Karl Dönitz served in the submarine fleet for most of his military career. He developed the tactics and strategy of the submarines and made every effort to create a powerful fleet of submarines in Germany. A few days before the collapse of the Third Reich, the Führer appointed Dönitz as his successor. But the admiral did not long lead the former "great empire."
From the biography of Karl Dönitz
The future German military leader was born in Berlin on September 16, 1891. He was left without a mother early. Military affairs interested Karl from childhood. In 1910, he entered the Imperial Naval School, which he graduated in three years. The naval service of the future German grand admiral began.
Since 1916, Dönitz served in the German submarine fleet. In 1918, the submarine, commanded by a naval officer, was sunk by the British, and Dönitz himself was captured. The officer returned to his homeland only in 1919.
Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forbidden to have a submarine fleet, so in the following years, Doenitz served on surface ships. Everything changed when the possessed Fuhrer came to power in the country.
In 1935, Dönitz was commissioned to lead and reorganize the newly created submarine fleet of fascist Germany. The officer personally led the design of the submarines, drawing on his past experience and foreign work on the strategy and tactics of the submarine fleet. Subsequently, German submariners mastered underwater equipment on the instructions compiled by this famous sailor.
Dönitz during the Second World War
Karl Dönitz intended to create a powerful submarine fleet of three hundred boats. However, by the beginning of World War II, the naval commander had a little more than fifty submarines. But these forces were enough to ensure that already in 1939 the German submarine fleet sank 114 merchant ships of the enemy.
For the country's submarine fleet, which has shown its effectiveness, all new resources were allocated. The number of submarines grew. The number of enemy ships sunk by submarines increased.
In 1941, America entered the war. This expanded the scope of German submarines, which only in 1942 sent 585 US ships to the bottom. In 1943, Dönitz received the rank of admiral and headed the entire German fleet. In this post, he worked diligently, not ceasing to care about the technical equipment of submarines and their numbers.
