Otto Schultze

This article deals with Admiral General Otto Schultze. For information on administrative lawyers , see Otto Schultze-Rhonhof ; for other people see Otto Schulze .

Otto Schultze (born May 11, 1884 in Oldenburg , † January 22, 1966 in Hamburg ) was a German general admiral in World War II and knight of the order Pour le Mérite .

Military career

Schultze came on April 7, 1900 as a midshipman in the Imperial Navy and served in the First World War, first as a role officer on the battleship SMS king . In 1915 he became a submarine - commander trained and then commanded U 63 . In mid-December 1917 he gave up this command and served as first admiral staff officer of the leader of the submarines in the Mediterranean until the end of the war . At the same time, from January 20 to May 12, 1918, Schultze was chief of the I. U-Flotilla Mediterranean .

After his takeover in the Reichsmarine , Schultze was mainly employed in staff assignments. 1927 to 1929 he was in command of the liner Alsace . From September 28, 1929 to February 26, 1930 he was naval commander of Kiel and in this capacity also commander of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal , before he was then inspector of the naval education system. In this position he was promoted to Rear Admiral on April 1, 1931 .

In October 1933, Schultze was appointed chief of the North Sea naval station and promoted to vice admiral (1934) and admiral (1936) in the following years . In 1937 he was adopted into retirement.

During the German mobilization in August 1939, Schultze was reactivated in his old position, since the previous incumbent Alfred Saalwächter was appointed commander in chief of the “ Marine Group Command West”, which was to be newly formed for the war . However, he was replaced after three months and transferred to the Führer Reserve for almost a year and a half . From March 1941 to August 1942 he was in his last assignment as Commanding Admiral France . Shortly before his final retirement from the Navy, Schultze was promoted to Admiral General on August 31, 1942 .

Awards

• Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class
• Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with swords
• Pour le Mérite on March 18, 1918
• Submarine War Badge (1918)
• Prussian service award cross
• Knight's Cross 2nd class of the House and Merit Order of Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig with swords
• Friedrich-August-Kreuz II. And I. Class
• Order of the Iron Crown III. Class with the war decoration
• Austrian Military Merit Cross III. Class with the war decoration
• Silver Liakat medal with swords
• Iron crescent
• Wehrmacht service award IV. To I. class
• Clasp for the Iron Cross, 2nd class
• War Merit Cross (1939) 2nd and 1st class with swords
• German cross in silver on August 31, 1942

literature

• Dermot Bradley (eds.), Hans H. Hildebrand, Ernest Henriot: Germany's Admirals 1849-1945. Volume 3: PZ. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1990, ISBN 3-7648-1499-3 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Ranking list of the German Reichsmarine , Ed .: Reichswehrministerium , Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1929, p. 40