Theodor Krancke (Admiral)

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Theodor Krancke (* 20th March 1893 in Magdeburg , † 18th June 1973 in Wentorf in Hamburg ) was a German admiral in World War II , where he held a Navy Commander Western command of the German naval forces in Normandy held when the Allies landed there as part of Operation Overlord in June 1944.

Life

Krancke occurred on April 1, 1912, the Department 12 in the Imperial Navy and served in World War I on the torpedo boats V 26 , V 27 and V 80 as a deck officer . After he was promoted to first lieutenant in the sea in December 1917 , he was accepted into the Reichsmarine with this rank after the war .

In April 1937, after several interim promotions, he was appointed captain at sea , whereupon he became head of the Naval Academy in October of the same year, which he remained until August 1939. From October 1939, Krancke served as the commander of the armored ship Admiral Scheer . When the Admiral Scheer was relocated to the shipyard for major renovations, he was assigned to the special staff Weser Exercise of the High Command of the Navy in the spring of 1940 and participated in the preparation of the plans for the German invasion of Norway ; from April to June 1940 he was Chief of Staff of the Commanding Admiral of Norway. Then Krancke continued his command of the Admiral Scheer , which had since been converted and reclassified as a heavy cruiser. In 1940/41 he went by ship on a 155-day, risky operation in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans , during which Admiral Scheer sank more than 117,000 GRT of enemy shipping space and finally returned home safe and sound. In view of the British superiority, this undertaking represents an extraordinary military and logistical achievement, which , however, surpasses the sunk tonnage of the Emden in the First World War (101,182 GRT) and in particular that of the better-known Admiral Graf Spee (50,081 GRT) at the beginning of the Second World War but little is known - precisely because Krancke brought his ship home safely.

Theodor Krancke on the left

On his return he was promoted to Rear Admiral on April 1, 1941 and was chief of the Quartermaster's Office of the Naval War Command of the Navy High Command until January 1942. From January 1942 to March 1943 he was the representative of the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy at the Führer Headquarters . On April 1, 1942, he was promoted to Vice Admiral.

On March 1, 1943, Krancke was admiral and a month later Commander in Chief of the Marine Group Command West , based in Paris . Krancke went on an inspection trip to Bordeaux on June 5, 1944 , but reported to Mayor West beforehand that “the outpost boats cannot leave their bases [in Normandy] because of the rough seas ”, which is why the Germans made their other reconnaissance trips on 5 June and the night of June 6th did not take place. Krancke later also reported: "[...] according to the available weather reports [...] an invasion in the night of June 5th to 6th hardly seemed possible". However, on June 6, 1944 - despite the bad weather conditions - the Allied invasion of Normandy, Operation Neptune , which was secured by a large number of ships. The German navy and Krancke had hardly anything to counter this armada.

On the night of June 8th to 9th, Krancke ordered four destroyers , the last larger German ships lying in France, to advance into the invasion area from Brest (→ naval warfare during Operation Overlord ). However, the Allied intelligence service Ultra found out about it and dispatched the Royal Navy's 10th destroyer flotilla to attack the German unit. To the north-west of the Isle de Bas , at around 1:30 a.m., a battle broke out between the German and the Allied destroyer flotilla, which consisted of four British, two Canadian and two Polish destroyers. After four hours of fighting, the Allies sank a German destroyer and damaged another so badly that it had to be set aground. The two remaining destroyers returned to Brest, also badly damaged. The last larger German warships that could oppose the Allies were thus lost.

Krancke opposed the supporters of the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 in Paris in his function as Commander-in-Chief of the Marine Group Command West.

On April 26, 1945 Krancke succeeded Admiral Otto Ciliax as Commander in Chief of the Navy in Norway . Already on May 9, 1945, the general of the mountain troops and commander in chief of the armed forces in Norway , Franz Böhme , surrendered and 375,000 soldiers were taken prisoner of war . Krancke remained commander in chief of the German naval forces in Norway for a few more months to oversee the demining of German sea mine fields and the demilitarization of German naval facilities.

From August 26, 1945 to October 3, 1947, Krancke was an Allied prisoner of war. In 1955 he published the book The Happy Ship together with Jochen Brennecke . Admiral Scheer's cruises over his former ship. The book was also published in the UK in 1956 as The Battleship Scheer and two years later in the US as Pocket Battleship: The Story of the Admiral Scheer .

Awards and Promotions

Promotions
  • 1st April 1912 midshipman
  • April 12, 1913 Ensign at sea
  • March 22, 1915 Lieutenant at sea
  • December 25, 1917 First Lieutenant at Sea
  • September 1, 1922 Lieutenant Commander
  • 1st October 1930 Corvette Captain
  • November 1, 1935 frigate captain
  • April 1, 1937 sea captain
  • April 1, 1941 Rear Admiral
  • Vice Admiral April 1, 1942
  • March 1, 1943 Admiral

Fonts

literature

  • Mark M. Boatner III: The Biographical Dictionary of World War II. Presidio Press, Novato, 1996, ISBN 0-89141-624-2 .
  • Janusz Piekalkiewicz: Invasion. France 1944. Munich 1979.
  • Barrett Tillman: Brassey's D-Day Encyclopedia: The Normandy Invasion - A to Z. Potomac Books Inc., 2004, Virginia, ISBN 1-57488-761-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Janusz Piekalkiewicz: Invasion. France 1944. Munich 1979, p. 121 ff.
  2. ^ Dieter Hartwig: Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz. Legend and reality. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-77027-1 , p. 313.
  3. ↑ Manfred Dörr: The knight's cross bearers of the surface forces of the navy. Volume 1: AK. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1995, ISBN 3-7648-2453-0 , p. 358.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Manfred Dörr: The knight's cross bearers of the surface forces of the Kriegsmarine , Volume 1: AK, Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1995, ISBN 3-7648-2453-0 , pp. 355-358
personal data
SURNAME Krancke, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German admiral in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH June 18, 1973
Place of death Wentorf near Hamburg