Erich Raeder

Admiral of the Third Reich

Keith Bird

• Publisher: Casemate
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781612006642
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Seconde Guerre mondiale

Erich Raeder led the German navy from 1928 to 1943, a period that included the last turbulent years of the Weimar Republic, the rise of Hitler, and World War II. Yet until now, no full-length biography has been written about this extraordinary naval figure. While most historians have viewed Raeder as a product of the Wilhelmian era and heir to Admiral von Tirpitz’s sea power ideology, this work clearly demonstrates Raeder’s affinity with Hitler’s fascism. Keith Bird refutes Admiral Raeder’s own argument that his navy was nonpolitical and independent; Bird shows him to be a political activist and the architect of German naval policy. Drawing on archival resources and the rich scholarship of German naval history over the past five decades, Bird examines the evolution of Raeder’s concept of naval strategy and his attempts to achieve the political and military means necessary to attain the navy’s global naval ambitions. He describes the admiral as ultimately being defeated by the contradictions in his own policies as well as Hitler’s and by the realities of Germany’s resources and military necessities.Here for the first time, Raeder’s strict leadership of the navy after 1928 and his relationship to Hitler and the National Socialist state are placed in the context of Raeder’s formative years as an Imperial naval officer, his World War I combat experience, and his critical role in the survival and development of the postwar Reichsmarine. The impact of Hitler’s influence on both the pace and the nature of naval rearmament and the conduct of the Kriegsmarine in war are also examined here, as are Raeder’s furtive attempts to influence Germany’s strategic thinking in favor of a maritime strategy.

The Imperial Navy had been a child of its time and its surroundings.

—Erich Raeder, 1956

1

The Genesis of an Admiral

The Navy, the Middle Class, and the Development of German Navalism

Erich Hans Albert Raeder was born on 24 April 1876, in Wandsbek, near Hamburg, the first of three sons of Hans Raeder, a teacher of English and French at the Matthias Claudius Gymnasium. Having lost his own father early in his own studies, Hans had supported himself by offering private lessons and, according to Raeder, had tutored several of the future leaders of the navy, helping them to prepare for the service’s entrance examination—foreshadowing his son’s future role as the “schoolmaster” of the navy. In 1889, the family moved to Grünberg in Silesia after Hans was appointed as the headmaster of the Friedrich Wilhelm Realgymnasium. Raeder’s mother, Gertraudt (née Hartmann), was the daughter of a Royal Court musician and encouraged his musical talents, which in addition to his intellectual achievements would later bring him attention from his superiors as a young officer.1

Raeder was an exceptionally bright student and had an avid interest in history, geography, modern politics, and foreign languages. His father was a stern but just parent who enforced the principles of “discipline tempered with affection—fear of God, love of truth, and cleanliness, within and without.”2 Deeply religious, Hans insisted on regular attendance at church and led the family in communal prayers. He also instilled in his sons a sense of thrift—all traits that Raeder would later seek to impress upon the men under his command. Politics were not discussed at home. If, by chance, friends broached subjects touching upon political matters, Raeder’s father would end that line of conversation with the admonition “no politics.” “Politics” in this context alluded to distaste for the “party politics” of the new German Reichstag and, in particular, the growing strength of the Social Democrat Party. This aversion was also a characteristic of the naval officer corps, which, as a whole, expressed contempt for the parliamentary system. As Raeder argued throughout his career, he considered himself “above party”—Staatspolitische (i.e., concerned only for the nation)—and therefore “apolitical.” Given the fractious nature of German political parties and the Imperial Navy’s financial dependence on a parliament elected by universal manhood suffrage, however, the service’s future was inexorably tied to the economic, social, and political issues of the day.3

As the archetypical German authoritarian father, Hans Raeder demanded and expected obedience—a principle that he firmly impressed on his son. This authoritarian upbringing represents an essential element in understanding Raeder’s later practices as head of the navy. Raeder and his younger brothers also had to contend with the burden of being the “school director’s sons,” which placed them in the difficult position of defending their father against their classmates—a situation that may have contributed to Raeder’s well-known sensitivity to personal or professional criticism.4

Middle-class families such as the Raeders could be expected to be strong advocates of a German navy, the symbol of a unified nation and, along with the Reichstag, the only truly imperial institution. The support for a navy had deep roots in Germany’s social and intellectual history. The call for a “German” fleet, promoted by the economist Friedrich List as early as the 1830s, served as a catalyst for German nationalism and was widely supported as a progressive idea by the academic community. In the context of the imperialistic zeitgeist of the second half of the nineteenth century, the Kaiserliche Marine became both the expression of and the instrument for spreading Germanism throughout the world.5

By the 1890s the Imperial Navy had become a mirror of German society, a microcosm of the young German empire’s political and social conditions, and a symbol of national unity and the middle class’s “liberal” ideals. As a child, Raeder had experienced this fusion of national unity with the widespread, almost religious, faith in Germany’s destiny at sea. Together they became a political philosophy of Seemachtideologie first fully articulated by Tirpitz in the early 1890s—the same years in which Raeder began his naval career.6

Given the new kaiser’s devotion to the navy and the “liberal” appeal of the service as the “darling of the nation and the middle class,” Raeder’s “sudden” decision, as he referred to it, in 1894 to join the navy, and his father’s eager support, were both unsurprising in the context of the empire and the values of its middle class.7 Two weeks before his final examinations in school, he announced to his father that he no longer wanted to study medicine for a career as a military surgeon but instead wanted to enter the navy as a line officer. In spite of the fact that the deadline for application (1 October 1893) had passed, he was accepted; and on 1 April 1894 he reported to the Marineschule at Kiel.8

Raeder’s first contact with the navy, seeing the training ship Musquito, an 1851 British sloop purchased by the Prussian navy in 1862, at Lübeck, left him “completely unimpressed.” He later attributed his enthusiasm for a naval career to his having read a book describing the cadet cruise of Prince Heinrich of Prussia around the world. He was so fascinated by this story, which he had received as a prize for his academic achievements, that he read it until he “knew it by heart.”9 Such books, referred to as “naval cadet literature,” were popular during this period and served as recruitment tools for the navy.10

Raeder’s portrayal of his choice of a naval career as a result of “fate” and the influence of a popular account of the adventurous life at sea seems incongruous with his later practice of precise and calculated decision making. As a practical matter, Raeder and his father would have known that the high cost of cadet education would require significant financial support from his family; it was one of the ways by which the navy made sure that only applicants from the “proper background” could join.11 Raeder’s decision to join the navy may have been regarded as a calling, morally equivalent to being called to the clergy. His decision was made to satisfy his own ambitions and to provide a sense of purpose in the face of the physical and mental challenges that command at sea presented. Raeder’s character fit the “nobility of outlook” that would qualify him as an officer. His family values, his sense of duty, personal loyalty, and sacrifice, and his love of the Fatherland were characteristic of many of the candidates who chose the opportunities the navy offered.12 They complemented the context of shared values in a navy that would enforce ideological over social homogeneity, to the detriment of independent thinking. As Tirpitz noted in 1895, the officer corps had to share common views not just in “strategic thinking” but also “in all questions.”13 As navy chief, Raeder would later vigorously—and ruthlessly—continue this tradition.

Raeder possessed the mental aptitude for serious study, as demonstrated by his achieving the coveted Abitur (final examination for university studies). The typically high level of education of the middle class was a much-desired trait for future naval officers.14 He also had the discipline and ability to learn subjects on his own. When his family moved to Silesia, Raeder had to make up a year and a half of instruction in English, which he accomplished within a month. (He later taught himself Spanish in order to study the history of the Philippines during his 1898 tour of duty with the Far East Squadron.) 15

From the Marineschule in Kiel to the Far East with the First Cruiser Squadron, 1894–1899

Raeder’s training as an officer began with six weeks of infantry drill conducted by army non-commissioned officers, whose hazing so offended him that he considered dropping out. Any doubts on his part, however, were forgotten when Wilhelm II came to Kiel to admit his son, Prince Adalbert, to the navy as one of Raeder’s classmates. The kaiser attended a ceremony in which the new cadets swore a personal oath to him in the Navy Chapel. Reflecting the growing self-consciousness of the naval officer corps as “the kaiser’s elite,” Raeder later regarded these ceremonies and the naval parade in the emperor’s honor as the “high point” of this first phase of his naval career.16

This short stint of shore duty was followed by service on the training ships SMS Stosch and Stein with the seventy cadets of the 1894 crew divided between them.17 On board the SMS Stosch, Raeder learned basic seamanship, including handling sails, rowing, and sailing the ship’s cutters and drills on the ship’s obsolete 15-cm (5.9-inch) guns. His theoretical studies included navigation, seamanship, and mathematics, as well as English and French. Rather short in stature (5'6"), he was particularly proud of his assignment to the royals, the topmost of all the yards; the task was to go aloft and quickly lower the sails in the event of bad weather—a risky and physically challenging job. After two training cruises, first in the Baltic and then to the West Indies, Raeder’s first year concluded with stiff theoretical and practical tests, upon passing which the sixty cadets were promoted to Seekadetten. He finished at the top of his “crew” (class), living up to his own expectations. Raeder, labeled as “the clever Hans” by his crew members, did not form any special or lasting relationships with them. He mentions only three crewmates in his memoirs; one of them was Wolfgang Wegener, a rival whose later writings on naval strategy Raeder suppressed.18

His class was then divided among four training ships in which they studied navigation and gunnery as well as watch-standing under both sail and steam. Most important, they received their first indoctrination in leadership, as each cadet was assigned a section of enlisted apprentices to train. The fall exercises of 1895 were particularly important because they practiced abstract tactical maneuvers based on Tirpitz’s Lineartaktik, the revival of the traditional (from the age of sail) line-ahead battle formation for the capital ships. The results from these exercises formed the operational doctrines of Tirpitz’s 1894 Service Memorandum IX and also the basis for the first navy bill in 1897. This document, which Raeder referred to as “the tactical ‘bible’ of the navy,” solidified the primacy of the battle fleet (in home waters) as the “most important plank” of Germany’s foreign policy, with cruiser warfare regarded as secondary in importance.19

In preparation for the examination at the end of the second year, the practical and theoretical subjects of engineering and seamanship were stressed along with navigation, torpedoes, and gunnery. The final year of training before being commissioned was back in Kiel at the Marine-schule. There, as they completed their academic training, Raeder and the crew of 1894 had more opportunities to be officers and gentlemen, with free time for sailing, rowing, sports, and rounds of parties, theaters, and concerts. Raeder passed the final examination of a Seeoffizier, with the highest honors.20

On 1 October 1897, the newly promoted ensign reported on board the SMS Sachsen, one of Germany’s early coal-powered, pre-dreadnought armored ships, as the ship’s signal officer. Raeder’s first duty assignment was opportune, given the growing importance of signaling (and later wireless) in a modern navy. It allowed him to gain valuable experience on the bridge, especially during maneuvers and training cruises. Such training allowed him to lay the foundation for his distinguished performance at the side of Admiral von Hipper at the battle of Jutland in 1916. Raeder’s tenure on the Sachsen and temporary assignment to her sister ship SMS Baden, however, was cut short as a result of rising tensions over Germany’s colonial ambitions. On 1 October 1897, he reported to the armored cruiser Deutschland, preparing for duty in the Far East.21

Laid down in London in 1872, the Deutschland reflected the transitional state of German naval technology, carrying both sail and steam. At this time German factories were unable to produce armor plate, leaving the navy dependent upon foreign sources. The Deutschland lacked the speed to function as a cruiser and also was prone to frequent engine breakdowns, which, as Raeder noted, were a constant source of anxiety. The classes of ships represented by the Sachsen and Deutschland reflected the pre-Tirpitz naval construction program of designing ships that were suitable for Baltic operations as well as projecting Germany’s naval presence overseas. The result was a conglomerate of all possible ship types—a collection of partly or completely outdated ships for different tasks, far from a coherent fighting force, especially when compared to the British Royal Navy.22

Raeder’s experiences...