Otto Nordt
Otto Nordt (born January 12, 1902 in Dreschvitz on Rügen , † July 25, 1976 in Elmshorn ) was a German naval officer and knight's cross . He served under six different flags for 41 years without interruption: in the Reichsmarine , the Kriegsmarine , the German Mine Clearance Service , the Cuxhaven Mine Clearance Association , the Maritime Border Guard and the Federal Navy .
career
Reich and Kriegsmarine
Otto Nordt was one of the naval officers who emerged from the NCO career. He joined the Reichsmarine on October 1, 1921 and rose through the ranks of signal corporal (1927), signal mate, senior signal mate (1931) up to senior officer . In the wake of the German-British naval agreement of 1935 and the intensive expansion of the German Navy, which was renamed the Kriegsmarine on June 1, 1935 , Nordt was accepted into the officer's career as a member of " Crew 36".
After attending a corresponding course, he served from October 1938 to February 1940 as first watch officer on the training and test boat Claus von Bevern , the former torpedo boat V 190 and T 190 , for the blocking test association. After two more months at the Mürwik Naval School , he was promoted to lieutenant at sea on May 1, 1940, and at the same time was transferred to the Raule evacuation boat as the first officer on watch . As early as July 1940 he became the commander of this ship. On April 1, 1941, he was promoted to lieutenant at sea and on November 6, 1941, he was awarded the Iron Cross, 1st class. Nordt remained in command of the Raule until it sank on May 9, 1942, when the ship was in preparation for the breakthrough of the canal by the auxiliary cruiser Stier after a collision with the mine clearance boat R 45 , which was also lost, northwest of Boulogne-sur- Mer sank.
From July to December 1942, Nordt then served in the staff of the 2nd Security Division , then until March 1943 in the 2nd Warship Building Training Department . In March 1943 he became the commander of the minesweeper M 476 (26th minesweeping flotilla, Korvettenkapitän Karl Marguth, French Atlantic coast), and on April 1 he was promoted to lieutenant captain . From September 1943 he was in command of the minesweeper M 254 and at the same time deputy chief of the 8th minesweeping flotilla under Corvette Captain Arnulf Hölzerkopf, which was also deployed in western France / Biscay . On November 8, 1943, he was named in the honor roll of the Navy. In December 1943, Kapitänleutnant Nordt took over as chief of the 14th clearing boat flotilla that had been newly established in Cuxhaven , which he led until September 1945 until the end of the war. After entering the German Bight , the flotilla served as part of the 2nd Security Division in the English Channel and off the Dutch coast, where it drove missions against the Allied invasion fleet and mine-laying companies and was repeatedly involved in heavy battles with British MTBs . For these missions Nordt was awarded the German Cross in Gold on July 17, 1944 and the Knight's Cross for the Iron Cross on September 6, 1944. Many members of his flotilla received the Iron Cross 2nd and 1st class. Then the flotilla was first transferred to Wilhelmshaven to the 5th Security Division and finally in 1945 to the Danzig Bay . In the last months of the war she took part in the evacuation of wounded and refugees from East Prussia . When the war ended, the flotilla was in Stubbekøbing, Denmark .
Post-war years
The flotilla was then used under British command in the 3rd Mine Clearance Division of the German Mine Clearance Service in the western Baltic Sea for mine clearing. From September 4, 1945, the remaining boats of the flotilla in Copenhagen were handed over to the Danish Navy .
Nordt continued to serve with the German mine clearance service and, after its dissolution, from January 1, 1948 to June 30, 1951, with the Cuxhaven mine clearance association . On July 1, 1951, he switched to the newly established Maritime Border Guard as "Lieutenant Captain in the BGS " , where he worked on the personnel matters of NCOs and men in the Coastal Border Guard and was promoted to "Staff Captain in the BGS" (equivalent to the Corvette Captain ). When the Maritime Border Guard was taken over by the German Armed Forces on July 1, 1956 and thus became the base of the new German Navy , Nordt switched to the German Navy with the rank of corvette captain. He served there until March 31, 1962.
literature
- Manfred Dörr: The knight's cross bearers of the surface forces of the navy ; Volume 2: L-Z. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1996, ISBN 3-7648-2497-2 .
- Hans Jürgen Witthöft: Lexicon on German naval history. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford, 1977
Web links
- Gerhard Beckmann, Klaus-Ulrich Keubke, Ralf J. Mumm: Naval officers from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 1849–1990
- deutsches-marinearchiv.de
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Nordt, Otto |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German naval officer, knight's cross holder |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 12, 1902 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dreschvitz |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 25, 1976 |
| Place of death | Elmshorn |