personnel experts . With the transformation of this department into the command staff of the Navy on June 1, 1957, Ruge became Vice Admiral, the first Inspector of the Navy in the Bundeswehr . He was subordinate to three subordinate higher command authorities: the command of the naval forces (from March 5, 1958 command of the fleet), the command of the fleet base and the command of naval training . He led the development of the German Navy . During his tenure, the training ship Gorch Fock was put into service, and he implemented the so-called traditional decree of 1957. As an inspector, he distanced himself from the two former Grand Admirals Karl Dönitz and Erich Raeder , calling them “political figures of the 3rd Reich” who, because of “their statements on the Jewish question” and the “racial mass murders of the Hitler Empire”, did not establish tradition for the Bundeswehr were eligible. As a Bundeswehr officer, he made almost no comment on the failed assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 ; According to his own statements, he did not find out about the events in Berlin until late in the evening from Hans Speidel . However , he basically saw a “power relationship” between politics and the military . Ruge promoted through his personal contacts with Admiral Arleigh Burke , the transatlantic relations. He made numerous trips to NATO countries and gave lectures at home and abroad (e.g. at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island).

Further activity

Friedrich Ruge retired on September 30, 1961 and was President of the Working Group for Defense Research from 1961 to 1971, President of the Bundeswehr Reservist Association from 1962 to 1965 and President of the Society for Military Studies from 1964 to 1965 . For the American war film The Longest Day (1962) he was available as a military advisor. From 1962 he was a lecturer and from 1967 until his death at the suggestion of Rector Theodor Eschenburg honorary professor for political science at the Philosophical Faculty of Tübingen . As a referee, he was the 1974 Sandhurst simulation game Operation Sea Lion . In 1978 he was one of the participants in the Bilderberg Conference .

A year later he published his autobiography In Vier Marinen . He died in Tübingen in 1985. His estate is now in the federal archives and at The Citadel military college in Charleston , South Carolina.

Honors

War awards

Others

Fonts (selection)

  • Decision in the Pacific. The events in the Pacific from 1941 to 1945 . Hans Dulk, Hamburg 1951.
  • Sea power and security. A question of fate for all Germans . Schlichtenmayer, Tübingen 1953 (3rd edition, Bernard & Graefe, Frankfurt 1968).
  • The naval war 1939–45 . Koehler, Stuttgart 1954 (French 1955, American / English 1957, Russian 1957, Italian 1961).
  • Rommel and the Invasion. Memories . Koehler, Stuttgart 1959 (Italian 1963, French 1964, Spanish 1964).
  • Otters and kites, but boned and edible for landlubbers . Schlichtenmayer, Tübingen 1955 (3rd edition, Köhlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1973, ISBN 3-7822-0079-9 ).
  • Politics, the military, alliances . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1963.
  • Politics and strategy. Strategic thinking and political action . Published by the Working Group for Defense Research . Bernard & Graefe, Frankfurt 1967.
  • Scapa Flow 1919. The end of the German fleet . Buch & Welt, Klagenfurt 1969, ISBN 0-7110-0426-9 (French 1969, English 1973).
  • Past and present covenants. With special consideration of the UN, NATO, EEC and Warsaw Pact . Bernard & Graefe, Frankfurt 1971, ISBN 3-7637-5105-X .
  • The Soviets as Naval Opponents, 1941-1945 . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland 1979, ISBN 978-0-870216-76-3 (German: The Soviet fleet as an enemy in naval warfare , Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 978-3-87943-779-5 ).
  • In four navies. Life memories as a contribution to contemporary history . Bernard & Graefe, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-7637-5219-6 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Ruge  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 14.
  2. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 22.
  3. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 23.
  4. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 38.
  5. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 48.
  6. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 51.
  7. ↑ a b c d Ruge, Friedrich Oskar at the leobw
  8. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 54.
  9. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 63.
  10. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 102.
  11. ^ Uwe Bahnsen : A school as a setting for German history . In: Welt am Sonntag of October 31, 2010, p. 7.
  12. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 172.
  13. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 190.
  14. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 192.
  15. ↑ The reports of the High Command of the Wehrmacht 1939–1945 . Vol. III, Parkland, Cologne 2004, p. 41.
  16. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 233.
  17. ↑ Alexander Rost: Scrap Bonanza . In: Die Zeit of June 20, 1969.
  18. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 243.
  19. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 272.
  20. ↑ Germany. Quotes . In: Der Spiegel from June 27, 1962.
  21. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 274.
  22. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 278.
  23. ↑ Sven Felix Kellerhoff , Lars-Broder Keil : Montevideo 1939: In a hopeless situation, captain Hans Langsdorff sinks his ironclad and shoots himself - that is the myth of the "Admiral Graf Spee". The rescue work should continue in the coming week. Portrait of a German war hero. The last trip of the Graf Spee . In: Berliner Morgenpost from February 15, 2004, p. 5.
  24. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 287.
  25. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 298.
  26. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 322.
  27. ^ Manfred Görtemaker : Basic course in German military history . Volume 3: The time after 1945. Armies in transition . Oldenbourg, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58100-3 , p. 128.
  28. ↑ Frank Nägler: The wanted soldier and his change. Personnel armament and internal leadership in the years of establishment of the Bundeswehr from 1956 to 1964/65 . Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58815-6 , p. 451. (= Security Policy and Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Germany , Volume 9)
  29. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 253.
  30. ^ Klaus Naumann : powerlessness. In the military, politics has given up its primacy . In: Frankfurter Rundschau of December 12, 2001, p. 19.
  31. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 363.
  32. ↑ Friedrich Ruge in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  33. ↑ Ruge 1979, p. 378.
  34. ↑ Sandhurst Military Academy Report
  35. ↑ www.argus.bundesarchiv.de
  36. ↑ The Citadel Archives: Friedrich Ruge Collection , www.citadel.edu (pdf)
  37. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Manfred Dörr: The knight's cross bearers of the surface forces of the navy . Volume 2: L – Z , Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1996, ISBN 3-7648-2498-0 , pp. 189–191.
  38. ↑ The minesweepers and clearing boats and security vehicles under the leadership of the Captain of the Sea and Commodore Ruge played an outstanding role in the success of our naval forces' breakthrough. (Wehrmacht reports 1939–1945 volume 2. p. 36)
personal data
SURNAME Ruge, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ruge, Friedrich Oskar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer, vice admiral, inspector of the navy and military writer
DATE OF BIRTH December 24, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH 3rd July 1985
Place of death Tübingen