Reinhard Hardegen

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Reinhard Hardegen on his 103rd birthday

Reinhard Hardegen (born March 18, 1913 in Bremen ; † June 9, 2018 in Bremen - Horn-Lehe ) was a German naval officer , businessman and politician . In World War II he was one of the most successful and best known German submarine - commander . After that he was one of the founders of the Bremen CDU . From 1959 to 1979 he was a member of the Bremen citizenship .

Life

Early years

Hardegen joined the Reichsmarine on April 1, 1933 with Crew 33 . From February 1, 1935 to September 30, 1936, he was trained as a naval pilot in Warnemünde and Parow . In 1936 he was promoted to lieutenant at sea and in 1939 to first lieutenant at sea . From a plane crash in 1936 he was left with a shortened leg and a tendency to stomach bleeding .

Submarine commander

Promotions

1 patrol with U 147

  • December 11, 1940 to April 4, 1941
    (1 ship with 4,811 GRT sunk)

10 patrols with U 123

  • June 8, 1941 to June 12, 1941
  • June 15, 1941 to August 23, 1941
    (5 ships with 21,507 GRT sunk)
  • October 14, 1941 to November 22, 1941
    (1 ship with 13,984 GRT sunk)
  • December 23, 1941 to February 9, 1942
    (8 ships with 49,421 GRT sunk)
  • March 2, 1942 to May 2, 1942
    (8 ships with 39,917 GRT sunk)
  • May 16, 1942 to May 24, 1942
  • May 25, 1942 to May 26, 1942
  • May 26, 1942 to May 27, 1942
  • May 28, 1942 to May 29, 1942
  • June 3, 1942 to June 5, 1942

Transferred to the U-Bootwaffe in November 1939, he drove from August 19, 1940 to December 1, 1940 as a commander student and first watch officer on U 124 under Georg-Wilhelm Schulz . From December 1940 to April 1941 he was in command of the “Einbaum” U 147 and from April 1941 to July 1942 of U 123 as a lieutenant commander .

During eight patrols he sank 22 ships with a total of 118,314 GRT and damaged five ships with 46,500 GRT. At the Paukenschlag company in early 1942, he sank eight merchant navy ships with U 123; a total of 220 sailors lost their lives. Dönitz radioed: “To the timpanist Hardegen. Bravo! Well crammed. Dönitz. ”On January 23, 1942, he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . On the second America voyage from March to May 1942, he sank eight ships again, killing 253 people. For this he was awarded the oak leaves for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (89th award) on April 23, 1942. Hardegen was named in the Wehrmacht report on January 24, 1942 and April 14, 1942.

According to the lending guidelines, the knight's cross should actually only be awarded for a sinking of more than 100,000 GRT of ship space, the oak leaves for more than 200,000 sunk BRT, a requirement that Hardegen clearly did not meet. However, the award corresponded to the naval practice of the time, the aim of which was to present more successful submarine commanders to the public. He was also the bearer of the submarine war badge with diamonds.

Training activity

Doenitz knew about Hardegen's injuries sustained in the plane crash in 1936 and their consequences while on board duty. Therefore, at the end of July 1942, he transferred him as a trainer to the 27th U-Flotilla under Erich Topp in Gotenhafen . In March 1943 he became head of the submarine department of the torpedo school in Flensburg - Mürwik (see Sonwik ). In 1944 he was promoted to corvette captain and sent to the torpedo weapons office. In February 1945 he became commander of the 1st Battalion of the newly established Marine Grenadier Regiment 6. The unit took part in fierce fighting against British troops in the area around Bremen. Most of the unit's officers died in these battles. Hardegen later stated that his survival was due to being hospitalized with a severe case of diphtheria . In the last days of the war Hardegen was deployed in Flensburg on the Dönitz staff. At the end of the war he was taken prisoner by the British .

post war period

Released from captivity in November 1946, he set up an oil trading company in Bremen. He was one of the founders of the Bremen CDU . He said of the reasons for this commitment:

"We were of the opinion that there are too many social partners in Bremen and we wanted to change that."

- Reinhard Hardegen

He joined the CDU and was from 1959 to 1979 a member of the Bremen citizenship and temporarily deputy parliamentary group chairman (1962/63) of the CDU parliamentary group and secretary (1967–1971) of the citizenship.

Late trips

After retiring from politics at the age of 70, he traveled to more than 100 countries. He circled Australia , got to the North Pole in a Russian icebreaker and to the South Pole with a sled and conquered the Northwest Passage .

Until his death he was the oldest surviving submarine commander in the Navy . He was also the last living knight's cross in the Navy.

Fonts

  • On battle stations! Submarines in action against England and America. Boreas Verlag, Leipzig 1943.

literature

  • Jens Grützner: Attack! Ran! Sink! . In: SCHIFF Classic, magazine for shipping and marine history eV of the DGSM, yearbook 2019, pp. 94–97, ISBN 978-3-86245-762-5 .
  • Reinhard Müller: Reinhard Hardegen. The last politician with a knight's cross. In: FAZ.net. accessed December 20, 2017
  • Michael Ganno: Operation Drumbeat. HarperPerennial, 1991, ISBN 0-06-092088-2 .

Web links

Commons : Reinhard Hardegen  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bremen citizenship: Bremen citizenship: citizenship mourns Reinhard Hardegen. Accessed June 14, 2018 (German).
  2. ↑ a b Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The knight's cross bearers of the submarine weapon from 1939 to May 1945. Volume 5 from Der U-Boot-Krieg 1939–1945. Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn 2003, ISBN 3-8132-0515-0 , pp. 188-192.
  3. ↑ a b Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 1939–1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 366.
  4. ↑ a b c Jan Heitmann: Reinhard Hardegen . Preussische Allgemeine Zeitung , No. 13, March 30, 2013, p. 10
  5. ↑ The High Command of the Wehrmacht announces ... The German Wehrmacht report. Volume 2: 1942-1943. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1982, ISBN 3-7648-1282-6 , pp. 18, 86.
  6. ↑ Manfred Dörr (arrangement): The knight's cross bearers of the submarine weapon. (= The knight's cross bearers of the German Wehrmacht 1939–1945; IV). Osnabrück 1989, vol. 1, p. XV.
  7. ↑ Bodo Herzog: Knight's Cross and submarine weapon. Notes on rental practice. In: German Shipping Archive. 10: 245-260 (1987); Ders .: Provocative findings on the German submarine weapon. In: Historical communications from the Ranke Society. 11 (1998), pp. 101–124, especially pp. 105f: “The criteria for this (100,000 GRT reduction result) were constantly undermined. Of 122 commanders awarded this medal (there were nine exceptions) only 31 achieved this high standard (there were even officers decorated with the Knight's Cross without scoring results) ”.
  8. ↑ René Schilling: "War Heroes". Patterns of interpretation of heroic masculinity in Germany 1813–1945 (= War in History; Vol. 15) , Paderborn 2002, p. 368, note 199
  9. ↑ Michael Ganno: Operation Drumbeat. HarperPerennial, 1991
  10. ↑ Reinhard Müller: Reinhard Hardegen: The last politician with a knight's cross . In: FAZ.NET . March 18, 2016, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed December 20, 2017]).
personal data
SURNAME Hardegen, Reinhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer, businessman and politician (CDU), Member of the Bundestag
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 2018
Place of death Bremen