Wilhelm Matthies (officer)

Wilhelm Matthies (born September 27, 1896 in Havelberg ; † July 7, 1980 in Leverkusen ) was a rear admiral in the Navy and later a department head at Bayer AG .

Life

Matthies joined the Imperial Navy on April 1, 1914 as a midshipman . After the outbreak of the First World War he came aboard the large cruiser SMS Moltke for a short time and was transferred to the Marine Corps Flanders in September 1914 . Here Matthies served as platoon leader in the 1st sailor regiment. Further courses followed in 1916 and on July 13, 1916 he was promoted to lieutenant at sea . As such, Matthies was on board the large liner SMS Oldenburg from October to September 1917 . He then completed training at the submarine school until February 1918 and then came to the II. Submarine Flotilla Flanders . Here Matthies was on duty as a watch officer on UC 71 and UB 148 . His achievements were recognized by the award of both classes of the Iron Cross and the Friedrich-August-Kreuz II class.

After the end of the war he remained active and was accepted into the Reichsmarine . He had commands on board and specialized in anti-aircraft artillery . From September 1935 to September 1936 he was the commander of the artillery training ship Bremse as corvette captain . At the beginning of the Second World War , Matthies became the commander of the Marine Flak Regiment and at the same time commander of the 5th Replacement Marine Artillery Division. He was later u. a. Coast Commander for the Western Baltic Sea . As rear admiral, Matthies was active from July 10, 1944 in the general naval main office at the high command of the navy . Here he worked until the end of the war as head of office and head of the military leadership staff. With the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht , Matthies found himself in Allied captivity from May 8, 1945 , from which he was released at the end of March 1947.

After his dismissal, Matthies joined the Farbenwerke Bayer AG and in 1951 became a department head in Leverkusen, where he lived until his death.

literature

• Dermot Bradley (eds.), Hans H. Hildebrand, Ernest Henriot: Germany's Admirals 1849-1945. The military careers of naval, engineering, medical, weapons and administrative officers with admiral rank. Volume 2: HO. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1989, ISBN 3-7648-1499-3 , pp. 450–451.
• Wilhelm Schröder. Obituary. In: MOH-Mitteilungen / MOV-Nachrichten 9-1980. P. 63

Individual evidence

1. ^ Reichswehr Ministry (ed.): Ranking list of the German Reichsmarine. ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1929, p. 46.
2. ↑ Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: Die deutscher Kriegsschiffe Volume 1. 2., revised edition, Herford 1983, ISBN 3-7822-0284-8 , p. 168.