Hans-Georg von Friedeburg

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hans-Georg von Friedeburg (July 15, 1895 – May 23, 1945) was the deputy commander of the U-Boat Forces of Nazi Germany and the last Commanding Admiral of the Kriegsmarine.

In spite of having a Jewish grandmother, Friedeburg was an ardent supporter of Nazi regime and was shielded by Heinrich Himmler from anti-Jewish persecutions. (Mark Bryan Rigg, "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers.") A prominent German naval officer of the post-World War I period, he was appointed Deputy Commander of the German U-boat fleet in September 1941. Overseeing German U-Boat training and deployment of the U-boat bases in France, he would later organize U-boat picket lines in the mid-Atlantic to find and attack Allied convoys. Promoted to Rear Admiral in 1942, Friedeburg assumed command of the German U-boat fleet in February of the following year. He was awarded the Ritterkreuzes des Kriegsverdienstkreuzes mit Schwertern on 17 January 1945. He succeeded Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine when Dönitz became Reichs President upon Hitler's suicide (and per Hitler's last will), and was promoted to Generaladmiral on 1 May 1945.

In early May 1945, Friedeburg was ordered by Dönitz to negotiate a truce with the Allied forces. Arriving at General Bernard Montgomery's headquarters in Lüneburg, Germany on May 2, Friedeburg officially signed, on behalf of the German Navy, the document declaring the official surrender of the German high command in Northern Europe, including Germany, taking effect at midnight of 8/9 May 1945. Two weeks later, on 23 May 1945, he committed suicide.

His son Ludwig von Friedeburg is a well-known sociologist and served between 1969 and 1974 as minister for culture in the state of Hesse.