Walter Lohmann (naval officer)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Lohmann (born December 30, 1878 in Bremen , † April 29, 1930 in Rome ) was a German sea ​​captain of the Reichsmarine , after whom the affair of the same name is named, which led to the resignation of Reichswehr Minister Otto Geßler and the dismissal of the head of the Reichsmarine Hans Zenker led.

Life

Walter Lohmann was the younger son of the director of the North German Lloyd Johann Georg Lohmann (1830-1892) and his wife, the English Clarissa, née Frost (1838-1920). After attending school, he joined the Imperial Navy on April 7, 1897 as a midshipman and, after completing his officer training, was twice on missions abroad in the Far East . So from 1903 on the gunboat Tiger and from 1910 as a company commander in the German colony of Tsingtau . When the First World War broke out , he was an artillery officer as Korvettenkapitän I. on board the large-scale ship Prinzregent Luitpold . In March 1918 he was transferred to the Reichsmarineamt , where he worked in the maritime transport department from December 1918 after the end of the war .

As a representative of the maritime transport department in the general naval office, Lohmann took part in the maritime armistice negotiations in 1919 and was appointed head of the maritime transport department (BS) on October 28. From the chief of the naval command, Admiral Paul Behncke , he received a clear advancement of his person and the field of work.

Lohmann's endeavor consisted in providing his office with numerous, single decision-making powers. Lohmann was promoted to frigate captain on March 8, 1920 . During the events of the Kapp Putsch in 1920 he was on a business trip in London and was not compromised. He was promoted to sea captain on January 1, 1922. On his initiative, a design office was opened in the spring of 1922, which should specialize in the construction of submarines . In a few years his international activities extended to numerous countries, including Argentina, Denmark, England, Finland, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the Soviet Union, Spain and Turkey.

He worked very closely with the Chief of Staff of the Naval Command, Corvette Captain Wilhelm Canaris . At the beginning of 1927 the first information emerged that the maritime transport department was in significant financial distress. However, with the publication of several articles in the Berliner Tageblatt from August 8, 1927, it became clear to the public that black cash registers existed in his area of ​​work, bribes were paid and secret armaments contracts were being carried out. As a result, on August 13, 1927, the President of the Reich Audit Office, Friedrich Saemisch , was commissioned to carry out relevant investigations. As a result of random checks, Lohmann was removed from his post on March 23, 1927. His previous deputy Rudolf Lahs was his successor as head of department .

On March 31, 1928, Lohmann resigned from the Navy. For the violations committed in his area of ​​responsibility, he was not held criminally responsible, but only retired with reduced pensions.

During a business trip to Italy, Walter Lohmann died on April 29, 1930 in Rome at the age of 52 of a heart attack.

literature

  • Lutz Budraß : Aircraft Industry and Air Armament in Germany 1918–1945 (= publications of the Federal Archives. Vol. 50). Droste, Düsseldorf 1998, ISBN 3-7700-1604-1 (partly at the same time: Bochum, University, dissertation, 1995)
  • Werner Rahn : Reichsmarine and national defense 1919–1928. Bernhard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwesen, Munich, 1976
  • Bernd Remmele: The Lohmann Affair. Secret armaments measures of the Reichsmarine in the twenties. MA from the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg im Breisgau
  • Bernd Remmele: The secret maritime armor under Captain Lohmann. Freiburg University of Education, 1997
  • Ernst Schneller: The Phöbus Scandal. Corruption and secret armor. Internationaler Arbeiter Verlag, Berlin 1928.
  • Kurt Stöckel: The development of the Reichsmarine after the First World War (1919–1935) - external structure and internal structure . Dissertation at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 1954

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marine Officer Association (ed.), Albert Stoelzel : Honor ranking of the Imperial German Navy. 1914-18. Thormann & Goetsch, Berlin 1930, p. 166.
  2. ↑ Ernst Schneller: The Phöbus Scandal. Corruption and secret armor. Internationaler Arbeiter Verlag, Berlin 1928.
  3. ↑ Bernd Remmele: The secret maritime armor under Captain Lohmann. Freiburg University of Education, 1997, p. 12ff.
  4. ↑ Captain Lohmann died. In: Vorwärts from May 2, 1930
personal data
SURNAME Lohmann, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sea captain
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH April 29, 1930
Place of death Rome