The old ferret
Ludovic Kennedy
DOnitz first came to public attention in 1939 when as Admiral commanding Uboats he planned the brilliant operation that resulted in Lieutenant Prien in U.47 penetrating the defences of Scapa Flow and sinking the Royal Oak. From that time on, his foxy features were seldom out of the papers; welcoming the victorious U-boat crews as they returned from successful forays in the North Atlantic; inspecting units of the surface fleet after he had relieved Raeder as C-in-C of the navy in 1943; capitulation at Flensburg at the end of the war after reigning briefly as Hitler's successor; the dock at Nuremberg.
An opportunity to meet this legendary figure came some seven or eight years ago when I paid him two visits, one for a television interview for a documentary about the U-boat war, the other for a feature article for the Telegraph colour magazine. He had agreed in advance to participate in the U-boat film (it flattered him to know that his opinions were still sought, and I think he was glad of the fee) but stipulated that he be given prior notice of the questions. There were only two. I forget the second but the first was his opinion of how the war at sea might have gone had Raeder been given the 300 U-boats that he had asked for before the war.
Since his release from Spandau in 1956 the Admiral had been living in a small rather gloomy flat on the ground floor of an ugly house in Aumiihle, on the outskirts of Hamburg. This was convenient for meeting former naval comrades and U-Boat reunion dinners which he rarely missed.
My first impression of him was how small he was, in repose like a wizened nut, in conversation like a virile old ferret. He was very deaf. He showed us the silver model of a U-boat and said he had many other such mementoes, but the Allies had stripped his house of them at the end of the war and never given them back. I was aware how harshly history had treated him, deservedly or not;both sons killed at sea in the war; ten years in Spandau; his wife and son-in-law both dead.
He picked up a large ledger book and said triumphantly, have written ze answers to your qvestions'. My heart sank. In his own hand he had written some 15 pages, partly in English, partly in German. When the camera crew were ready, I sat down and asked: 'Admiral, what do you think would have happened to the war at sea if you had had the 300 I.J-boats that were asked for earlier?' He picked up the ledger, looked at the camera with steely eye, and addressed it as though it were the furthest sailor on the longest parade ground in the Third Reich. 'In ze sommair of nineteen-sairty-nine', he bawled, 'I vos saying to Grossadmiral Raeder . .
We stopped. Donitz said, 'Not good?' The director said, as directors do, 'Fine, just fine. But if you'd be so kind, a little quieter'. DOnitz shouted, Not you say?' And the director shrieked at him, 'NOT QUITE SO LOUD, ADMIRAL. A LITTLE LESS VOICE.' we started again. For a few seconds the voice might have been a semi-tone lower, then rose to its former crescendo. Clearly this seadog was too old for new tricks, and we let him roar on, long after we had run out of film, knowing that we would not be able to use a foot. Afterwards the Admiral and I were filmed walking in the garden, and in a half-minute of commentary I later paraphrased the essentials of what he had said.
The second visit, for the feature article, was altogether more relaxed. It was about this time that the Ultra secret had just been revealed, so I was the first to inform him of it and ask him if he had ever had an inkling that we were regularly decoding U-boats' signals and dispositions. He avoided the question by saying that he knew there were leaks, they had had several inquiries on the matter, and concluded they were due to treachery. Did he now accept the truth of the matter, I asked? He smiled, as I recall, and said something like 'If you say so'. But I don't think he believed it, even then.
What sort of man was DOnitz? Without doubt one of the half-dozen top war leaders of either side. Like Nelson, he was an inspiration to those who served under him. Otto Kretschmer, one of his top U-boat aces and later a NATO admiral, told me, 'We wouldhaveigone anywhere,heasked'it was his leadership that sustained U-boat morale to the bitter end, even when the life expectancy of a boat was only one operational trip, and two out of three boats never came back. Should he have been convicted of war crimes, and in particular of waging aggressive war? Although he worshipped Hitler the far side of idolatry and sang his praises in many speeches, many Westerners thought the charges against him flimsy in the extreme. The irony was that of the four prosecuting powers at Nuremberg, three — Britain, France and the United States— had themselves declared war on Germany, while in the German attack on the fourth, Russia, Donitz had played no part. So the charge had to be narrowed to the planning of the naval attack on Norway where Raeder was in overall charge and again DOnitz's part was minimal.
His defence was the well-established one of obeying superior orders. If he was guilty of aggressive war, he often said afterwards, then those who planned and executed the Franco-British attack on Egypt in 1956 (among them Mountbatten) were equally guilty. The American judge Francis Biddle said that he should have been acquitted, and he received public and private support from many figures, such as General Weygand, London University's law expert Professor Smith, the military historian General J.F.C. Fuller, and what DOnitz called 'eminent soldiers and sailors, statesmen, historians and lawyers from many countries, particularly America and Britain.'
And what was his answer to my question about the 300 U-boats. He thought carefully, then said. 'I think we would have won the war by 1942.' I thought but didn't say, 'If it hadn't been for Ultra you might have won it anyway.'
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