Heinrich Hoffmann (naval officer)

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Heinrich Hoffmann (born August 17, 1910 in Bottrop , † January 29, 1998 in Wehden ) was a German naval officer , most recently a sea captain in the German Navy . In the Second World War he was awarded the Oak Leaves for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross .

Military career

Interwar years

Heinrich Hoffmann joined the Reichsmarine in 1928 and initially worked through the ranks of the crew. He served on torpedo boats and received his nautical training on the sailing training ship Niobe . In 1933 he was promoted to bosun's mate and soon afterwards appointed officer candidate "from the troops". On January 1, 1936, he was promoted to lieutenant at sea . He then served first on the ironclad Admiral Graf Spee , then again on torpedo boats.

Second World War

Hoffmann was first lieutenant at sea at the beginning of the Second World War and became a lieutenant captain on January 1, 1940 . After representing the commander of the T 5 torpedo boat for two months , he became the commander of the T 11 torpedo boat in May 1940 . In October 1941 he took over the torpedo boat Greif , but then switched to its sister boat Falke in December 1941 . On October 17, 1942, he was given command of the T 24 fleet torpedo boat, which was put into service that day .

On October 1, 1943, Hoffmann was promoted to corvette captain and appointed chief of the 5th torpedo boat flotilla. The flotilla consisted of the boats T 24 , Greif , Möwe , Kondor , Falke and Jaguar ; In April 1944, the T 28 was added as a new guide boat and replaced the T 24 . The flotilla provided security, escort and mine service in the English Channel and on the French west coast. On the night of May 23-24, 1944, when the flotilla was marching from Cherbourg to Le Havre , the Greif was sunk by a British bomb . She collided with the falcon , which then spent three weeks in the shipyard in Le Havre.

At the beginning of the Allied invasion of Normandy ( Operation Neptune ) on June 6, 1944, Hoffmann only had three operational boats available. According to reports from the Normandy coast of bombardment by heavy artillery, he set sail with his three boats at 4:15 a.m. on the morning of June 6th on the orders of the Marine Group Command West and met the two British battleships HMS Warspite and an hour later off Sword Beach HMS Ramillies and accompanying smaller warships. He decided to attack immediately and had a total of 18 torpedoes shot down at 5:35 a.m. The two battleships managed to evade, but the Norwegian destroyer Svenner was hit amidships and sank. Meanwhile Hoffmann's boats turned and escaped in the fog. Hoffmann received the Knight's Cross the next day .

In the eight nights that followed, his boats, including the falcon again from June 13, attacked the Allied invasion fleet or secured mine clearance boats against enemy aircraft attacks while laying mines. There were numerous dead and wounded by low-flying attacks. On the night of June 14th to 15th, 1944, Hoffmann's 5th Torpedo Boat Flotilla was almost completely destroyed. Nearly 300 British Lancaster - bomber flew in two waves a heavy air raid on the docks of Le Havre. Seagull , falcon and jaguar sank after being hit by bombs several times. Only the T 28 survived the night with slight damage. Hoffmann received the Knight's Cross on July 11, 1944.

From November 1944 until the end of the war, Hoffmann was then under Vice Admiral Hellmuth Heye , the commanding admiral of the small combat units of the Kriegsmarine , commander of the training department of the small naval combat units in Kappeln , where combat swimmers , micro-submarine drivers, and explosive vessels were trained.

Federal Navy

After about ten years in civilian life, during which he worked as a technical employee and then operations manager of a small industrial company and later as an authorized signatory of a forwarding company , Hoffmann joined the German Navy on March 13, 1956 and was promoted to frigate captain on the same day . After serving in the Federal Ministry of Defense (as a consultant for training and organizational issues in the naval command ) and briefly in the fleet command, he was appointed commander of the 2nd escort squadron on May 9, 1960, while at the same time being promoted to sea captain. In 1961 he became commander of the 1st destroyer squadron , which included the three former US destroyers of the Fletcher class Z1 , Z2 and Z3 . In April 1963 he was appointed commander of the naval locating school in Bremerhaven . He remained in this position until his retirement on September 30, 1968.

Awards

literature

  • Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 1939–1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 .
  • Clemens Range : The knight's cross bearers of the Navy. Motorbuch, Stuttgart, ISBN 3-87943-355-0 .

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/44-05.htm
  2. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/44-06.htm
  3. ↑ T 28 later succeeded, under his commandant, Kapitänleutnant Hans Temming, the breakthrough through the English Channel back to Germany. On the night of July 21st to 22nd, 1944, the boat moved from Le Havre to Boulogne with speedboat safety , the following night to Hoek van Holland , and finally to Germany until July 27th. ( http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/44-07.htm )
personal data
SURNAME Hoffmann, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer
DATE OF BIRTH 17th August 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Bottrop
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 1998
Place of death Woes