Hans Rose (naval officer)

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Hans Rose before the First World War

Hans Rose (born April 15, 1885 in Charlottenburg , † December 6, 1969 in Winterberg ) was a German naval officer and submarine commander of the First World War . With 79 sunk ships totaling 213,987 GRT , from a military point of view he is considered one of the most successful submarine commanders in naval war history.

education

Rose attended the Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium in Charlottenburg . He joined the Imperial Navy as a midshipman on April 1, 1903 . After Rose first sailed on the Stein school ship , he served as an ensign and then, after being promoted in September 1906, as a lieutenant on the Hessen . Then he was on the school cruiser Freya and finally as a watch officer on the Wettin . On July 15, 1908, Rose was promoted to first lieutenant. He was briefly a teacher on the torpedo school ship Württemberg and from 1912 to 1913 first officer on the Loreley stationed in Constantinople . From May 1913 to the summer of 1914 Rose was a torpedo boat commander and was promoted to lieutenant captain at the start of the First World War . After his transfer to the submarine school in 1915, Rose was given command of U 2 . In 1916 he worked for a short time as a teacher at the submarine school, returned to the submarine flotilla and took over command of U 53 on April 22, 1916 .

First World War

In 1916, the German Reich was largely cut off from overseas trade due to the British naval blockade . The primary goal of the German admiral's staff was to safely bring strategically important raw materials into the country that were necessary for the continuation of the war. In order to ensure the transport of raw materials between Germany and the USA , the trading submarines Germany and Bremen were designed and used.

In this context, the German admiralty's staff decided to send a boat to the American east coast to demonstrate the ability of German submarines to wage undersea trade wars near the American coast.

Drive to Newport, Rhode Island, October 1916

Hans Rose was selected for this politically risky assignment because he had the necessary qualifications and experience as well as a good command of the English language. His boat had only entered service in April 1916, so it was new and well run in.

U 53 received the order to secure the underwater freight traffic that began with the first voyage of the merchant submarine Deutschland on June 23, 1916 under Captain Paul König between Bremerhaven and Baltimore . Reinhard Scheer , the chief of the deep sea fleet, took the view that the company could be used by the US as an opportunity to enter the war and refused to give the order of operations for this mission. The order for the politically risky submarine operation was given directly by the chief of the Admiralty's staff, Henning von Holtzendorff .

The order was to secure the arrival of the new cargo submarine Deutschland in New London , for this purpose to fight Allied naval forces outside of American territorial waters in front of the eastern approaches to the Long Island Sound , to briefly call at an American port and then in front of the American east coast to wage a trade war according to the price order before entering New London, observing American neutrality .

On September 14, 1916 was U 53 of Wilhelmshaven out. After an unusually long and arduous journey, Rose's submarine crossed on the night of October 6, 1916, before entering New London. However, neither U-Germany nor English warships came in sight.

U 53 on October 7, 1916 off Newport, Rhode Island (1) and Germany off New London (2)

On October 7, 1916, U 53 ran under the command of Lieutenant Rose in the American port of Newport , Rhode Island . Rose went ashore to pay his respects to the station chief, Admiral Austin M. Knight. He was relieved to hear that U 53 did not want to add any supplies, water or food, did not disembark sick people and did not have to carry out any repairs. When asked why he had come, Rose explained that he had only wanted to pay the admiral a visit. That was a good thing, Knight replied, because he hadn't given the German anything either. Admiral Albert Gleaves on the cruiser Birmingham was more courteous. He visited the German submarine with his wife and daughter. It took the neutral American government two hours to decide how to respond to this surprise visit. In the meantime, a large number of American naval officers had gathered on U 53 , who were being led and entertained by the boat. Then the station chief sent an officer with the request to cut off communications with the country. The reason given was that the port doctor had not yet released traffic. In order not to be quarantined , Rose left Newport after a two-and-a-half-hour stay without supplemental supplies.

On October 8, 1916, Rose sank five ships with a total tonnage of 20,388 GRT in 17 hours in the sea area around the Nantucket lightship. These were the British freighter Strathdene from Glasgow , (4321 BRT) and West Point (3847 BRT) and the British passenger steamer Stephano Liverpool (3449 BRT) and the Norwegian steamship Chr. Knudsen , (3878 BRT) which with a cargo of gas oil for London was intended, and the Dutch steamer Blommersdyk , with 4,850 GRT. All crew members and passengers were able to leave the ships in lifeboats; people were not injured in this operation. Rose stopped two more cargo ships; the American "Kansas" had loaded the soda and the Norwegian steamer Kapana with a load that consisted mainly of grain. Since both cases were not banned goods, the ships were able to continue.

In response to the Nantucket lightship's reports of the first sinkings, 17 American destroyers were dispatched to the sea area to search for survivors. U 53 had to maneuver with great caution in tight sea space . Rose used Morse code to ask a destroyer lying in the immediate vicinity of the Blommersdyk to move away a little so that the Blommersdyk could be sunk. He immediately complied with this request.

This mission brought the German Reich to the brink of war with the United States six months before the USA entered the war. The German ambassador to Washington , Johann Heinrich Graf von Bernstorff , was warned in a personal conversation by President Woodrow Wilson in serious words that the sinking of neutral ships off the American coast was unacceptable and that such a process should not be repeated.

Sinking of the Cunard Liner Folia

On March 11, 1917, Rose torpedoed and sank the 6,560 ton Cunard Liner Folia on U-53 off Ram Head, Ardmore , County Waterford , on the Irish coast .

Sinking of the destroyer Jacob Jones

Jacob Jones

On December 6, 1917, Rose torpedoed and sank the first destroyer the US lost during World War I, the Jacob Jones . The torpedo hit the Jacob Jones with the longest successful torpedo shot of the First World War at a distance of 2,700 m. 38 survivors were able to save themselves in boats, 64 crew members sank with the ship. Rose sent the coordinates of the survivors to the British-American naval base in Queenstown . On the night of December 6th to 7th, 1917, British ships were able to accommodate the crew members of the Jacob Jones .

Rose's command ended on August 7, 1918. On U 53 he was replaced by Otto von Schrader . In addition to both classes of the Iron Cross, he received the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords and the order Pour le Mérite for his achievements in the tonnage war . On August 8, 1918, he was admiral staff officer in the staff of the commander of the submarines. With the Armistice of Compiègne , he was also in charge of the 2nd submarine fleet with the management of business until December 28, 1918. On February 5, 1919 Rose was provided to the Marine Station of the North Sea, on leave, and finally on 24 November 1919 by awarding the character as a lieutenant commander retired from service.

After the war he lived in Essen and was most recently department head of the chemical factory Th. Goldschmidt AG until 1937 . During the occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, Rose was briefly captured by the Belgian - French occupation forces .

Navy

Before the start of the Second World War , Rose was made available to the Navy on May 24, 1939 , but was not given any use. On August 27, 1939, the so-called Tannenberg Day , he was given the character of a frigate captain . As such, Rose worked briefly at the Armaments Inspectorate VI in Münster and was transferred to Krakow on October 1, 1939 as a Marine Group Leader at the Military Economic Command. At the end of the month he was transferred to the staff of the submarine commander . From February 1 to April 30, 1940, Rose acted as commander of the 1st submarine training department in Plön . This was followed by his use as Chief of Staff of the Admiral Norwegian North Coast . From July 1, 1940, Rose was in command of the Drontheim naval defense and on July 1, 1942, was promoted to captain of the sea . On May 7, 1943, he was made available to the naval station of the Baltic Sea , on leave and his ZV position was finally canceled on July 31, 1943.

reception

Rear Admiral William Sowden Sims , United States Navy , said of Rose, “We developed a certain respect for Hans because he was a brave man, seized opportunities that most of his compatriots would have avoided and, most importantly, because he was his hopeless game played with a certain propriety. ”Rose himself judged in his 1940 book Auftauchen! that the demonstration of military strength with U-53 off the American coast was unquestionably a mistake.

Works

  • Pop up! War journeys by U 53. Essen publishing house, Essen 1940.

literature

  • Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Christian Zweng: The knights of the order Pour le Mérite of the First World War. Volume 3: P-Z. Biblio Verlag, Bissendorf 2011, ISBN 3-7648-2586-3 , pp. 141-143.
  • Wellington Long: The Cruise of the U-53. United States Naval Institute Proceedings, 1966.
  • VE Tarrant: The U-Boat Offensive 1914-1945. Cassell & Company, 1989 ISBN 1-85409-520-X .
  • Joachim Schröder: The emperor's submarines. The story of the German submarine war against Great Britain in World War I. Subsidia academica, Series A: Recent and Recent History. Vol. 3, Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-7637-6235-3 .
  • Werner von Langsdorff: U-boats on the enemy. 45 German submarine drivers tell the story. Hans Rose: U 53 goes to America. C. Bertelsmann Publishing House, Gütersloh 1937.
  • Edgar T. Britten: A Million Ocean Miles. Patrick Stephens, London 1989, ISBN 1-85260-169-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tarrant, VE: The U-Boat Offensive 1914-1945. Cassell & Company, 1989 ISBN 1-85409-520-X .
  2. ↑ 1. UAA, 1. Submarine Training Department www.uboat.net
  3. ↑ WWI U-boat commanders, Hans Rose www.uboat.net
  4. ↑ Otto Weddigen : Our submarine war and our submarine heroes. Ernst'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1917, p. 50. ( Digitized collection of the Berlin State Library )
  5. ↑ a b c Michael Wala, Reinhard R. Doerries: Society and diplomacy in the transatlantic context: Festschrift for Reinhard R. Doerries on his 65th birthday. Franz Steiner Verlag , Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-515-07529-1 .
  6. ↑ Shipping Losses Off Ardmore 1914–1918 4. Folia Waterford County Museum
  7. ↑ World Battlefronts: Battle of the Atlantic Jakie to Davy TIME . Issued March 16, 1942
personal data
SURNAME Rose, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German submarine commander in World War I.
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlottenburg
DATE OF DEATH 6th December 1969
Place of death Winterberg