Gottfried Hansen

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Gottfried Hansen, 1966
Gottfried Hansen (third from right) on the staff of Vice Admiral Hipper (center), 1916

Gottfried Hansen (born November 8, 1881 in Rendsburg , † July 16, 1976 in Kiel ) was a German admiral and functionary of the German veterans' associations after the Second World War .

Life

Hansen joined the Imperial Navy as a cadet in 1898 . At the outbreak of the First World War , he was the first artillery officer as captain lieutenant on board the liner SMS Schleswig-Holstein ; As the second staff officer of Admiral Hipper , he took part in the 1916 Battle of the Skagerrak . For his achievements during the war, Hansen was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross , the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords, the Knight's Cross I Class of the Albrecht Order and the Austrian Military Merit Cross III. Class with war decorations.

He remained a naval officer even after the end of the war, but in the administration on land before he successively commanded the two ships of the line Schleswig-Holstein and Braunschweig in 1926 . He then served as an inspector of the naval artillery ; when he was promoted to rear admiral in 1928, he became chief of the Baltic Sea naval station in Kiel. After promotion to Vice Admiral in 1930, he was on 30 September 1932 under presentation of the character adopted as an admiral to retire.

From 1938 until its war-related termination in 1944, he published the nautical yearbook Nauticus: Jahrbuch für Deutschlands Seeinteressen on behalf of the Navy .

On May 24, 1939, Hansen was reactivated and made available to the Navy. From November 17, 1941 to June 30, 1943 he was head of the Air Force Staff in the High Command of the Navy and in the meantime received the patent for his rank on September 1, 1942 .

After the Second World War, despite the Allied prohibitions still in force, he started an informal group called the "Hansen Circle" to found an association of former soldiers. After the ban was abolished in 1949, he became the founding chairman of the association of former professional soldiers entitled to pension benefits . In this position he actively pursued a policy of repression and downplaying the crimes of the Nazi era ; As early as 1950, he addressed the government and the Bundestag several times with memoranda: in it he called for “recognition of the purity of the German Wehrmacht” and its apolitical character and a general amnesty for those convicted as “so-called war criminals”. On the other hand, he also defended the resistanceists of July 20, 1944 against the accusation of treason that was widespread among former professional soldiers at the time. In 1951 he became chairman of the Association of German Soldiers , which he remained until 1956.

Hansen was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic with a star in 1956 . He is buried in a grave of honor in the Kiel North Cemetery .

literature

  • 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 2: HO. Biblio Publishing House. Osnabrück 1989. ISBN 3-7648-1499-3 . Pp. 17-18.

Web links

Commons : Gottfried Hansen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Ranking list of the German Reichsmarine , Ed .: Reichswehrministerium . ES Mittler & Sohn . Berlin 1929. p. 39.
  2. ^ Berthold J. Sander-Nagashima: The Federal Navy 1950 to 1972. Concept and structure. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2006, ISBN 978-3-486-57972-7 , p. 24f.
  3. Jürgen Förster: The Wehrmacht in the Nazi state. A structural-historical analysis. Oldenbourg science publisher. 2007. ISBN 978-3-486-58098-3 . Footnote 134 (p. 128).
  4. Norbert Frei : Politics of the Past. The beginnings of the Federal Republic and the Nazi past. CH Beck. 1996. ISBN 3-406-41310-2 . Pp. 209, 223.
  5. ^ Peter Reichel : Coming to terms with the past in Germany. Dealing with the Nazi dictatorship in politics and the judiciary. CH Beck. 2007. ISBN 978-3-406-45956-6 . P. 99. Limited preview in Google Book search.