Company Hannibal
The Hannibal company was a military operation by the Kriegsmarine towards the end of the Second World War .
With the keyword "Hannibal", Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg gave the instruction on January 23, 1945, due to the advance of the Red Army, the relocation of the 2nd submarine training division stationed in Gotenhafen (today's Gdynia ) and the 22nd U-Flotilla prepare from the contested area to the west. The navy were to be brought west on board the Wilhelm Gustloff . In addition, several thousand refugees were taken on board.
The action is therefore considered to be the beginning of the transport of wounded and refugees by the Navy in the first half of 1945.
literature
- War diary of the Naval War Command, part A, vol. 65, p. 418 (report on the issuing of orders for the Hannibal company).
- Heinz Schön : Ostsee '45 , 5th edition Motorbuch, Stuttgart 1995. ISBN 978-3-87943-856-3 , p. 84 ff. (Three-page chapter, without references).
- Martin Schmidtke: Baltic Sea rescue operation 1944/1945 . Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 2005. ISBN 978-3763762637 .
- Karl-Friedrich Merten : According to compass (memoirs). Ullstein 2006. ISBN 978-3-548-26402-8 .
- Howard D. Grier: Hitler, Doenitz and the Baltic Sea. The Third Reich's last hope 1944–1945 . US Naval Institute Press 2013. ISBN 978-1-59114-345-1 .
Web links
- Heinrich Schwendemann: Inferno and Liberation. “Sends ships!” In: Die Zeit . January 13, 2005 (assessment of the evacuations by the historian Heinrich Schwendemann)
Footnotes
- ↑ Military History Research Office . Ed. The German Reich and the Second World War. Vol. 10: The collapse of the German Empire in 1945. Half-vol. 1: The military overthrow of the Wehrmacht , Deutsche Verlagsanstalt Munich, 2008, page 269 (footnote).
- ↑ In 1945 Merten was chief of the 24th U-Flotilla. She was one of the units that were relocated in January 1945.