Paul Wenneker

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Paul Wenneker (born February 27, 1890 in Kiel , † October 17, 1979 in Hamburg-Bergstedt ) was a German admiral in World War II .

Life

Wenneker joined on 1 April 1909 as a midshipman in the Imperial Navy and completed his training ship on the Great protected cruiser SMS Victoria Louise . After successfully attending the naval school, at which Wenneker was appointed ensign at sea on April 12, 1910 , he subsequently came on board the small cruiser SMS Mainz , on which he was promoted to lieutenant at sea on September 19, 1912 and then to SMS Königsberg . On June 20, 1913, he was transferred back to Mainz .

After the outbreak of the First World War , the ship was sunk during a sea ​​battle near Helgoland on August 28, 1914. Wenneker was able to be rescued by the British after the ship's sinking and then spent the time until January 15, 1918 in British captivity . He was then interned in the neutral Netherlands for almost a year until December 10, 1918 . After his release and return to Germany, he received both classes of the Iron Cross , was initially placed at the disposal of the naval inspection department before he was assigned to the naval forces of the Baltic Sea and accepted into the Reichsmarine .

After Wenneker had become lieutenant captain on February 15, 1920 , he became the commander of the M 30 minesweeper in the 6th half flotilla and, from October 10, 1921, commander of the M 132 in the 5th half flotilla. He then came from March 27, 1922 to May 26, 1924 as an instructor at the ship artillery school . Afterwards Wenneker was transferred to the small cruiser Nymphe as an artillery officer. On September 24, 1926, he joined the staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the Baltic Sea Station as Second Admiral Staff Officer and was promoted to Corvette Captain on October 1, 1928 . As the first artillery officer, he served from October 1, 1929 to February 25, 1930 on the old ship of the line Alsace, which was used as a training ship, and then in the same function on the ship of the line Schleswig-Holstein until September 22, 1931 . He was then transferred to the fleet command for two years as second admiral staff officer and on October 1, 1933, he was promoted to frigate captain .

On December 28, 1933 he took up his new post in Tokyo as a naval attaché at the German embassy there and was promoted to captain at sea on April 1, 1935. At the end of August 1937, he was ordered back to Germany and received on September 3 1937 took command of the ironclad Germany . With this ship, Wenneker was involved in the control and security of the sea routes around the Iberian Peninsula during the Spanish Civil War , and from July 24 to August 15, 1938, as the longest-serving commander, he also held supreme command of the German naval forces off Spain. For this he received the Spanish Cross in Gold with Swords.

After the beginning of World War II, Wenneker waged a trade war with Germany in the Atlantic until November 1939; he was promoted to Rear Admiral on October 1, 1939 . The Germany was after their return from the trade war on 15 November 1939 heavy cruiser reclassified and Lutzow renamed. Wenneker remained her commandant until November 29, 1939. He was then placed at the disposal of the Navy High Command until February 6, 1940 .

Then he was reappointed naval attaché at the German embassy in Tokyo . Associated with this was the appointment as "Admiral East Asia". Wenneker stayed in Japan until the end of the war. He was promoted to Vice Admiral on September 1, 1941 and admiral on August 1, 1944. After being awarded the German Silver Cross on April 24, 1944 , Wenneker received the Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords on January 18, 1945 . He was also the holder of the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun, 1st class.

When Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945, Wenneker became a prisoner of war in the United States , from which he was released on November 5, 1947.

In 1966 Wenneker stood before the Hamburg district court for murder . As a naval attaché in Tokyo, he had given the order to allow prisoners on board blockade breakers to go down with them in the event of self-sinking. One of the victims of this order was the sailor Alfred Poweleit, who was arrested for stolen goods and who went down with the blockade breaker Rio Grande on January 4, 1944 . However, the court assessed the offense as manslaughter and closed the proceedings because of the statute of limitations.

According to the Hamburg jury court, Wenneker followed the motto “be more than seems” and embodied the ideals of all those who had reservations about National Socialism during the Second World War. At first loyal to National Socialism, a lengthy personal encounter with Hitler on the ironclad "Deutschland" would have "repelled and shaken" him. This then slackened his interest in the Nazi regime. Later he was therefore inclined to agree with the request of his Japanese contacts that the war had to be ended instead of following his official mission. Wenneker had conflicts with police attaché Josef Meisinger at the German embassy in Tokyo. According to the Hamburg jury, in contrast to other members of the embassy, ​​he did not seek his “favor”. In a US survey, the engineer and “anti-Nazi” Kurt Michels found that Wenneker “lost favor” as a result of these conflicts with Meisinger. Other US research reports also take a positive political and personal stance on Wenneker.

Wenneker's order, given on October 2, 1943, to "not release" the journalist Karl Raimund Hofmeier suspected of espionage in the event of a self-sinking on the "Burgenland", according to what was known at the time, Meisinger apparently had by submitting forged documents and false pretenses Causes facts. In the Wenneker trial, however, both the judges and trial observers assumed that Hofmeier was actually a spy and, as a result, could actually have made “treasonous statements” if captured by the Allies. That Hofmeier most likely fell victim to Meisinger's intrigue did not become public until 2020.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reichswehr Ministry (ed.): Ranking list of the German Reichsmarine. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1929, p. 44.
  2. ↑ Jochen Brennecke: Black ships, wide seas. 4th edition, Heyne, Munich 1975, pp. 265ff.
  3. ↑ Gerhard Mauz: “That's what plagues me” - SPIEGEL reporter Gerhard Mauz on the acquittal of Admiral a. D. Wenneker in the revision, In: Der Spiegel. No. 40, 1966.
  4. ↑ Clemens Jochem: Your murderer - I am innocent! On the fate of the journalist Karl Raimund Hofmeier in Japan . In: OAG Notes . No. 04, April 1, 2020, ISSN  1343-408X , pp. 8-36.
personal data
SURNAME Wenneker, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German admiral in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH February 27, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiel
DATE OF DEATH 17th October 1979
Place of death Hamburg-Bergstedt