Hans Hartmann (Admiral)

Hans Hartmann (born January 16, 1897 in Bromberg , † March 9, 1976 in Neunkirchen-Seelscheid ) was a German naval officer, most recently rear admiral .

career

First World War

Hans Hartmann joined the Imperial Navy as a war volunteer in October 1915 and initially completed a one-month basic training as an officer candidate for Crew X / 1915 at the Mürwik Naval School before he was embarked for three months for nautical training on the large cruiser SMS Freya . He then received an on-board command of the deep sea fleet on the liner SMS Thuringia , on which he took part in the Skagerrak Battle . After further courses he was assigned to the torpedo boats school semi-flotilla, where he was trained as an officer on watch and was appointed lieutenant on December 13, 1917 . At the end of January 1918 he joined the 13th Torpedo Boat Half Flotilla, and from June 1, 1918 he served on the S 65 . As an officer on watch, he stayed on this boat even after the armistice commenced on November 11th and in the second half of the month ran with the internment association under Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter to Scapa Flow , where he was commissioned to lead S 65 in December 1918 . In his position as the commander of this torpedo boat, on June 21, 1919, he followed the order for the deep-sea fleet to submerge itself and was then taken prisoner by the British.

Imperial Navy in the Weimar Republic

After returning home from captivity at the beginning of February 1920, he had to remain at the command of Kiel for a while until he was deployed as a watch officer on a floating unit, initially for a few months on a mine steamer, then again on torpedo boats until mid-February 1923. Meanwhile appointed lieutenant at sea , he then held various land commands in the intelligence force of the Reichsmarine until the end of September 1926 , most recently as a naval intelligence officer in Stolpmünde . He then returned to the light naval forces for two years. In August 1927, he put the newly built torpedo boat Falke into service as commander , which was designated as his guide boat by the chief of the 4th torpedo boat semi- flotilla, Corvette Captain Otto Schniewind . Hartmann was promoted to lieutenant captain on October 1, 1928 . Renewed land commands, this time with the coastal artillery , followed. From October 1928 to October 1931 he was company commander in the III. or IV. Naval Artillery Department. He then served in the Marine Education Inspectorate (BI) for two years . On October 1, 1933, he was appointed first artillery officer of the old Hessen liner . A year later he became an artillery officer on the light cruiser Königsberg for twelve months , during which time he was promoted to corvette captain and then returned to the torpedo forces.

Navy in the Third Reich

After a detailed building instruction in Kiel, at the end of February 1937 he put the new destroyer Z 2 Georg Thiele into service as commander , who joined the 1st Destroyer Division. As demonstrated during the test drives that back because of a faulty design of Bugsektors took too much water, the ship was in the summer of 1938 in the shipyard. After Hartmann was promoted to frigate captain on July 1, 1938 , he took part in a naval parade in front of Hitler on his destroyer on August 22 , and then with the commissioning of the destroyer Z 17 Diether von Roeder on August 29, 1938 as division chief Initiate the formation of the 5th Destroyer Division. After the commissioning of the two sister boats, the division had been complete since January 12, 1939, and Hartmann was able to begin training for the association, which soon led to foreign waters. In March 1939 ships of this association took part in the occupation of the city of Memel , which took place immediately after the ultimatum to Lithuania . From April 18 to May 16, 1939, the destroyers took part in a fleet trip abroad to Spain, where the civil war had just ended with the victory of the fascists . In July 1939, the 5th Destroyer Division, now fully assembled for the first time, visited Norwegian ports.

After the outbreak of World War II, the division moved from the Baltic Sea area to Wilhelmshaven on September 4, 1939 , in order to lay mine barriers for the Siegfried Line in the North Sea . Then she first waged a trade war in the Skagerrak and undermined the English coast between the mouths of the Humber and Thames from Wilhelmshaven in October and November 1939 under the leadership of the destroyers.

At the end of November 1939, Hartmann passed his destroyer association on to his successor and was assigned to the staff of the armored ships command (BdP) on December 1, where he became first admiral staff officer under the fleet chief Admiral Wilhelm Marschall . On February 1, 1940, he was promoted to captain zS and was dispatched again on April 4. The separate staff of the BdP next to the naval staff had proven to be superfluous, was reduced more and more and finally integrated into the naval staff on July 31, 1940.

As a result of the German occupation of Norway , Hartmann was used in higher staffs in the German Navy in the occupied country. First he was Chief of Staff at the Naval Commander-in-Chief in Southern Norway for a few months, then he became First Admiral Staff Officer at the commanding Admiral Norway , Admiral Hermann Boehm , who had been his commandant on the Hessen seven years earlier . He remained in this position until the beginning of December 1941, after which he was again given command of the naval forces.

From December 4, 1941 to September 9, 1942 he was commander of the 3rd Security Division on the north-west coast of France. His headquarters were in Le Trez-Hir near Brest until March 1942 and in Nostang near Lorient from April 1942 . The area of ​​operation was the French Atlantic coast between Lorient and St. Malo . With his staff he led the operations of five minesweeping flotillas, the 2nd and 7th outpost flotilla, the 6th barrier-breaker flotilla and the 14th anti-hunting flotilla. The main task was to secure the entry and exit routes for the German submarine bases in the Atlantic ports. Hartmann was awarded the German Cross in Gold in mid-August 1942 for successfully accomplishing this task .

After a month of familiarization, he took up his new post on October 12, 1942, as commander of the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper . With that he had achieved the dream goal of many naval officers of the Navy to become the commanding officer of one of the heavy ships. However, their time was inexorable, and Hartmann was on board when Admiral Hipper, as the flagship of Vice Admiral Oskar Kummetz, set sail on December 30, 1942 together with the heavy cruiser Lützow and six destroyers in the Barents Sea to transport the Allied Russian convoy JW-51 B tackle. Due to poor coordination, timid leadership and poor visibility, the planned pincer attack failed, and the operation, later known in naval history as the Rainbow Company , was canceled. In a battle with the British light cruisers Sheffield and Jamaica , Admiral Hipper had received three artillery hits in the engine room; The result was staff shortages and the ship was no longer operational. Hitler ordered all heavy ships to be decommissioned, and Grand Admiral Erich Raeder , the Commander in Chief of the Navy (Ob.dM) , was replaced by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz .

Hartmann gave up his command on February 1, 1943 and three weeks later came to the main office of warship construction in the OKM. On March 16, he became Chief of Staff in the Fleet Command. On May 23, the post of a special representative for "the deployment of soldiers of all ranks" was created for him in the OKM, and he was promoted to rear admiral with effect from June 1, 1943 . On March 15, 1944, he became the commandant of the Attica naval defense . With the beginning of the evacuation of occupied Greece by German troops in the following autumn, the staff of the agency was transferred to the German Reich, for the most part in a dangerous land march through the Balkan Peninsula . Hartmann himself was brought home by air from Saloniki on October 16 , where he reported back to the Navy High Command between October 21 and 24. There he learned that Dönitz wanted to appoint him commander of the Naval Rifle Brigade North . This brigade with its four regiments was supposed to take over the protection of the German Bight in the event of an Allied landing from the sea as a "stationary defense". The designation division was deliberately avoided in order not to arouse misconceptions when comparing it with divisions of the army.

On November 7, Hartmann reported in Cuxhaven to the “ Coast Commander German Bight ”, Vice Admiral Ernst Scheurlen , to whom he was subordinate to the troops. His oldest regimental commander had already initiated the formation. He set up his headquarters in Varel near Wilhelmshaven , and he received several army officers as advisors for the organization of the formation and training of his four regiments and sixteen battalions. From mid-November onwards, training was relocated to the site. After inspecting all the units and units at the beginning of January 1945, Hartmann summarized his impressions: “ The initial unfamiliarity with troop service on land was quickly overcome. After thorough, systematic training, deliberately limited to stationary defense tasks, a degree was obtained in mid-January 45. I had visited all the battalions and was satisfied with their performance. “At this point in time, he could assume that the battalions and regiments, which were only able to be deployed to a limited extent in the land war, would only be used for limited defense tasks until they were replaced by more suitable army units. They would be deployed in an area on the North Sea coast that they had become familiar with over several weeks.

With the beginning of the Soviet Vistula-Oder operation on January 12, 1945, the situation changed dramatically. In complete misunderstanding of the navy's military capabilities for land warfare, Dönitz offered the Army High Command a regiment of the Naval Rifle Brigade North for use on the land front in the east. On the morning of January 18, 1945, Hartmann decided to relocate the 3rd Marine Rifle Regiment with four battalions to East Prussia. After his departure, this troop was completely withdrawn from his leadership. Not even two weeks later the other three regiments were made available by the Ob.dM for an Eastern Front deployment. Led by Hartmann, the brigade was formed on January 31 with eleven battalions as a "purely infantry combat unit (without artillery, without pioneers, without reconnaissance forces, without supply units)" with a considerable shortage of weapons and a combat strength of 8996 officers, NCOs and men marched on the Oder front south of Stettin . At the same time, an order was issued to rename the brigade at short notice as the 1st Marine Division.

The division's operational area was on the left bank of the Oder between Schwedt and Neuglietzen. After a few days she was placed under the "Oder" corps. Hartmann finally set up his headquarters in Parstein . As a result of Göring's interference , he occupied some local bases on the right bank of the river near Schwedt and a bridgehead in the Zehden area . During a visit to the front on February 12, Dönitz conveyed to the division commander that Himmler , commander in chief of Army Group Vistula , wanted the division to be converted into a combat division modeled on the Army. Hartmann raised serious concerns because he attached great importance to not disturbing the welding of the units and considered the inevitable unrest to be very unfavorable for the troops who were inexperienced in combat and who were still in training. Instead, he suggested adequate equipment with transport vehicles and equipment, improvements in staffing, and better care for the soldiers.

Shortly afterwards he was ordered to the headquarters of the Vistula Army Group. In a meeting lasting several hours, Himmler stated that the rear admiral did not want to follow his wish to transform the 1st Marine Division into an infantry assault division. A few days later the Army Group Supreme Commander appointed a major general of the Army, 38-year-old Wilhelm Bleckwenn, as inspector of infantry in the 1st Marine Division, who immediately went to Hartmann's headquarters to inspect the division's troops. On February 27, the inconvenient division commander was ordered to speak to the Ob.dM. Hartmann later reported that the Grand Admiral unreservedly approved his view and his position. However, he said to the Reichsführer SS on the question of relieving the burden of defensive duties, "A and must now also say B".

Hartmann flatly rejected proposals to get an army officer as chief of staff and to build other supports into the division. When Doenitz insisted on a solution, the rear admiral asked to relieve his post as division commander. The Ob.dM agreed, and the next day Bleckwenn took command of the division. Hartmann remained completely without a new command for ten days and then became the insignificant 'Special Representative of the Ob.dM for personnel savings', as almost two years before. At the beginning of April he was finally appointed commander of the Oslofjord naval defense under the commander-in-chief of the Norwegian naval command . Hartmann arrived in Oslo on April 4th.

Until the unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945, the sea ​​commander Oslofjord was also the judge for the military jurisdiction in his area of ​​command. The naval magistrate Adolf Harms and the naval magistrate Hans Filbinger were subordinate to him as naval judges . Their roles as chairman and prosecutor changed from case to case. In his remaining time as court lord, Hartmann passed two death sentences in the absence of the defendants, which became public in the wake of the Filbinger affair in 1978. In the published opinion it was pointed out years later that too little was known about the situation at the "Command of the Sea Defense Oslofjord" in April 1945. The name of Rear Admiral Hans Hartmann was never mentioned in this context.

post war period

After the Allied military mission arrived in Oslo on May 8, the Wehrmacht troops were transferred to so-called reservations until they were transported to Germany. They remained under German command, so that the previous command authorities exercised the same disciplinary authority over the soldiers even after the surrender as before, but on the basis of Allied law. Rear Admiral Hartmann remained at his previous post under the supervision of the Allies until his post was closed on August 31, 1945.

Hartmann came into British captivity and was transferred to Bridgend prison camp in Wales ( Island Farm Special Camp 11) on January 9, 1946 , together with numerous high Wehrmacht officers and his successor as division commander, Major General Bleckwenn. He was released from captivity on May 19, 1948. Since the early 1960s he lived as a pensioner in Neunkirchen-Seelscheid near Bonn.

Awards

• Iron Cross, Class II, October 16, 1939
• Iron Cross 1st Class, December 13, 1939
• German cross in gold, August 18, 1942

Web links

• Hartmann, Hans, at World War 2 Awards.com
• Image and information about Hans Hartmann, prisoner of Special Camp 11

literature

• Hans H. Hildebrandt, Ernest Henriot: Germany's Admirals 1849-1945. Biblio-Verlag, Osnabrück, 1990.
• Bernd Bölscher: On the banks of the Oder. Genesis of an end to the war. BoD, Books on Demand, Norderstedt, 2014. ISBN 978-3-7357-4146-2 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bernd Bölscher : On the banks of the Oder. Genesis of an end to the war. BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2014, ISBN 978-3-7357-4146-2 , p. 32 ff.
2. ↑ Werner Rahn, Gerhard Schreiber: War Diary of the Naval War Command 1939-1945. Part A. Volume 65. Verlag ES Mittler, Berlin-Bonn-Hamburg. ISBN 978-3- 8132-0665-4
3. ↑ Bernd Bölscher: On the banks of the Oder. Genesis of an end to the war. BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2014, ISBN 978-3-7357-4146-2 , p. 93 ff.
4. ^ The Filbinger case - mitteleuropa.de