Otto Fein

Otto Fein (born March 28, 1895 in Hamburg ; † January 9, 1953 there ) was a German naval officer .

Life

Family and education

Theodor Wilhelm Otto Fein was the son of the district judge Oskar Fein and his wife Henriette Fein, nee Leisewitz. From 1901 to 1904 he attended the pre-school of Mr. Thedsen and then the Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Hamburg. There he passed his A-levels at Easter 1913 and joined the Imperial Navy on April 1 of the same year as a midshipman . After initial infantry training at the Mürwik Naval School , Fein came to the Great Cruiser Hansa on May 10, 1913 . On this school cruiser he took part in a training trip to the Mediterranean from August 11 to March 17, 1914 . From April 1, 1914, he went through the usual ensign courses at the Naval School and was commanded as 2nd radio telegraph (FT) officer on the old ship of the line Alsace on July 31 , where he also witnessed the outbreak of the First World War .

Imperial Navy and First World War

On September 18, 1915 Fein was appointed lieutenant at sea , and on March 8 of the following year he was transferred to the ship of the line Braunschweig , also as 2nd FT officer, for two months . From May 15, 1916, Fein was an officer on watch for eight months on the mining cruiser Nautilus . He then completed a navigation course and got into submarine training. From May 6, 1917 to June 24, 1917 he was WO on the submarine UC 28 . In the following month (July 21) Fein was transferred to the U-cruiser U 151 , also as an officer on watch. On March 28, 1918, he switched to the same position on the U-cruiser U 140 . There he saw the end of the war.

Imperial Navy

Between December 2, 1918 and April 1, 1919, Fein was subject to the U-Cruiser Association and the U-Boat Inspection. He was taken over into the new Reichsmarine . Then he was WO and adjutant on the small cruiser Strasbourg for one year and from April 1, 1920 to October 25, 1920 officer on watch in the 1st torpedo boat semi-flotilla. Following led Lieutenant fine (since 7 January 1920) as commander until August 31, 1922, the succession minesweepers M 93 and M 109 in the V. flotilla. This was followed by the command to the Naval School Mürwik as adjutant and group officer. From July 16, 1923 to March 25, 1925 Fein was a watch and role officer on the cruiser Berlin , with which he made two long trips abroad. The first (January 15, 1924 - March 18, 1924) led into the Atlantic to the Azores . On the way back, the Canary Islands , Madeira and Cartagena were called. The second trip began on November 1, 1924 and led across the Canary Islands to the Caribbean. a. Saint Thomas , Cartagena in Colombia , Colón , Veracruz , Havana , La Guaira , San Juan / Puerto Rico and the Azores on the march back. Despite a severe storm in the Bay of Biscay , the Berlin reached Kiel safely on March 16, 1925. On April 1, 1925, Fein was promoted to lieutenant captain.

For the next 18 months he was a navigational officer on the survey ship Panther . On October 1, 1926, he was transferred again to the Mürwik Naval School until the end of the year. This was followed by the command to the station command of the Baltic Sea until September 25, 1927 , where he served as 3rd Admiral Staff Officer until September 23, 1928. He then went to Berlin in the naval management , where he was employed as a consultant in the fleet department (AV). After almost six months, on March 16, 1929, he switched to the Wehrmacht Department in the Reichswehr Ministry .

From September 30, 1931, an on-board command followed as a navigation officer on the cruiser Cologne . From January 7th to January 28th 1932 the cruiser was on a short trip abroad in the Atlantic for artillery firing attempts. It was Las Palmas on Gran Canaria started. After visiting Stavanger as part of the autumn maneuvers (September 17-18, 1932), the Cologne left Wilhelmshaven on December 8 of the same year for East Asia. Via Caraminal / Spain , Messina , Alexandria , India , the Dutch East Indies , Australia and the South Seas , it went to Tsingtau in China . The journey home led through the Suez Canal , the Mediterranean and Vigo to Wilhelmshaven, which was reached on December 12, 1933 after an absence of more than a year and a journey of 37,000 nautical miles. Fein, who had been corvette captain since October 1, 1932 , left the ship on February 7, 1934 and was then employed on the staff of the Baltic Sea Naval Station as 1st admiral staff officer until September 28, 1937.

Navy

On October 1, 1936, Fein was promoted to frigate captain. From October 6, 1937 to March 31, 1938 he was assigned to the Wehrmacht Academy. Then he was until August 6, 1938 as a consultant in the High Command of the Navy . For the next two years, promoted to captain at sea on April 1, 1938, he served on the staff of the Naval Group Command East , first as 1st Admiral Staff Officer, then as Chief of Staff . Of 10 August to 19 August 1940 he was Chief of Staff at the Naval Group Command North to then commander of the fleet flagship employed battleship Gneisenau to be. At the beginning of 1941 he took part in the Berlin company , in which 22 opposing merchant ships with over 115,000 GRT were seized or sunk in the Atlantic together with the sister ship Scharnhorst . In mid-February 1942, the Cerberus company returned the three heavy ships Scharnhorst , Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen through the English Channel to Germany. Fein had already been decorated with the German Cross in gold on February 2, 1942 . His time on the Gneisenau ended on April 14th of the same year after he had already been promoted to Rear Admiral on April 1st .

From May 27, 1942 to November 22, 1944, Fein was Chief of Staff in the Naval High Command Norway , in order to subsequently become head of the Nautical Office in the High Command of the Navy. There he saw the end of the war. From July 23, 1945 to December 11, 1945, he headed the Deutsche Seewarte as a continuing German Hydrographic Service on instructions from the British Allies, first in the German Maritime Institute, then in the German Hydrographic Institute (DHI), which in 1990 became the Federal Office for maritime shipping and hydrography .

From 1950, Fein was managing director of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge in Hamburg. He died there on January 9, 1953.

literature

• Jens Grützner: Sea captain Ernst Lindemann - the Bismarck commander. Zweibrücken 2010, ISBN 978-3-86619-047-4 , pages 217-222
• Hans H. Hildebrand, Ernest Henriot: Germany's Admirals 1849–1945. Volume 1, Biblio-Verlag, Osnabrück 1988, ISBN 3-7648-1499-3 , pages 322–323
• Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. Ratingen without a year

reference

• Personnel file Otto Fein, German Office (WASt) Berlin

Individual evidence

1. ↑ BSH history. Retrieved May 16, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Annual Report No. 1 1946. German Hydrographic Institute, 1947, accessed on May 16, 2020 .