Naval War Command

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The naval staff ( SKL ) was in the First and in the Second World War, one of the highest Authorities of the German navy . She led the planning and implementation of naval warfare and directed the deployment (= distribution) of the naval forces.

Imperial Navy

During the First World War, the naval war command was only founded on August 27, 1918 as a command department of the Admiral's staff at the suggestion of the former fleet chief and new admiral chief of staff, Admiral Reinhard Scheer . For naval warfare in charge until then (apart from Kaiser Wilhelm II. ) Of the Naval Staff (until 1916 under significant influence of the Reichsmarineamt with Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz at the top and his ideas) and also the commander at the individual theaters of war, so the head of the Ocean Fleet , the Commanding Admiral of the Marine Corps Flanders , the Commander-in-Chief of the Baltic Sea Forces and the commanders of the Mediterranean Division and the East Asia Squadron .

The resulting confusion of competencies weakened the influence of the navy on the conduct of the war, including against the Supreme Army Command . On Ludendorff as the resumption of unrestricted went submarine war back what favored the entry of the United States into the war. In nominal terms, the Naval War Command was supposed to be the counterpart to the Supreme Army Command; according to the law, their joint commander-in-chief was the emperor, but the OHL continued to make decisions independently, and towards the end of the war it even assumed governmental power. The naval war command was dissolved on November 14, 1918 three days after the general armistice was concluded. The admiral's staff took over their duties immediately.

Chief of Naval War Command (also Chief of Admiralty Staff)
  • Admiral Reinhard Scheer - August 28, 1918 to November 14, 1918

Navy

During the Second World War, the naval war command was subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy ; it acted, so to speak, in place of the Admiral's Staff of the Imperial Navy .

At the end of the 1930s, the head of the naval command office, a department of the OKM , was given the additional designation “zugl. Chief of Staff of the Naval War Command ”; thus the word "Seekriegsleitung" appeared officially in the Kriegsmarine for the first time. In July 1939 the personal union was canceled, the naval command office was subordinated to the chief of staff of the naval command. In December 1939 there was a visible restructuring; the naval war command from now on numbered its departments with Arabic numerals , the naval command office - it received the designation “ Quartiermeisteramt ” in the course of the war - with Roman numerals.

The operational responsibility of the naval war command in the Second World War was limited to sea areas outside of Germany, where neither the fleet chief nor the naval group commands were in command. B. when using auxiliary cruisers , blockade breakers , supply ships . The submarine war was also subject to another authority, the commander of the submarines (BdU). Only the staff department of the BdU was formally assigned to the naval command department (2 / Skl BdU op.) From February 1943, after Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz had taken over the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Navy . The "original" tasks of the naval war command were coordination of the naval forces (1 / Skl), naval intelligence service MND (4 / Skl) with the four departments Central Department (MND I), Dept. Communication (MND II), Dept. Radio Reconnaissance (MND III) and Dept. naval wire messages (MND IV), as well as the message evaluation (3 / Skl), weather observation and situation information for the OKM and its individual commanders.

Chief of Staff of the Naval War Command
  • Rear Admiral / Vice Admiral Günther Guse - October 1, 1937 to October 31, 1938
  • Admiral Otto Schniewind - November 1, 1938 to June 10, 1941
  • Vice Admiral / Admiral Kurt Fricke - June 11, 1941 to February 20, 1943
  • Admiral Wilhelm Meisel - February 21, 1943 to May 22, 1945
structure
  • Operations department (1 / Skl)
  • Naval Intelligence Department (2 / Skl): 1940/1941
  • Submarine Command Department (2 / Skl) BdU op: from 1943
  • Office Group Marine Intelligence Service (2 / Skl Chief MND); from March 1943 as 4 / Skl chief MND
  • Naval Intelligence Service (3 / Skl) : from 1937 to 1939
  • Location Service Department (5 / Skl): from 1944
  • Official submarine group (Skl U): from 1939 to 1943
  • Official Nautical Group (Skl H): from 1944 as 6 / Skl
  • War Studies Department of the Navy or War History Department of the Navy (Skl KA or Skl MKrGesch)
  • General section on special weapons (Skl S): from 1944
  • Staff of the High Command of the Navy (Naval Staff): from 1944
  • Naval Command Office - Quartermaster Office (Skl / Qu A)
  • Fleet Department (AV): 1938/1939
  • Training and staff department (Sk1 / Qu AV): from 1944 to 1945
  • Shipping Department (Skl / Qu A VI)
  • Submarine Command Department (Skl / Qu AU): 1943/1944
  • Office Group Nautics (AH)

literature

  • Walther Hubatsch: The admiralty staff and the highest naval authorities in Germany, 1848-1945 . Frankfurt a. M .: Bernard & Graefe, 1958.
  • Gerhard Granier: The German naval command in the First World War. Documentation (= materials from the Federal Archives. H. 9). 4 volumes. Koblenz, Federal Archives 1999-2004.
  • Michael Salewski: The German Naval Warfare 1935-1945. 3 volumes. Bernard & Graefe, Munich et al. 1970–1975.

swell

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ wlb-stuttgart.de , accessed on July 9, 2019.
  2. ↑ German Navy Naval Warfare Office groups and departments. ( Memento of the original from February 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 15, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.deutschekriegsmarine.de