Theodor Burchardi

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Vice Admiral Theodor Burchardi, 1944

Theodor Burchardi (born May 14, 1892 in Homberg (Efze) , † August 12, 1983 in Glücksburg ) was a German naval officer , most recently an admiral in World War II .

Life

Burchardi joined the Imperial Navy on April 1, 1911 as a midshipman and completed his ship training on the large cruiser SMS Hansa . During the subsequent visit to the naval school, he was appointed ensign at sea on April 15, 1912 and came on October 1, 1913 on the great cruiser Seydlitz .

Here he was promoted to lieutenant at sea shortly after the outbreak of the First World War on August 3, 1914 . From January 3, 1915, he was used on the great cruiser Moltke and briefly commanded an artillery course on Empress Augusta from May 6 to June 15, 1915 . Subsequently, he was transferred to the 1st torpedo boat semi-flotilla and used as an officer on watch . After his promotion to first lieutenant at sea on April 26, 1917, Burchardi took over his first command of the torpedo boat G 39 , which he would hold until the end of 1918.

After the end of the war, Burchardi was accepted into the Reichsmarine and assigned to the naval forces of the Baltic Sea. On August 23, 1920, he took over the M 2 minesweeper . Next, on September 27, 1921, Burchardi was appointed company commander in the VI. Naval artillery department in Emden and promoted him on February 1, 1922 to lieutenant captain . For two years from 23 September 1924 , Burchardi was again given command of the ship with the torpedo boat G 11 . After a year as an adjutant to the inspector of the naval artillery, Burchardi came on October 3, 1927 as an artillery officer on the small cruiser Amazone and in the same function on the small cruiser Nymphe from January 3 to March 14, 1929 . From there, on April 17, 1929, Burchardi was transferred as an artillery officer to the light cruiser Königsberg , which had just been commissioned , and promoted to Corvette Captain on January 1, 1930 . At the end of September 1931 he was transferred to the 5th Marine Artillery Department in Pillau , where he also acted repeatedly as the commander of the Pillau Command. Subsequently, Burchardi took over from October 1, 1934 for two years the 2nd ship master department of the Baltic Sea in Stralsund and became a frigate captain on April 1, 1935 . Then he was given the management of the marine artillery department in Kiel for a year .

After his promotion to captain at sea on January 1, 1937, he was given command of the light cruiser Cologne on October 15, and was with this u. a. Involved in securing the Spanish Mediterranean coast during the Spanish Civil War .

At the beginning of the Second World War, the ship was used in the Baltic Sea . Burchardi gave up command on January 14, 1940 and was appointed Chief of Staff at the Kiel Navy Shipyard. On January 1, 1941, he was promoted to Rear Admiral and was subsequently appointed to Naval Commander D on May 19, and when this agency was renamed on November 6, 1941 to Naval Commander and Admiral Ostland . On February 1, 1943, he was promoted to Vice Admiral.

On June 17, 1944, Burchardi was appointed Commanding Admiral Eastern Baltic and promoted to Admiral on January 1, 1945. In this function he led the Aster company to evacuate German troops from the advancing Red Army. In the last months of the war, Burchardi succeeded in organizing the repatriation of German troops and the evacuation of refugees across the Baltic Sea from the advancing Red Army with the naval units in his area of ​​responsibility .

Burchardi was taken prisoner by the British on April 18, 1945 , from which he was released on February 24, 1946.

reception

The right-wing National-Zeitung portrayed Burchardi in May 2000 in its series "Great German Soldiers - Immortal Heroes". Burchardi is counted among the “most irreproachable and deserving German soldiers” who contributed to the fact that “more than two million people [...] could be withdrawn from Stalin's grasp”. In the series, only soldiers loyal to the Nazi regime were honored, sometimes using the linguistic formulas of the Wehrmacht and Nazi propaganda . The political scientist Fabian Virchow classifies the series in “the imagination of the extreme right of the men who are oriented towards the deed and who shape the course of events / history in the interest of the 'national' or ' folkish ' collective”. The characterizations referred “at the same time to a conceptualization of masculinity , the profile of which - very unified - would be marked by characteristics such as 'hardness', 'willingness to sacrifice', 'courage to death', 'bravery', 'tenacity', 'cutting' or 'standing qualities' ".

Awards

literature

  • Hans H. Hildebrand and Ernest Henriot: Germany's Admirals 1849-1945 Volume 1: AG , Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1988, ISBN 3-7648-1499-3

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ National-Zeitung 21/2000 (May 19, 2000), p. 11. Quoted in: Fabian Virchow: Against civilism. International relations and the military in the political conceptions of the extreme right. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 978-3-531-15007-9 , p. 396.
  2. ↑ Virchow, civilism . P. 347.
  3. ↑ Virchow, civilism . P. 394.
  4. ↑ 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. 254.
personal data
SURNAME Burchardi, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer and admiral in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH May 14, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Homberg (Efze)
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1983
Place of death Glücksburg (Baltic Sea)