Reimar von Bonin

Reimar von Bonin (born October 3, 1890 in Steglitz , † May 18, 1976 in Bad Liebenzell ) was a German rear admiral and naval attaché .

Life

origin

Reimar was the son of the Prussian general of the infantry Henning von Bonin (1856-1923) and his wife Anna, née Löbbecke (* 1870).

Military career

Bonin joined the Imperial Navy on April 1, 1908 as a midshipman and completed his basic and sea training on the great cruiser Hertha . After attending the naval school , he came on board the liner Braunschweig at the beginning of October 1910 and was promoted to lieutenant at sea at the end of September 1911 . From August 1912 to September 1913, Bonin served as 2nd torpedo officer on the Kaiser ship of the line . This was followed by a use as a company and watch officer in the II. Torpedo Division in Wilhelmshaven and the VI. Torpedo boat flotilla. After the beginning of the First World War , Bonin rose to first lieutenant in mid-September 1914 and in July / August 1916 was the flag lieutenant of the Second Reconnaissance Group of the High Seas Fleet . In April 1917 Bonin was at the VI. Torpedo boat flotilla Commander of the torpedo boat S 44 . In the further course of the war he took over the torpedo boat S 131 , became lieutenant captain at the end of April 1918 and worked as chief of the XI. Semi-flotilla. In this capacity, he led his boat after the war, according to the armistice terms to Scapa Flow and was located after the scuttling of the fleet from 21 June 1919 in British captivity.

After his release and return to Germany, Bonin was initially at the disposal of the chief of the Baltic Sea naval station . He was taken over into the Reichsmarine and was a company commander in the Mining Tribe Department from late May to early September 1920. He was then transferred to the Mürwik Naval School as an inspection officer. From April 2, 1922 to September 14, 1924 Bonin served as an admiral staff officer on the staff of the North Sea Naval Station . This was followed by a year of employment as a navigational officer on the small cruiser Amazone . On September 25, 1925 he was appointed chief of the 3rd torpedo boat semi-flotilla in Wilhelmshaven and in this capacity he was promoted to corvette captain on April 1, 1927 . On October 4, 1927, Bonin moved to the Reichswehr Ministry in Berlin as a press officer . From there, on March 15, 1929, he was transferred to the naval command office (A) of the naval command as an organizational officer in the fleet department (A II) . In this position he was promoted to frigate captain on October 1, 1932 and after the renaming of his area in the naval organization department was appointed head of department. After being promoted to captain of the sea , Bonin was transferred to Kiel on September 29, 1934, as chief of staff for the inspection of the naval education system. At the same time, in July 1936, he was briefly assigned to represent the inspector, Vice Admiral Alfred Saalwächter .

In June 1937 he was assigned to the High Command of the Navy for information and on July 1, 1937 Bonin took up his new position as a naval attaché at the German embassy in Helsinki . At the same time he was temporarily responsible for the Baltic states of Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania in this function until they were occupied in World War II . During this time, Bonin maintained very close contacts with the Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Armed Forces Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1867–1951) because of the necessary exchange of information during the Finnish Winter War of 1939/40 and from the end of 1941 during the siege of Leningrad . On January 1, 1941 Bonin received the patent as Rear Admiral . When the friendly relations between Finland and the German Reich ended, Bonin was dismissed from his post on September 13, 1944.

When Bonin returned to Germany in autumn 1944, he became commander of the Eutin military district command . In the same capacity he worked from February 1 to April 4, 1945 at the military district command Vienna III and then as inspector of the naval training departments in St. Wolfgang in the Salzkammergut . At the end of the war he was taken prisoner of war, from which he was released on March 31, 1947.

Author and translator

From the mid-1950s, Reiner von Bonin worked with Günther Verlag in Stuttgart. Here he published the novel by Edward L. Beach Deadly Depths in 1956 as a translator . At that time he was already working on a publication with several other former naval officers Wier, Kohtz, Okler and Ruprecht. This was published in 1958 under the title Chronicle of the 1908 Naval Officer Class , to which Bonin also belonged. In the same year another translation appeared, this time by the writer Ferdinand Lallemand of the novel Das Logbuch des Markos Sestig . Further translations then appeared from 1960 to 1964. In 1956 he was involved as editor in founding the papers for German and international politics .

Fonts

• as translator
  • Edward L. Beach: Deadly Depths. Günther Verlag, Stuttgart 1956.
  • Ferdinand Lallemand: The logbook of Markos Sestig. Günther Verlag, Stuttgart 1958.
  • Hammond Innes : The blue ice. Günther Verlag, Stuttgart 1960.
  • Edward L. Beach: Underwater around the globe. Günther Verlag, Stuttgart 1964.
  • Eric Ambler : Uninvited guests. Günther Verlag, Stuttgart 1964.
• as a co-author
  • Chronicle of the 1908 naval officer class. Documentation, published on the 50th anniversary in 1958.

literature

• Dermot Bradley (eds.), Hans H. Hildebrand, Ernest Henriot: Germany's Admirals 1849-1945. The military careers of naval, engineering, medical, weapons and administrative officers with admiral rank. Volume 1: A-G. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1988, ISBN 3-7648-1499-3 , pp. 140-141.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gothaisches Genealogisches Taschenbuch der Nobeligen houses. The nobility born in Germany (primeval nobility). 1905. Sixth year, Justus Perthes, Gotha 1904, p. 119.
2. ^ Manfred Kehring: The re-establishment of the German military attaché service after the First World War (1919–1933). Harald Boldt Verlag, Boppard am Rhein 1966, p. 222 ff.