Günther Guse

Günther Guse (born August 30, 1886 in Stettin ; † May 6, 1953 in Wladimir camp in the Soviet Union ) was a German naval officer , most recently in the rank of admiral in the Navy .

Life and military career

Origin and youth

Born in Stettin as the son of a lieutenant colonel, Günter Guse first attended the elementary school in Hersfeld , then the lyceum in Metz and from 1895 to 1899 the high school in Lissa in the province of Posen . He then went to various cadet schools .

Imperial Navy and First World War

Guse joined the Imperial Navy on April 1, 1905 as a midshipman . This made him a classmate of Wilhelm Canaris . He graduated from basic training to 9 May 1905 and then the basic training on a training ship used Covered Corvette SMS Stein . Then he came to further training from April 1, 1906 at the naval school in Kiel . On April 7, 1906, he was appointed ensign at sea . From October 1, 1907, he served on the liner SMS Zähringen and was promoted to lieutenant at sea on September 28, 1908 . From October 29, 1908 to September 14, 1910, Guse served as a radio officer on the small cruiser SMS Berlin . On August 29, 1910 he was promoted to lieutenant at sea . From September 15, 1910, Guse was assigned to the 2nd Torpedo Division as a company officer and also provided weekly duty as a watch officer of the 6th  torpedo boat semi- flotilla , as well as on the large torpedo boats SMS S 98 and SMS V 183 . On October 1, 1912 Guse eventually became the inspection of the torpedo being added, and was at the same time several times as a flag officer to the staff of the instruction squadron inspection allocated. After the outbreak of the First World War , he was employed from August 3, 1914 as a flag officer in the staff of the first leader of the torpedo boats and promoted to lieutenant captain on October 17, 1915 . Subsequently, from January 16, 1916, he was used again in the inspection of torpedoes - this time as an instructor. From December 17, 1916, Guse first took over command of the large torpedo boat SMS V 80 and later on SMS S 52 , then served as an admiral staff officer in the staff of the second leader of the torpedo boats. He then took over from the July 25, 1917 again a torpedo boat 18 Torpedo boat Torpedo Boat Division as commander and then as from 3 May 1918 served until 9 January 1919 as a flag officer in the high command of the High Seas Fleet . In this position he also lived to see the end of the war.

Imperial Navy

Guse was then from January 10 to February 28, 1919 advisor in the staff of the commander of the security forces of the North Sea, then in the same function until September 30, 1919 in the inspection of the torpedo system and then until October 15, 1921 also as an advisor the inspection of torpedoes and mines. At the same time, he was also part of the sub-commission of the Navy Peace Commission as a negotiating officer. This was followed by a position as 1st Admiral Staff Officer in the staff of the commander of the Baltic Sea Forces and from June 10, 1923 as an advisor to the naval department of the naval command . On January 1, 1924, Guse was promoted to corvette captain. From November 1, 1925 to September 30, 1926 Guse was an advisor to the shipyard department of the naval management. Then two commands followed as navigational officer . First on the ship of the line Hessen from November 1, 1926 and then on the ship of the line Schleswig-Holstein from September 26, 1927. From September 28, 1928, he was employed as 1st admiralty officer in the fleet command, as well as being promoted to frigate captain on September 1 , 1928 . June 1929. From September 27, 1930 Guse served as chief of staff in the naval department, and from October 1, 1931 in the rank of sea ​​captain .

In the naval management

From September 27, 1932, Guse was appointed head of the fleet department in the naval command and from September 29, 1934 took over as chief of the naval command office (department “A” of the naval command), which was responsible for all military questions in the naval command. In these functions, Guse worked closely with the then head of naval management, Erich Raeder .

In the Marine command post were then led Guse, who on April 1, 1935, Rear Admiral was promoted, develops the basis for a possible naval warfare, then later by the Operations Department ( "AI" Department of the Navy), were also taken in time of war as naval staff ( SKL) should act.

From 1 April 1937, after the transfer of the Navy in the Navy on June 1, 1935 Guse resulted in personal union additionally also as Chief of Staff, the Naval Operations and was appointed on November 1, 1937 Vice Admiral appointed. In this role he was ultimately responsible for the Operations Department (also the 1st Department of Naval Warfare), the Organization Department (A II), the Naval Intelligence Service (also the III.Department of Naval Warfare), the Training Department (A IV) and the Fleet Department (AV). Several important events occurred in Guse's administration, such as the conclusion of the German-British naval agreement of June 18, 1935. In this agreement, Guse saw the “basis of a permanent understanding with England” and a “fully satisfactory” agreement that “precludes all naval rivalries should". Furthermore, Germany's accession to the submarine agreement of the naval powers on November 23, 1936, as well as the deployment of German naval forces in Spanish waters during the Spanish Civil War, began in summer 1936 during this period of service.

When the British government announced in the course of the Sudeten crisis in 1938 that it would fight against Germany if war broke out, Guse commissioned Helmuth Heye to draft a memorandum for the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy on the question of which and how many ships Germany could use Sea war against Great Britain with a prospect of success could be waged. The conclusions in which u. a. the danger of a European conflict was pointed out, Guse joined on July 17, 1938 and, like the chief of staff of the army, Ludwig Beck , advocated that the commanders-in-chief of the army and the navy should share their concerns with Hitler against "a development that would affect the existence of the empire threatened ". On August 20, 1938, Guse was also chairman of a "planning committee" that worked out proposals on strategic foundations for the development of the navy in peacetime and in the event of war, the consequences for the design of new ships and decisions for new ships and others Should prepare plans of the Kriegsmarine. In addition to Guse, the following naval officers were permanent members of this committee: Hellmuth Heye (la / 1 / Skl), Hermann von Fischel (chairman of the new building committee and also head of the General Naval Office), Kurt Fricke (chief 1./Skl), Werner Fuchs ( Head of the Fleet Department), Leo Riedel (Chief of Staff of the Naval Weapons Office), Karl Witzell , the head of the Naval Weapons Office, and Otto Schniewind , head of the Naval Armed Forces Office , also took part in the committee meetings. On October 25, 1938, the committee presented a memorandum entitled “Naval warfare against England and the resulting demands for the strategic objectives and the development of the Navy” , which Raeder presented on October 31, 1938. It came to the conclusion that an expected British blockade could not be broken and the aim of the Navy can only be to disrupt British overseas trade. The document, also known as the "Heye memorandum" after the (main) author, essentially provided for a further development of the strategic trade war with ironclad ships , which - operating on all oceans at the same time - split up the British fleet and thus their own numerical inferiority up to should compensate to some extent.

On November 1, 1938, Guse was replaced by Schniewind after the results of the deliberations of the planning committee to General Admiral Raeder had been presented on October 31, 1938, which then led to the so-called Z-Plan , in which the expansion of the fleet was determined by the end of 1945.

Further career in the Navy

As a result, Guse took the lead in the naval intelligence inspection of the Kriegsmarine, and he was also the president of the intelligence test command . On January 1, 1940, at the same time as he was promoted to Vice Admiral , Guse received another command post and was initially deputy commanding admiral of the Baltic Sea Station ; on February 15, 1940 he was officially entrusted with the representation of the previous post holder and finally on 21 September 1940 appointed Admiral in command of the Baltic Naval Station. In February 1943, the post was converted to the position of Commander in Chief of the Naval High Command East (Naval OB East). After Karl Doenitz early 1943 instead Raeder of Hitler appointed supreme commander of the Navy and Chief of Naval Operations and skipping the rank of General Admiral to Admiral had been promoted, Guse difference - like most more senior admirals - from active naval service from. He was replaced from March 9, 1943 under zV position as naval mayor east. On 31 May 1943 he entered the retirement and remained zV of the Commander of the Navy to be activated but without again.

Captivity and death

Although Guse was no longer activated, at the end of the war on March 30, 1945 in Unheim near Labes , he was taken prisoner by the Soviets and brought to the Soviet Union. He died there on May 6, 1953 in the Vladimir prison camp . He was not allowed to contact his family; the news of his death did not reach Germany until 1956.

Awards

During the First World War:

• Iron Cross , 2nd class (EK II)
• Iron Cross, 1st class (EK I)
• Friedrich-August-Kreuz , 2nd class and 1st class
• Lübeck Hanseatic Cross

During service in the Navy:

• Cross of Honor for Front Warriors (1934)
• Service award of the Wehrmacht (DA IV until October 1, 1938)
• Braces for the Iron Cross, 2nd class and 1st class
• War Merit Cross, 2nd class with swords
• War Merit Cross, 1st Class with Swords
• German Cross in Silver (February 19, 1943)

literature

• Eckhard Wendt: Stettiner Lebensbilder (= publications of the Historical Commission for Pomerania . Series V, Volume 40). Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-412-09404-8 , pp. 211-212.

Web links

• Short biography Günther Guse (in English). In: Axis Biographical Research. Retrieved June 25, 2016 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael Salewski: The Germans and the Sea: Studies on German Naval History of the 19th and 20th Century, Volume 1 . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-515-07319-1 , p. 176 f.
2. ^ Michael Salewski: The German Naval Warfare 1935 - 1945 . tape 1 . Bernard and Graefe Verlag for Defense, Frankfurt am Main 1970, p. 44 ff .