Erich Johann Albert Raeder (24 April 1876 – 6 November 1960)[1] was a German admiral who played a major role in thenaval history of World War II and was convicted ofwar crimes after the war. He attained the highest possible naval rank, that ofgrand admiral, in 1939. Raeder led theKriegsmarine for the first half of the war; he resigned in January 1943 and was replaced byKarl Dönitz. At theNuremberg trials he was sentenced tolife imprisonment but was released early owing to failing health in 1955.
Raeder idolised his father Hans Raeder, who as a teacher and a father was noted for his marked authoritarian views, and who impressed upon his son the values of hard work, thrift, religion and discipline – all of which Raeder was to preach throughout his life.[4] Hans Raeder also taught his children to support the existing government of alleged "non-political" experts led by Bismarck who were said to stand "above politics" and were alleged to only do what was best for Germany.[4] In the same way, Hans Raeder warned his children that if Germany were to become a democracy, that would be a disaster as it would mean government by men "playing politics"-doing what was only best for their petty sectarian interests instead of the nation.[4]
Like many other middle-class Germans of his time, Hans Raeder strongly disliked theSocial Democrats, whom he accused of playing "party politics" in theReichstag by promoting working class interests instead of thinking about the national good, a stance that his son also adopted.[5] Throughout his entire life, Raeder claimed that he wasapolitisch (someone who was "above politics", i.e. only thought about the good of the nation instead of his party), and as an "apolitical" officer, Raeder thus maintained that his support for sea power was based upon objective consideration of the national good.[5]
Erich Raeder (second from left) and the staff of Vice AdmiralFranz von Hipper (center), 1916
Raeder joined theKaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in 1894 and rapidly rose in rank, becoming chief of staff forFranz von Hipper in 1912. Raeder's rise up the ranks was due mostly to his intelligence and hard work[6] though from 1901 to 1903 Raeder served on the staff ofPrince Heinrich of Prussia, and gained a powerful patron in the process.[7] Owing to his cold and distant personality, Raeder was a man whom even his friends often admitted to knowing very little about.[6] The dominating figure of the Navy was AdmiralAlfred von Tirpitz, the autocratic State Secretary of the Navy. Tirpitz's preferred means of obtaining "world power status" was through hisRisikotheorie (risk theory) where Germany would build aRisikoflotte (Risk Fleet) that would make it too dangerous for Britain to risk a war with Germany, and thereby alter the international balance of power decisively in theReich's favor. Tirpitz transformed the Navy from the small coastal defense force of 1897 into the mighty High Seas Fleet of 1914.
In 1904, Raeder, who spoke fluentRussian, was sent to theFar East as an observer of theRusso-Japanese War.[8] Starting in 1905, Raeder worked in the public relations section of the Navy, where he first met Tirpitz and began his introduction to politics by briefing journalists to run articles promoting theSeemachtideologie and meeting politicians who held seats in theReichstag in order to convert them to theSeemachtideologie.[9] Working closely with Tirpitz, Raeder was heavily involved in the lobbying theReichstag to pass theThird Navy Law of 1906 which committed Germany to building "all big gun battleships" to compete with the new BritishDreadnought class in the Anglo-German naval race that had only begun at the start of the 20th century.[10]
Raeder was the captain ofKaiser Wilhelm II'sprivate yacht in the years leading up to World War I. In itself, this was not a rewarding post, but often people in this post were quickly promoted afterwards.[11]
Raeder served as Hipper's chief of staff during World War I, as well as in combat posts. He took part in theBattle of Dogger Bank in 1915 and in theBattle of Jutland in 1916. Raeder later described Hipper as an admiral who "hated paperwork"; accordingly, Hipper delegated considerable power to Raeder, who thus enjoyed more influence than his position as chief of staff would suggest.[12]
During and after World War I the German navy was divided into two schools of thought. One, led by AdmiralAlfred von Tirpitz (1849–1930), consisted of avid followers of the teachings of the American historianAlfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914) and believed in building a "balanced fleet" centered around the battleship that would seek out and win a decisivebattle of annihilation (Entscheidungsschlacht) against the Royal Navy in the event of war.[13] The other school, led by CommanderWolfgang Wegener (1875–1956), argued that because of superior British shipbuilding capacity Germany could never hope to build a "balanced fleet" capable of winning anEntscheidungsschlacht, and so the best use of German naval strength was to build a fleet of cruisers and submarines that would wage aguerre de course (commerce raiding against an enemy's merchant shipping).[14] After reading all three of Wegener's papers setting out his ideas, Admiral Hipper decided to submit them to the Admiralty in Berlin, but changed his mind after reading a paper by Raeder attacking the Wegener thesis as flawed.[15] This marked the beginning of a long feud between Raeder and Wegener, with Wegener claiming that his former friend Raeder was jealous of what Wegener insisted were his superior ideas.[16]
In May 1916 Raeder played a major role planning a raid by Hipper's battlecruisers that aimed to lure out the British battlecruiser force which would then be destroyed by the main High Seas Fleet.[17] This raid turned into theBattle of Jutland. Raeder played a prominent role, and was forced midway through the battle to transfer fromSMS Lützow toSMS Moltke as a result of damage to Hipper's flagship.
As chief of staff to Admiral Hipper he was closely involved in a plan of Hipper's for a German battlecruiser squadron to sail across the Atlantic and sweep through the waters off Canada down to the West Indies and on to South America to sink the British cruisers operating in those waters, and thereby force the British to redeploy a substantial part of theHome Fleet to the New World.[18] Though Hipper's plans were rejected[when?] as far too risky, they significantly influenced Raeder's later thinking.[19]
On 14 October 1918, Raeder received a major promotion with appointment as deputy to AdmiralPaul Behncke, the Naval State Secretary.[20] Raeder had doubts about submarines, but he spent the last weeks of the war working to achieve the Scheer Programme of building 450 U-boats.
On 28 October 1918 the Imperial Germanfleet at Kiel mutinied when some of the ships' crews refused to sail out for the a final battle against the BritishGrand Fleet that the Admiralty had ordered without the knowledge or approval of the German government.[21][22] Raeder played a major role in attempting to crush the mutiny.[citation needed]
Raeder's two younger brothers were both killed in action in the First World War, and in 1919 his first marriage, which had been under heavy strain due to war-related stress, ended in divorce.[23] For the puritanical Raeder, the divorce was a huge personal disgrace, and for the rest of his life he always denied his first marriage.[23] The years 1918–1919 were some of the most troubled in his life.[23]
In the winter of 1918–19, Raeder was closely involved in the efforts of the naval officer corps, strongly backed by the Defense MinisterGustav Noske to disband theworkers' and soldiers' councils established after the Kiel mutiny.[24] Noske was aMajority Social Democrat with firm "law and order" views. During this period, Raeder served as the liaison between the naval officer corps and Noske, and it was Raeder who suggested to Noske on 11 January 1919 thatAdolf von Trotha be appointed commander-in-chief of the Navy.[25] Tirpitz's attacks on the Emperor's leadership during the war had caused a split in the officer corps between the followers of "the Master" and the Kaiser, and Raeder saw Trotha as the only officer acceptable to both factions.[25] Noske in turn asked the Navy for volunteers for theFreikorps to crush uprisings from the Communists.[26] The Navy contributed two brigades to theFreikorps.[27] Under theWeimar Republic, the military considered itselfüberparteilich (above party), which did not mean political neutrality as implied.[28] The military argued that there were two types of "politics":parteipolitisch (party politics) which was the responsibility of the politicians, andstaatspolitisch (state politics) which was the responsibility of the military.[28]Staatspolitisch concerned Germany's "eternal" interests and the "historic mission" of winning world power, which was to be pursued regardless of what the politicians or the people wanted.[28]
After the war, in 1920, Raeder was involved in the failedKapp Putsch when, together with almost the entire naval officer corps, he declared himself openly for the "government" ofWolfgang Kapp against the leaders of the Weimar Republic.[7] In the summer of 1920 Raeder married his second wife, with whom he later had one son.
After the failure of the KappPutsch he was marginalized in the Navy, being transferred to the Naval Archives, where for two years he played a leading role in writing the official history of the Navy in World War I.[29] After this, Raeder resumed his steady rise in the navyhierarchy, becomingVizeadmiral (vice admiral) in 1925.
On 1 October 1928, Raeder was promoted toadmiral and made chief of the Naval Command (Chef der Marineleitung) of theReichsmarine, the Weimar Republic Navy. On 1 June 1935, theReichsmarine was renamed theKriegsmarine and Raeder became its commander-in-chief with the title ofOberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine. On 20 April 1936, Raeder was promoted to the new rank ofGeneraladmiral and granted the rank and authority of aReichsminister but without the formal title.[30] On 30 January 1937, Hitler conferred theGolden Party Badge on Raeder, thereby enrolling him in the Party (membership number 3,805,228).[31]
Raeder believed the navy was unprepared for the start of World War II by at least five years. The surface fleet was inadequate to fight theRoyal Navy and instead adopted a strategy of convoy raiding. Raeder wanted the Kriegsmarine to play an active part because he feared the budget would be cut after the war. The smaller ships were dispersed around the world in order to force the Royal Navy to disperse their ships to combat them, while the battleships would carry out raids in theNorth Sea, with a view towards gradually reducing the Royal Navy's strength at home.
Raeder was unhappy with the outcome of theBattle of the River Plate and believed thatHans Langsdorff should not have scuttled the ship, but instead sailed out to engage the Royal Navy. Fleet commanderHermann Boehm was held responsible and was sacked by Raeder, who also issued orders that ships were to fight until the last shell and either win or sink with their flags flying.
The Allies were using Norwegian airfields to transfer aircraft to the Finns fighting against the Soviets in theWinter War, as well asmining Norwegian waters, and the Germans were alarmed by these developments. If the Allies were to use Norwegian naval bases or successfully mine Norwegian waters, they could cut off Germany's vital iron ore imports from Sweden and tighten the blockade of Germany. The Allies had madeplans to invade Norway and Sweden in order to cut off those iron ore shipments. AdmiralRolf Carls, commander of the Kriegsmarine in the Baltic Sea region, proposed the invasion of Norway to Raeder in September 1939. Raeder briefed Hitler on the idea in October, but planning did not begin until December 1939. The operation was in low-priority planning until theAltmark incident in February 1940, during which a German tanker carrying 300 Allied prisoners in then-neutral Norwegian waters was boarded by sailors from a Royal Navy destroyer and the prisoners were freed. After this, plans for the Norwegian invasion took on a new sense of urgency.The invasion proved costly for the Kriegsmarine, which lost a heavy cruiser, two of its six light cruisers, 10 of its 20 destroyers and six U-boats. In addition, almost all of the other capital ships were damaged and required dockyard repairs, and for a time the German surface fleet had only three light cruisers and four destroyers operational in the aftermath of the Norwegian campaign.
The swift victory overFrance allowed the Kriegsmarine to base itself in ports on France's west coast. This was strategically important as German warships would no longer have to navigate through the dangerous English Channel in order to return to friendly ports, as well as allow them to range farther out into the Atlantic to attack convoys. With the surrender of France, Raeder saw the opportunity to greatly enhance the navy's power by confiscating the ships of the French Navy and manning them with his crews. Hitler however, vetoed this idea, afraid that doing so would push the French navy to join the Royal Navy. British fears of Raeder's plan resulted in theAttack on Mers-el-Kébir, in which the Royal Navy attacked the French navy despite being at peace with France.
On 11 July 1940, Hitler and Raeder agreed to continue building the battleships called for byPlan Z. Raeder also had bases built atTrondheim on theNorwegian Sea and atSaint-Nazaire andLorient on theBay of Biscay. At this time, Raeder and other senior officers began submitting memos to invade (among others) Shetland, Iceland, the Azores, Iran, Madagascar, Kuwait, Egypt and the Dutch East Indies.
In January 1941, the battlecruisersScharnhorst andGneisenau were sent on a successfulcommerce-raiding mission in the Atlantic. On 18 March, following the beginning ofLend-Lease, Raeder wanted to start firing on US warships even if unprovoked. He declined to invade the Azores because of the surface ship losses the previous year. Raeder urged Hitler to declare war on the United States throughout 1941 so the Kriegsmarine could begin sinking American warships escorting British convoys.[32]
In April 1941, Raeder planned to follow up the success ofScharnhorst andGneisenau's commerce-raiding mission with an even larger mission involving a battleship, two battlecruisers and a heavy cruiser under the command ofLütjens, codenamedOperation Rheinübung. The original plan was to have the battlecruisersScharnhorst andGneisenau involved in the operation, butScharnhorst was undergoing heavy repairs to her engines, andGneisenau had just suffered a damaging torpedo hit days before which put her out of action for six months. In the end only theBismarck andPrinz Eugen were sent out on the mission, which ended withBismarck's sinking. The debacle almost saw the end of using capital ships against merchant shipping.[citation needed] Hitler was not pleased and saw the resources used in the construction and operation of the largeBismarck as a poor investment.
In late 1941, Raeder planned the"channel dash" which sent the remaining two battleships in the French ports to Germany, for further operations in Norwegian waters. The plan was to threaten the Lend-Lease convoys to the Soviet Union, to deter an invasion of Norway, and to tie down elements of the Home Fleet that might otherwise have been used in the Atlantic against the U-boat wolfpacks.
After theattack on Pearl Harbor Raeder, along with Field MarshalKeitel and ReichsmarschallGöring, urged Hitler to immediately declare war on the United States in view of the US war planRainbow Five, and to begin the U-boat attacks off the US east coast, which was later called the "Second Happy Time" by German submariners.[33]
On 30 January 1943, following Hitler's outrage over theBattle of the Barents Sea,Karl Dönitz, the supreme commander of the Kriegsmarine's U-boat arm, was promoted to grand admiral, and Raeder was named admiral inspector, a ceremonial office. Raeder had failed to inform Hitler of the battle, which Hitler learned about from the foreign press. Hitler thought theLützow andAdmiral Hipper lacked fighting spirit, according toAlbert Speer. The reorganisation fitted Speer's goal of working more closely with Dönitz.[34]
Raeder with his wife after being released from prison (September 26, 1955)
Raeder was captured by Soviet troops on 23 June 1945[35] and imprisoned inMoscow. At the end of July, he was taken toNuremberg tostand trial on the counts of: (1) conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity; (2) planning, initiating, and waging wars of aggression; and (3) crimes against the laws of war.
Raeder was found guilty on all counts[36] and sentenced to life imprisonment.[37] He was surprised as he had expected to be sentenced to death.[38] His wife, supported by German veterans, led several campaigns to free him until, on account of his ill health, he was released on 26 September 1955.[39]
Raeder wrote his autobiography,Mein Leben, using aghostwriter.[39]
He died ofnatural causes inKiel on 6 November 1960.[1][40] His wife had died the previous year. He is buried in theNordfriedhof (North Cemetery) in Kiel.[2][3][41] Former Grand AdmiralKarl Dönitz attended his funeral on 12 November 1960.[42]
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