Talk:Karl Dönitz

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[edit] book

Didn't he write a book on submarine tactics while in british captivity? perhaps someone could add a bit about his ww1 service and the impact this book had, if any, on ww2? if someone knows? SpookyMulder 13:43, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

He did, IIRC from 10 Yrs & 20 Days. He claims it led to development of wolfpacks, but those were conceived in WW1. Trekphiler 09:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More on Enigma/Triton

Perhaps we can use some text from Ultra to expand this article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:00, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Some Germans had suspicions that all was not right with Enigma. Karl Dönitz received reports of "impossible" encounters between U-boats and enemy vessels which made him suspect some compromise of his communications. In one instance, three U-boats met at a tiny island in the Caribbean, and a British destroyer promptly showed up. They all escaped and reported what had happened. Doenitz immediately asked for a review of Enigma's security. The analysis suggested that the signals problem, if there was one, wasn't due to the Enigma itself. Doenitz had the settings book changed anyway, blacking out Bletchley Park for a period. However the evidence was never enough to truly convince him that Naval Enigma was being read by the Allies. The more so, since his counterintelligence B-Dienst group, who had partially broken Royal Navy traffic (including its convoy codes during the early part of the War), supplied enough information to support the idea that the Allies were unable to read Naval Enigma. Coincidentally, German success in this respect almost exactly matched in time an Allied blackout from Naval Enigma.

In 1941 British intelligence learned that the German Navy was about to introduce M4, a new version of Enigma with 4 wheels rather than 3. Fortunately, for the Allies, in December, a U boat mistakenly transmitted a message using the four rotor machine before it was due to be implemented. Realising the error, they re-transmitted the same message using the 3 rotor Enigma, giving the British sufficient clues to break the new machine very shortly after it became operational on February 1 1942. The U-boat network which used the four rotor machine was known as Triton, codenamed Shark by the Allies. Its traffic was routinely readable. de:Diskussion:Karl Dönitz

[edit] Critique

Very well written and organized article. The one detracting feature is that it seems a tad short for a featured article though I have no recommendation for what should be filled out more.17:28, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)~

"On the basis of what we now know"? This smells POV to me. If it had been anybody but the victors holding the trials, Nimitz, MacArthur, Kenney, English, Christie, Lockwood, Monty, Ike, & others would have hanged, too, on the basis of what was known then. Want to include that? Trekphiler 15:48, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I added this:
"(If the trials had been genuinely objective, many Allied senior officers, including Nimitz, who provided the affidavit; MacArthur and George C. Kenney (commanding Fifth Air Force), who condoned strafing Japanese troops in the water in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea; Robert English, Ralph Christie, and Charles Lockwood, who commanded Nimitz's Submarine Force; and Montomery and Eisenhower, who looked the other way when German prisoners were murdered would all have faced trial and execution.)"
Are we to judge Dönitz's trial on what was known then, or now? And if we condemn him on what's known now, why not condemn Allied COs on what they did then? Trekphiler 16:21, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
"with the evidence and insights available today" is most definitely point of view, but it is a quote, not a statement of fact, and the quote serves to illustrate the controversial nature of the judgements regarding Doenitz, by showing that there are both positive and negative opinions about him (even if some of these opinions are wrong). The part you added seems O.K. though, but whether or not Doenitz was "good" or "bad" is independant of whether or not the Nurember trials were objective, or whether or not some allied commanders were "good" or "bad". - Matthew238 06:08, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Title

Surely this page should be under Karl Doenitz? - Mmartins

'Surely' it shouldn't.

Why? His name was Karl Dönitz, not Doenitz.

Because the ö character doesn't exist in English: non-German speakers will pronounce his name Donnitz, which is completely incorrect (and irritating - as when Wagner is pronounced with an English 'W')
What are the naming conventions in this situation?
See (somewhat unsurpsisingly) Wikipedia:Naming conventions - article names are restricted to ISO 8859-1 characters only, so "ö" is OK, and redirects are encouraged from common mispellings (Karl Donitz, Karl Doenitz already exist). -- ALoan (Talk) 18:52, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

ö = oe the umlaut originated as a shortform for writing e's after (and then later above) other vowels oe is not a misspelling both are correct, although ö and its cousins are preferred when possible (we do th esame thing in English we just put our e's at the end of the word)

when writing in English I am not sure if there is a preference - it depends on the language - it could be argued that if we spell Doenitz as Dönitz we should spell Russian names with the Cyrillic alphabet

You figure out how my English keyboard gets German characters (without acrobatics), I'll use them... Trekphiler 15:50, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ranks

The following was a comment posted (likely by mistake) to the article by an anon, I've moved it here. Wyss 21:32, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

The author may have two of these rankings listed incorectly. The rank of oberleutnant zur see may be more equivalent to a LT JG (O2) in US terms and the rank of Kapitanleutnant may correspond better the the rank of LT (O3) in US terms.

[edit] Irrelevant propaganda

I had added: Of all the defendants at Nuremberg, the verdict against Dönitz was probably the most controversial; Dönitz always maintained that he did nothing that his Allied counterparts did not. Testifying to the controversial nature of the decision, numerous Allied officers sent letters to Dönitz expressing their dismay over the verdict of his trial, while author Peter Padfield cuold state in his 1984 biography of Dönitz that "On one thing there can surely be no doubt; tried with the evidence and insights available today, he would have joined Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Jodl and the rest of the twelve condemned to death by hanging."

Yet after standing as it was for a while, it was deleted as 'irrelevant propaganda'. Needless to say, I disagree. I am not a vehimently anti-Doenitz individual, yet I think the quote adds to the article. I do not state that Doenitz deserved to hang, I merely added a quote by a knowledgeable biographer who thought as mentioned above. Most importantly, it is added to a section about the controversial nature of the decision at Nuremburg, and to the controversial nature of the figure of Doenitz. Taken as a whole, the section does not show that Doenitz was bad - it shows that Doenitz is controversial, and that there are many views regarding him, by showing some of those views (the Allied Officers who had just fought a war against him thinking his sentence was unjust, the biographer half a century later who, while not stating that he deserved to be hanged, but that "with the evidence and insights available today" he would have been - and stating so with "no doubt", a pretty bold statement, whether right or wrong. We need to present all the views regarding Doenitz, but at the same time not imply that any of those views is the 'correct' one. - Matthew238 00:31, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I think the sentence regarding Padfield's quote is confusing and should either be removed or expanded to better explain itself. It seems very disjointed and leaves the reader to have to make assumptions about what it is that Padfield could be referring to.66.182.205.68 18:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

This smells POV to me (see above); IMHO, remove. Trekphiler 15:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

To make the quote relevant, we need to be told what the 'evidence and insights available today' actually are, otherwise it adds little to the article.

I removed it. I agree with above statement. Kent Wang 19:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translation

The attack on the East Coast is identified as Drumbeat (the common translation); it is correctly Paukenschlag, which has overtones of "tatto" or "thunderbolt" not commonly mentioned.

[edit] Conversion

Dear 65..., you added information about Dönitz' late-in-life conversion. Could you please provide some reference for your information. Thanks. Str1977 17:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

The infobox is designed for readers to smoothly go from article to article - in this case German heads of state. On the left side is Hitler and on the right are the East and West German successors - only showing Hindenburg and Heuss is a POV PMA 08:38, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dõnitz' Trial At Nuremberg

I make recourse to Airey Neave's book again. In the chapter entitled A Question Of Naval Honour, Neave says (p.206):

  • "Doenitz was defended at Nuremberg by Flotternrichter Otto Kranzbuehler, a brilliant lawyer. His name was given to me by Doenitz in my first meeting with him that afternoon. From the beginning Kranzbuehler was received at Nuremberg with a courtesy which applied to no one else. He demanded and was allowed to appear in court in naval uniform unlike his client and former commander-in-chief. Naval officers on the prosecution staffs treated him as an equal. This black-haired, pink-faced naval captain with whiskers on his cheeks, saved Doenitz many years in Spandau: a fine piece of advocacy."

In the chapter A Fair Trial For The Defendants, Neave adds (p.226):

  • "Doenitz was last. He was interesting and unfriendly. I told him that his application for Flottenrichter Otto Kranzbuehler was being dealt with. This was the fleet lawyer he had requested on the day of the indictment. He told me that no civilian would understand his position and he wanted a counsel from the Navy. This no doubt reflected his desire to stress similarities between German and Allied submarine warfare. The admiral told me that, if he could not get Kranzbuehler or two other names which he submitted, he should be defended by 'an English or American U-Boat Admiral'. He was obviously aware of some Allied naval sympathy."

Neave continued by covering the Laconia incident and its ramifications in some detail, and also says (p.204):

  • "At the time of the indictment there were two aspects of the Admiral's careeer which absorbed me. The first was the accusation of war crimes at sea. Already there was a growing Doenitz lobby in Allied naval circles at Nuremberg. The second was the extraordinary manner in which he had become the titular successor to Hitler and formed the Flensburg 'government' at the very end of the war."

Later on in page 204, Neave adds:

  • "The Allies used the same tactics [of submarine warfare] of which the prosecution were complaining at Nuremberg. It was the sole case in which the tribunal allowed the defence of tu quoque to a war crime. An example was the refusal of the British to recognise German aeroplanes with Red Cross markings seeking to rescue pilots shot down over the Channel. The Allied navies acted in other ways which Germans considered illegal, including the activity of American naval vessels after Pearl harbor and before the declaration of war by the United States. In an affidavit, Admiral Nimitz, United States Navy, declared: 'As a general rule, United States submarines did not rescue enemy survivors if by doing so the vessels were exposed to unnecessary or additional risk."

With respect to the above-cited German aeroplanes, the following footnote appears on page 205:

  • The Germans did not protest at the time. No international agreement on the status of these aircraft had been reached.

As well as the Laconia case, the case of the U-852, commanded by Kapitanleutnant Heinz Eck, was potentially very damaging to Dõnitz' defence. Neave covers this case in some detail too. Though it was never proven beyond reasonable doubt that Dõnitz was implicated in the Eck case, there was no doubt during the tribunal that Dõnitz issued orders that were either ambiguous or harsh, and this helped to send him to Spandau. Neave writes (p.210):

  • "The Eck case was extremely damaging to Doenitz. It was the fact that few attempts were made by Alied submarines to rescue German survivors that saved him, rather than the belief of the judges that he was entirely honourable at sea. Part of his punishment and that of Raeder was due to their compliance with Hitler's Commando Order of October 18th, 1942.

As for how this is to be incorporated into the body of the article proper, this requires a fair amount of prior thought, hence my presenting the material here. Calilasseia 03:50, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

Dönitz was not President of Germany, and Heuss and Pieck were not his successors. He was appointed head of state by Hitler, a procedure unknown to the 1919 German constitution, which was still in force despite being largely overriden by the 1933 Enabling Act. His government was never recognised by the Allies or any other state. It never exercised control over German territory or what was left of the German state. It therefore failed all tests of legitimacy - it was neither de jure nor de facto a German government. Furthermore German sovereignty was abolished in 1945 and there was a 4-year constitutional vacuum before the FRG and GDR governments came into existence. I will remove these references from the infobox unless someone can persuade me not to. Adam 11:12, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

The Enabling Act and subsequent let Hitler do whatever he pleased, including designate a successor, and it suspended the 1919 constitution. Therefore, Dönitz was the de facto President of Germany after Hitler's death, regardless of the legality of it. The Allies recognized him as such by accepting his offer of unconditional surrender. As far as I have ever seen, no one has ever seriously questioned that Dönitz was President of Germany for a few weeks, even if the amount of Germany he governed was very small. 74.245.91.25 16:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia

Is there a reason to have the "Trivia" about Karl Dönitz being a famous owner of a Mastercard? Is there any veracity to that statement? Just wondering.


[edit] Obfuscated paragraph?

However, in view of all the facts proven, and in particular of an order of the British Admiralty announced on 8 May 1940, according to which all vessels should be sunk on sight in the Skagerrak, and the answers to interrogatories by Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, wartime commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, stating that unrestricted submarine warfare had been carried on in the Pacific Ocean by the United States from the first day that nation entered the war, Dönitz's order to conduct unrestricted submarine warfare was not included in his sentence

So, in other words - Karl was not found guilty of breaking international law of submarine warfare because the Allies had done the exact same thing. Correct? If yes, then is there a better way of writing this paragraph? Bmathew 07:53, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dönitz = No Nazi

I think it is important when adding or removing information on this article to understand that Dönitz was not a Nazi. Therefore any information on this article should not label him as one. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.105.218.216 (talk) 18:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] War minister?

In the template showing him to have been a cabinet member, I said, taking a cue from de.wiki, that he was War Minister, but was this in fact the case? If not, do go ahead and fix the template. Biruitorul 06:47, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Guilty/Not Guilty

"Dönitz's order to conduct unrestricted submarine warfare was not included in his sentence.[1] He was imprisoned for ten years in Spandau Prison in West Berlin."

Yes, officially it wasn't included in his sentence, but it was made clear by Biddle (name was wrong, fixed it) (one of the American judges, I hope I wrote his name right) that he was the only one who wanted Dönitz found not guilty. All the other judges wanted him convicted for his unrestricted submarine warfare, knowing that America did exactly the same. He made a report in which he wrote that the 10 years Dönitz got were based on his unrestricted submarine warfare, but that all the judges agreed to make the official reason the little things he had done wrong (suggesting to let concentration camp prisoners build boats, praising a German who shot a communist German while in allied captivity, etc.) I suggest changing it to this:

"Dönitz's order to conduct unrestricted submarine warfare was not officially included in his sentence, but was still the main reason why most judges wanted him convicted.[1] He was imprisoned for ten years in Spandau Prison in West Berlin."

Discuss please DTE 08:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that's really interesting. Except, it begs for complaints about Allied hypocrisy & a potential edit war. Personally, I'd leave it in & link to Allied war crimes, but... Trekphiler 09:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nazi or not?

I removed the statement that Doenitz was not a Nazi, as it was unsourced and a source I have seems to contradict it. In his book Justice at Nuremberg, Robert Conot says "...Doenitz had been a fanatic Nazi overawed by the Fuhrer" (page 416). I can also not imagine Hitler appointing a successor who was not a member of the Nazi party. If anyone has an issue with this please discuss here. Thanks. -R. fiend 19:02, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

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