Hans Ibbeken

Hans "Ibbo" Ibbeken (* 20th September 1899 in Schleswig ; † 1. September 1971 ) was a German officer of the Navy of the Armed Forces , most recently with the rank of naval captain .

Life

Hans Ibbeken first served in a hunter battalion and joined the Imperial Navy in early 1918 as a midshipman with crew IV / 18 . Until the end of the First World War he had no war experience and left the ship of the line König Albert in Wilhelmshaven in November 1918 shortly before the outbreak of the Kiel sailors' uprising . From December 1918 to May 1919 he was deployed in the Schleswig-Holstein Company of the Iron Division . From November 1919 to September 1920 he was part of the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade . This was followed by his training on other ships and at the Mürwik Naval School until 1922 . Afterwards he was second guard and artillery officer on the torpedo boat G8 until March 1923 under the commandant Karl Dönitz, with interruptions through courses . Further courses followed until 1929, his use at the Kiel-Friedrichsort naval school and as an adjutant at the naval school.

From September 1929 to September 1931 Ibbeken was with interruptions in command of the artillery school ship SMS Hay and then, among other things, was deployed as a military adviser.

As a lieutenant captain , he took over the commissioning of the U 27 submarine in August 1936 , which was subordinated to the "Saltzwedel" submarine flotilla and of which he was in command and remained until October 1937. Under his command, the boat undertook a patrol in the Spanish Civil War , for which he and the entire crew received the Spanish Cross in bronze in 1939 .

He then served, promoted to Korvettenkapitän in October 1937 , until September 1939 as head of the “Saltzwedel” submarine flotilla in Wilhelmshaven, whose boats provided the main support in the Spanish Civil War (July 1936 to April 1939). From September 1939 to June 1940 he was the commander of the U-Schule in Neustadt ( subordinated to the 21st U-Flotilla ) and then, until November 1941, commander of the 1st U-School newly established to train U-boat crews regardless of rank . U-teaching division (1st ULD; also with the subordination of the 21st U-Flotilla) in Neustadt and Pillau . In August 1939, the leader of the U-Boats West (FdU West), but a short time later when it became clear that the western sea area would not become a scene for submarine clashes, he handed the post over to Karl Dönitz.

From February 1942 to February 1943 he was in command of the newly commissioned U 178 . When it was put into service, Karl Dönitz's son, Klaus, almost had a fatal accident. Ibbeken, Duz friend of Dönitz, obtained permission from Dönitz to allow his son to disembark. Ibbeken undertook a patrol with the U 178 in the so-called long-distance submarine and was the first German submarine to operate in the West African waters and the Indian Ocean . 6 boats, including the Duchess of Atholl and the Mendoza , with over 45,000 GRT were sunk. It is reported that he was not very popular, and his reluctance to target potential attacks earned him the derogatory nickname Ibbo . His behavior, e.g. B. by unshielded smoking on the lookout, brought considerable tension within the crew, followed by his old age for the position; after evaluation of the patrol by the commander of the submarines, referred to as the longest serving submarine commander of the Kriegsmarine who served at the front in World War II ; and the fact that he had taken the regression as submarine commander after his previous post, which led to further speculation among the crew members. In the end, none of the crew members wanted to go to sea with him and he was given a different task due to his age, so that Ibbeken had to relinquish command shortly after the submarine arrived in Bordeaux . In August 1942 he had already been promoted to sea captain.

Only then was he appointed commander of the Mürwik torpedo schools for one year and later from February 1944 to March 1945 the first and only higher commander of the torpedo schools (HKT). In March / April 1945 he was Wehrmacht Commander in Kiel and in April 1945 as the successor to Rear Admiral Werner Stichling, Commander of the Naval Defense of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg . In May 1945, however, he was replaced again.

Awards (selection)

• 1918: Iron Cross 2nd class
• 1939: Spanish cross in bronze

literature

• Lawrence Paterson: Hitler's Gray Wolves: U-Boats in the Indian Ocean . Skyhorse, 2017, pp. 57–58.
• Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War, 1939–1945: The German U-Boat Commanders . Mittler & Sohn , 1996, p. 110.

Web links

• Entry by Hans Ibbeken at uboat.net

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War, 1939–1945: The U-Boat construction on German shipyards . Mittler & Sohn, 1996, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , p. 18 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
2. ^ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War, 1939–1945: The U-Boat construction on German shipyards . Mittler & Sohn, 1996, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , p. 420 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
3. ^ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War, 1939–1945: The U-Boat construction on German shipyards . Mittler & Sohn, 1996, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 , p. 304 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
4. ↑ Lawrence Paterson: Second U-boat Flotilla . Leo Cooper, 2003, ISBN 0-85052-917-4 , pp. 11 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
5. ↑ Lawrence Paterson: Second U-boat Flotilla . Leo Cooper, 2003, ISBN 0-85052-917-4 , pp. 6 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
6. ↑ Geirr H. Haarr: The Gathering Storm: The Naval War in Northern Europe September 1939 - April 1940 . Seaforth Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-1-4738-3131-5 , pp. 111 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
7. ↑ ^{a b c d} Jak P. Mallmann Showell: U-boats of the Second World War: Their Longest Voyages . Fonthill Media, March 24, 2014 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).