Wolfgang Wegener

This article deals with the naval officer Wolfgang Wegener. For other people see Wolfgang Wegner .

Vice Admiral Wolfgang Wegener, ca.1925

Wolfgang Wegener (born September 16, 1875 in Stettin ; † October 29, 1956 in Berlin-Zehlendorf ) was a German naval officer , most recently vice admiral and maritime strategic thinker.

Life

family

His parents were the medical officer Dr. med. Eduard Wegener (born August 5, 1837 in Luckow ; † February 20, 1909 in Stettin) and his wife Martha, née Zitelmann (born May 13, 1847 in Jasenitz ; † April 13, 1923 in Wilhelmshaven ).

Wegener was a Protestant and married Therese, née von Gierke , in Berlin on June 22, 1901. The marriage resulted in three sons and a daughter. His son Edward was later a Rear Admiral in the German Navy .

Military career

After graduating from the humanistic König-Wilhelms-Gymnasium, he joined the Imperial Navy as a cadet on April 16, 1894 under the influence of an uncle by marriage, the later Grand Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff . 1897–1899, most recently as a lieutenant at sea , he sailed on the Great Cruiser Germany ; he took part in a trip to East Asia. He found further uses in the then decisive weapon of the naval war, the artillery, as 1st artillery officer on the great cruiser Blücher (1909/10), then in 1912/17, finally as a frigate captain (since 1917), as 1st admiral staff officer of the I. Squadron. In 1917/18 Wegener was in command of the small cruiser Regensburg . On July 19, 1918, he was given command of the Nuremberg , which he transferred to internment at Scapa Flow after the armistice .

As of 21 January 1920 for sea captain and 1923 to Rear Admiral promoted, he was in the Navy from 1920 until the adoption by awarding the character as a Vice Admiral in 1926 Inspector of Marine artillery in Wilhelmshaven. Here Wegener laid the foundations for the firing methods and technical innovations practiced in World War II .

Meaning and work

His abilities as a naval officer were recognized early and led to uses that were considered distinctive. His real talent, however, lay in the field of journalism. He wrote numerous internal memoranda and articles early on, initially on tactical and operational issues , and since 1907 also on strategic issues. Under the formative influence of the first months of the First World War, with the expected but non-existent naval battle against England, Wegener gained the fundamental insight that the peculiarity of naval war requires a departure from traditional concepts of land war.

As the actual author of an internal memorandum of the 1st Squadron of the High Seas Fleet , which was covered by his superior Wilhelm von Lans and published under his name, Wegener had published a letter in 1915 which criticized the pre-war fleet armament and strategy as well as naval warfare. The letter called on those responsible (i.e. Tirpitz ) to see the North Sea as a peripheral scene and instead to recognize the focus on the Baltic Sea as a strategic hinterland and feed route for Swedish iron ore. This memorandum circulated within the Navy and was indirectly directed against Tirpitz as the main German responsible person. In the following trilogy of memoranda, this time published under his own name (1915), he developed his conception of sea control and sea power and emphasized the existence of a geographical position advanced into the oceans (sea power as a product of fleet and position) as an essential prerequisite for winning them. In The Maritime Strategy of the World War , he developed his theses into a comprehensive maritime strategic concept, from which he fundamentally criticized the traditional Tirpitz strategy, the fleet building based on it (risk concept), the defensive operational plan in the German Bight and the belief in a final decisive battle . Contrary to the continental thinking embodied in it, Wegener called for seafaring thinking.

Reactions in the Reichsmarine

Still under the spell of Tirpitz's politics, the naval leadership reacted with categorical rejection, which led from Wegener's personal exclusion and the exclusion of his teachings from naval training and official literature to the hindrance of his son Edward's naval career.

In contrast, Wegener's maritime strategic ideas found an echo in the younger officer corps. His theses were also known in the political leadership of the time and were popular in some places; they were cited as a reason for the occupation of Denmark and Norway in 1940. A direct intellectual authorship in it, which was mainly attributed to him abroad, cannot be deduced, however, and it ignores Wegener's fundamental concerns; the advancement of the maritime strategic position to the north that he was considering was an example for him, at best a partial solution. At the center of his thinking was the aspect of Atlantic sea power.

Later reviews

In the Bundeswehr , under the auspices of an Atlantic policy supported by Germany, Wegener's maritime strategic achievements gained a new reputation. His maritime strategy became a subject matter at the Bundeswehr Academy and the Mürwik Naval School . Increasingly, his thoughts were also recognized in foreign navies. His son, Rear Admiral Edward Wegener , tried all his life to convey his heritage, systematized it and developed it further for the nuclear age and the strategic situation of his time. A remarkable breakthrough came in 1989 with the publication of the Maritime Strategy by the renowned US Naval Institute with an informative introduction by Professor Holger H. Herwig, with which Wolfgang Wegener's achievements were recognized far beyond the scope of his own country.

It is his merit to have shed new light on German naval policy and strategy before and during World War I, to have made the basic categories of naval war at home in Germany and to have stimulated thinking in global oceanic contexts. This is particularly important in Germany's current role in the Atlantic alliance , even if his idea of ​​using his knowledge to serve a German role in world power is only of historical relevance today.

Wegener explained the term "sea power" as the product of several factors. These included variables such as industrialization, the drive for power, as well as the number and motivation of the seafaring population. In short, his formula is: "Sea power is the product of the fleet and the base" . Edward Wegener explained it later using the example that the maritime power of the USSR the value zero would have been, the Soviet fleet would be in the Caspian Sea dislocated been.

Works

• The naval strategy of the world war. Private print 1925. Berlin 1929. 2nd edition. 1941.

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 3: P-Z. Biblio Verlag, Osnabrück 1990, ISBN 3-7648-1700-3 , pp. 522-523.
• Holger H. Herwig (Ed.): German Navy. The Naval Strategy of the World War. Classics of Sea Power. Annapolis 1989.
• Eckhard Wendt: Stettiner Lebensbilder (= publications of the Historical Commission for Pomerania . Series V, Volume 40). Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-412-09404-8 .
• A more detailed curriculum vitae (with photos) can be found at [1]
• For the maritime strategic thinking of Wolfgang Wegener see the extensive private manuscript by Edward Wegener "Das Geistige Erbe Wolfgang Wegener", part of the estate of Wegener in the Federal Archives-Military Archive in Freiburg i.Br. N. 607, volume 10

Individual evidence

1. ^ Alfred von Tirpitz : Political documents. German powerlessness policy in the world war. Hanseatic publishing house. Hamburg 1926, pp. 209-213.
2. ↑ Michael Salewski : Germany and the Second World War. Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-506-71390-6 , p. 115.