Henning von Holtzendorff

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Henning von Holtzendorff in the uniform of a vice admiral

Henning Rudolf Adolf Karl von Holtzendorff (born January 9, 1853 in Berlin , † June 7, 1919 in Prenzlau ) was a German Grand Admiral during the First World War , who became known for his memorandum for unrestricted submarine warfare .

Life

Holtzendorff comes from the Uckermark Uradelsfamilie Holtzendorff . His father was Otto von Holtzendorff (1817–1887), director of the Deutsche Kreditbank in Gotha. He joined the Navy as a cadet on April 11, 1869 and completed his basic training on the sailing frigate SMS Gefion . He took part in the war in the North Sea in 1870/71 and then had numerous foreign commands, for example on the corvette SMS Nymphe during her circumnavigation and as a flag lieutenant of the Admiral von Knorr with the West African cruiser squadron in Cameroon . In the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 he was a ship commander and served as II Admiral of the cruiser squadron in East Asia during the Russo-Japanese War . In the High Command of the Navy (again under von Knorr) as Chief of Staff of the Baltic Sea Division and as Oberwerftdirektor in Danzig, Holtzendorf was also judged positively in high land command posts. On September 30, 1906, he was appointed chief of the 1st Squadron of the High Seas Fleet . He then took over command of the ocean-going fleet on October 1, 1909 and became the fleet boss. He was promoted to admiral on January 27, 1910. Because of a dispute with Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz and Kaiser Wilhelm II over the course in armaments and naval policy, he left the fleet and was put on the market on January 30, 1913. Holtzendorff was appointed to the Prussian mansion for life on June 16, 1913 .

One year after the outbreak of the First World War , Holtzendorff was reactivated on September 5, 1915 and appointed Chief of the Admiralty's Staff of the Imperial Navy . In this function he presented a memorandum to Wilhelm II in December 1916, in which he called for unrestricted submarine warfare. This kind of warfare was supposed to put Britain on the defensive within five months and demoralize it within eight months. Although the entry of the United States into the war might be provoked on the part of the Allies, Holtzendorff's “unrestricted submarine war” was supposed to bring about the collapse of Great Britain as the mainstay of the Entente powers before the United States could intervene decisively in Europe.

In fact, the unrestricted submarine war on the German side began on February 1, 1917. However, the desired success did not materialize. The USA was drawn into the war, but England was not decisively weakened. This led to the dismissal of Holtzendorff on August 10, 1918 with the appointment of Reinhard Scheer as commander in chief of the navy. On July 31, 1918, he was promoted to Grand Admiral. On August 27, 1918, it was put up for disposal, but continued in the naval rankings on the highest orders.

After the war he retired into private life and died on June 7, 1919 in Prenzlau. On October 29, 1887 he had used Margarethe in Stettin . Klotz born Zitelmann married. The marriage remained childless, but he adopted Helga and Ingeborg Zitelmann, daughters of Konrad Zitelmann , who were raised to the Prussian nobility in 1907 as von Holtzendorff.

Awards

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ [Hubatsch, Walther, "Holtzendorff, Henning von" in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 9 (1972), p. 557 f. [Online version]; URL: http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/ppn117529079.html ], accessed on January 20, 2015
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Ranking list of the Imperial German Navy for 1918 , Ed .: Marine-Kabinett , Mittler & Sohn Verlag , Berlin 1918, p. 6
personal data
SURNAME Holtzendorff, Henning von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Holtzendorff, Henning Rudolf Adolf Karl von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Grand Admiral in the First World War
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1853
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 7, 1919
Place of death Prenzlau