Marine special service
The Marinesonderdienst (MSD) was a kind of "anti-blockade shipping company", which was prepared in organizational terms by the Abwehr in the German Reich from 1937 and came into function during World War II . The technical management had from the beginning the High Command of the Navy (OKM).
tasks
The MSD's task was to provide, equip and load cargo ships of all kinds in order to supply the German Reich with urgently needed goods during the war, most of which were considered to be banned goods . The procurement and provision of these war-essential goods for the returning supply ships ( blockade breakers ) in overseas allied or neutral countries was also one of the tasks. Another task was the supply of the auxiliary cruisers operating on the oceans, temporarily also of naval forces waging trade wars and of submarines , insofar as these submarines were not supplied by vehicles of the supply ship association .
Installation and implementation
The MSD was prepared as a cadre department in peacetime from 1937 and was only filled with personnel after the outbreak of war. For camouflage reasons, the management of the MSD was subordinate to the Foreign Office IV of the Foreign Office Group in the Foreign Office / Defense of the OKW until May 15, 1944 , but technically it was under the High Command of the Navy (OKM / Skl Adm Qu A III). The leaders were Captain zS Werner Stoephasius (July 1937 to June 1943) and Captain zS Dietrich Niebuhr (July 1943 to May 1944). In 1944 the OKM took over the MSD on April 15, 1944 when the Abwehr was disempowered.
At first the office was located in Germany, after the campaign in the west it was moved to Bordeaux . The technical implementation of the tasks was carried out from Europe in the main office in Bordeaux, and overseas by representatives of the MSD organization. Area managers were generally the naval attachés , as far as they were available at the respective embassy. The naval attaché at the embassy in Tokyo , Admiral Paul Wenneker (Admiral East Asia), together with his chief of staff, captain z. S. Vermehren, both of whom worked closely with the Japanese Ministry of the Navy . The office was established there at the end of 1940. There were also offices in East Asia in the important ports of Yokohama , Kobe , Penang , Singapore , Batavia and Surabaya , some of which were in the Japanese occupation area.
On December 25, 1942, the OKM ordered that the ships that were currently at sea should not return to Germany, but should head for Japan to pick up goods there via the MSD.
In Penang there was also from March 1, 1944 the Air Command of the Special Marines Service East Asia (Penang) as an establishment of a small German Air Command. This was active in the strategically important Strait of Malacca . His job was to carry out reconnaissance with two Arado Ar 196 aircraft and to support submarines entering and leaving Penang.
successes
In the first few years measurable successes and supplies of war-essential goods could be recorded. 35 cargoes had left East Asia and 17 there, about half of which reached the recipient. From 1944 onwards, the supply of war- essential raw materials and goods from and to East Asia by surface ships had to cease because of the almost complete enemy surveillance. Therefore, since 1942, the task has been carried out more and more by large German and Japanese submarines , including U 234 , which was traveling to Japan with fissile uranium.
literature
- Ludwig Dinklage, Hans Jürgen Witthöft : The German merchant fleet. 1939-1945. Merchant ships, blockade breakers, auxiliary warships. Authorized special edition. Nikol, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-933203-47-3 .
- Jochen Brennecke : Black ships, wide seas. The fate of the German blockade breakers. 2nd, revised edition. Koehler, Herford 1989, ISBN 3-7822-0481-6 .
- Hellmut Mordhorst, Wilhelm Nootbaar: Reluctant Adventure! Blockade breakers reached home at the beginning of World War II. H. Mordhorst, Hamburg 1986.
- Martin Brice: Blockade breaker. The breakthrough of merchant ships of the Axis powers through the Allied barrier belt in World War II. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-87943-978-8 .
- Peter Arndt: German barrier breakers 1914-1945. Constructions, equipment, armament, tasks, use. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-87943-657-6 .