Erich Johann Albert Raeder (24 April 1876 – 6 November 1960) was a naval leader in Germany who played a major role in the naval history of World War II. Raeder attained the highest possible naval rank, Großadmiral (Grand Admiral), in 1939 and thus became the first person to hold that rank since Henning von Holtzendorff. Raeder led the Kriegsmarine (German: War Navy) for the first half of the war. He resigned in 1943 and was replaced by Karl Dönitz. Raeder was sentenced to life in prison at the Nuremberg Trials but was released early because of failing health.
Raeder is also well known for dismissing Reinhard Heydrich from the Reichsmarine in April 1931 for "conduct unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman".
This article covers Raeder's activities during World War II.
Beginning of the war: Raeder's political-naval plan
When Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, Raeder was shocked and shattered by the outbreak of a general war that for the Kriegsmarine was at least five years too early.Thomas (1990), p. 187. He wrote in the Seekriegsleitung war diary on 3 September 1939: "Today the war against England and France, which the Führer had previously assured us we would not have to confront until 1944 and which he believed he could avoid up until the very last minute, began ...As far as the Kriegsmarine is concerned, it is obvious that it is not remotely ready for the titanic struggle against England. To be sure, the brief period of time that has elapsed since the Agreement of 1935 has witnessed the creation of a well-trained and well-conceived force of U-boats, of which approximately twenty-six are currently ready for Atlantic operations, but these boats are still far too few to exert a decisive influence upon the war. The surface forces, moreover, are so weak and so few in numbers vis-à-vis the British fleet that the only course open to them-presupposing their active employment-is to show that they know how to die gallantly and thereby to create the basis for an eventual rebirth in the future". Because the great fleet envisioned in Plan Z existed only in blueprints or had just begun to be built, Raeder, as had Tirpitz in 1914, was forced to abandon his pre-war plans for a great naval battle in the North Sea but instead embraced the guerre de course strategy that he had previously opposed.Thomas (1990), p. 188. The disparity in size between the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine meant the great Entscheidungsschlacht in the Mahan-Tirpitz mold, which Raeder planned before the war, would end only in the destruction of the German force. Raeder's strategy, which was a modified version of the "double pole strategy" that he had devised before the war, called for the Panzerschiffe, auxiliary cruisers and submarines to attack British merchantmen all over the world to force the Royal Navy to divert its strength; meanwhile, the main surface ships would make frequent raids into the North Sea and so would gradually reduce the Royal Navy's strength. Raeder had great hopes for the auxiliary cruisers, which he sent to the Pacific, Indian and South Atlantic Oceans to tie down British warships all over the globe.Weinberg (2005), p. 369. To get around the problem of the lack of bases outside Germany and the shortage of Dithmarschen-class ships, Raeder had the Foreign Office in late 1939 negotiate secret agreements with Japan, Spain and the Soviet Union to allow German ships and submarines to use the ports of those nations to resupply, refuel and rearm.Bird (2006), p. 141. The shortage of surface vessels made Raeder's strategy very much a guerre de course strategy. He reluctantly followed it because the U-boats were the only offensive weapons at his disposal.
Raeder's strategy was as much political as it was naval. Having spent the last six years by championing to Hitler sea power as the only way in which Germany could become a world power, Raeder was anxious that the Kriegsmarine be seen as doing more than its share of the fighting to ensure that Hitler would reward it by not cutting its budget after the war. Raeder was obsessed with the fear that "the war would end before the heavy units had been engaged" and that the sailors would "fail" in their duty to the fatherland "due to inactivity", the last being a veiled reference to the mutiny of 1918.Herwig (1988) p. 98. In a message sent to all officers in June 1940, Raeder exclaimed: "The great aim of the Führer has set forth for the German nation requires the utmost exertion in all places ... A navy which undertakes daring actions against the enemy and suffers losses through this will be reborn on an even larger scale. If it has not fought this action, then its existence will be threatened after the war". As part of the "double pole strategy", mines were laid off the coast of Britain, and submarines and merchant raiders were sent out to the Atlantic.Weinberg (2005), p. 70. In the first days of the war, submarines were ordered not to practice unrestricted submarine warfare, as Hitler hoped that Britain and France would make peace after the conquest of Poland, and he feared that too many "incidents" at sea involving neutral shipping might bring the United States to the war, as had occurred in 1917. In support of Hitler's diplomatic strategy, Raeder ordered the skipper of the submarine that sank to falsify the logbook to support the German claim that the sinking of Athenia on 3 September 1939 had been a British provocation intended to fool the United States into declaring war on Germany. A major factor that assisted the war of the Kriegsmarine on British commerence was that the B-Dienst, as the German naval intelligence was known, had broken many of the British codes before the war.Weinberg (2005), p. 71.
In September 1939, Raeder further concentrated power in his hands by creating two Naval Group Commands, (Naval Command West and Naval Command East) to operate between the fleet commands and the naval headquarters in Berlin.Herwig (1988), p. 96. The Canadian historian Holger Herwig argued that Raeder wanted a splinted command structure to increase his power, and adding an extra layer of bureaucracy was unhelpful to efficiency. In the same way, Raeder always refused to appoint a flag officer with command experience to act as the liaison with the OKW for fear that such an officer might be a threat to his power.Herwig (1988), p. 102. As much as possible, Raeder tried to avoid co-operation with the army and the Luftwaffe and so Germany never had a joint chiefs of staff or anything like it during the war to prepare a coordinated strategy.
Like Hitler, Raeder viewed Britain, rather than France, as the main opponent, and accordingly wanted to focus on defeating the former first.Weinberg (2005), p. 110. A major problem for the Kriegsmarine was that as in World War I, it was difficult to attack the shipping in the Western Approaches to the British Isles from the North Sea from which it was likewise difficult to break out because of the British blockade.Weinberg (2005), p. 113. Raeder at first wanted an offensive to defeat France to use the ports on the French Atlantic coast and attack shipping in the Western Approaches, but he was informed by General Franz Halder of the Army General Staff that the army's current plans for a western offensive called for the army to seize northern France and the Low Countries, which would be used as a basis for a final offensive to defeat France sometime in 1942. In the interim, the areas seized would be used as the basis for launching air attacks on Britain. The Manstein Plan for a swift victory over France was not adopted until February 1940.
Learning of the Army's western offensive plans in September 1939 led Raeder to turn his thoughts towards Norway. At a meeting on 10 October 1939, Raeder pressed Hitler for an invasion of Norway, unrestricted submarine warfare and a declaration of war on the United States if too many "incidents" involving the sinking of neutral ships led to American support of the Allies.Weinberg (2005), p. 86.
The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote that Raeder was repeating "... the German navy leadership's argument of 1916 unaffected by the experience of 1917-18". Hitler gave his approval for unrestricted submarine warfare but also stressed to Raeder that he did not yet want the United States in the war.
Reflecting his concern with the political aspects of his plan. He wanted to gain enough glory at sea to win post-war budget battles and was furious with the outcome of the Battle of the River Plate.Bird (2006), p. 143. The captain of , Hans Langsdorff, believing that his damaged ship was faced with a superior British force, chose to scuttle his ship to spare the lives of his men. Both Hitler and Raeder believed that Langsdorff should have fought the British and gone down fighting, even if it meant the deaths of most or all of his crew. Raeder, knowing that Hitler was very displeased with the Kriegsmarine as a result of the River Plate, issued orders that naval commanders were no longer to concern themselves with the lives of their crews but were to go down fighting. Raeder's order of 22 December 1939 was intended to avoid a repeat of the scuttling of Admiral Graf Spee and read:
"The German warship and her crew are to fight with their strength to the last shell, until they win or they go down with their flag flying. Once engaged, the battle is to be fought to the finish." After the Battle of the River Plate, the Flottenchef Admiral Hermann Boehm was made the scapegoat for the scuttling of Admiral Graf Spee and was sacked by Raeder.
Raeder's deputy, Admiral Rolf Carls, wrote with pride in his diary in October 1941 that "all our forces have been deployed so often and so recklessly that never can the charge of tepidity be levelled against us".Herwig (1988), p. 100. Admiral Wilhelm Marschall after the war would call Raeder's strategy "wishful and prestige thinking, fateful overestimation of Germany's political and military possibilities, unfounded underestimation of the enemy England, and nonsensical insistence upon operational thoughts tied to the Z Plan" and a naval strategy based upon "phantasy, prestige-seeking and playing vabanque".
Operation Weserübung: invasion of Scandinavia