Walter Lohmann (born 30 December 1878 in Bremen; died 29 April 1930 in Rome) was a German Reichsmarine officer with the rank of captain. From 1920 to 1927 as commander of the Naval Transportation Division, Lohmann ran a secret rearmament and research program on behalf of the Ministry of the Reichswehr in an attempt to circumvent the Versailles restrictions. Lohmann's access to naval offices in Königsberg, Lübeck, Stettin, Hamburg, and Bremen gave him access to very specialized information and financial resources. He used this knowledge in his work in a way that was far beyond his authority and technical competence. Favoured by the interests of the Chief of Naval Headquarters, Admiral Paul Behncke, it led to uncontrolled scope for legal violations, criminal activity and high-handed action by individuals within the ministry. When his work was discovered in 1927, the scandal became known as the Lohmann affair in Germany and led to the resignation of Reichswehr Minister Otto Gessler in January 1928 and director of naval command Admiral Hans Zenker. Lohmann himself was retired and his pension was cut, but he was never prosecuted, because to uncover the affair's true background would have been too great a risk. Completely impoverished, Lohmann died three years later of a heart attack. After he was relieved of duty, the clandestine rearmament programme was continued and expanded.
Life Lohmann was the youngest son of Johann Georg Lohmann , who was a director of the German shipping company Norddeutscher Lloyd and Clarissa Lohmann, née Frost, an English woman. His older brother was Alfred Lohmann, who was president of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce.
Career After attending school, Lohmann joined the Imperial Navy as a naval cadet on 7 April 1897. After his officer training, he was deployed to the Far East: first in 1903 to the gunboat SMS Tiger, and then from 1910 as company commander in the German colony of Tsingtau. With the outbreak of World War I, he was appointed to the rank of Korvettenkapitän I artillery officer aboard the dreadnought Prinzregent Luitpold where he worked as a non-combat logistics specialist. In March 1918, he was transferred to the Imperial Naval Office (Reichsmarineamt), where he worked in the Navy Transport Division (See-transportabteilung in der Marineleitung) from December 1918.
As a representative of the Sea Transport Department in the General Naval Office, Lohmann took part in the maritime armistice negotiations in 1919 in England. While there he worked with the Permanent Naval Allied Armistice Commission (PANAC) organisation to enable German shipping to commence overseas lines, which were critical to the recovery of the German economy. Lohmann secured over 1000 travel authorisations to enable German ships to pass through the blockade of Germany. He was still in England when the Kapp Putsch occurred on 13 March 1920, so his career was not compromised. When he returned, he was appointed commander (Chef der Seetransportabteilung der Reichsmarine) of the Naval Transport Division (BS) on 28 October 1920.
He was also on very good terms with Chief of Naval Headquarters, Admiral Paul Behncke and this further consolidated his position, receiving significant promotion of himself and the field of work. At the time, Behncke required an overview of the merchant marine as he believed it still had a role even under the Treaty of Versailles. Behncke subordinated Lohmann to the Ministry for Reconstruction on 21 December 1920 with a request that he attend all meetings where commercial shipping was discussed. In May 1921, Lohmann managed to secure some shipping that had been seized by the British and used for prisoner of war transports that were returned to their former owners, which raised his reputation amongst his colleagues considerably and set a precedent for future purchases. In October 1921, he visited Leningrad to reach an agreement for the release of German shipping that were still considered seaworthy with Leon Trotsky and foreign minister Georgy Chicherin. A further visit followed in May 1922, with a delegation to complete negotiations with the Russian Admiralty. While there, he met the German ambassador Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau and informed him that due to the influence of Hans von Seeckt, negotiations with Trotsky and all official bodies had turned sour. During his visits, he became acquainted with Else Ektimov, a Russian women of German descent and arranged for her to return to Germany.
Collapse By 1927, Lohmann's health had been damaged by his frantic efforts to complete the rearmament programme and even though he had several indiscretions that could have exposed him, it wasn't until August 1927 that his programme was finally exposed due to the investigative work of the Berliner Tageblatt economics journalist, Kurt Wenkel. Wenkel had wondered since mid-July 1927 how Phoebus-Film AG could delay its collapse for so long. During that same month his questions were answered when he received information indirectly about Lohmann's financials in Phoebus-Film AG and Berliner Bankverein from the former director of the company, Sally Isenberg, who was in dispute with the film company. Beginning on 8 August 1927, Wenkel began publishing a series of articles that lasted for two weeks, that had titles like "The film scandal in the Ministry of Defense" and "Captain and Merchant".
The government under Reichskanzler Wilhelm Marx tried to limit the damage. The Wenkel articles were removed from publication under threat of prosecution for treason. However, by 10 August, it was clear that denial wouldn't work and the government decided to take a more measured approach, confirming only the essentials. The economic activities were portrayed as the work of a subordinate official that resulted in the financial mismanagement at the Phoebus company. What was then known as the Phoebus scandal become known as the Lohmann Affair.
On 13 August 1927, the government instructed President of the Court of Audit Friedrich Saemisch to investigate the incident in the hope of avoiding a government committee investigation. Lohmann believed he would be cleared of all blame as he considered it his job to exceed authority and to keep his actions secret from Naval Command to ensure the success of the rearmament programme. Saemisch found such an attitude was anathema to the strictures of Naval Command who wanted to dismiss him. However, Saemisch realised that such an action would have exposed the government to further scandal as there was many other aspects to Lohmanns work that were still unknown to the public. Instead, he recommended that Lohmann be quietly retired, on a reduced pension.
Saemisch submitted both a written report and oral summary to the government on 8 November 1927. Although Marx was facing significant pressure from the opposition parties to publish the report, he was hesitant to publish in case it led to further exposure, even though it was free of military secrets. On 28 January, Marx asked for the resignation of Reichswehr Minister Otto Gessler before a crucial parliamentary debate, ensuring the opposition parties had little ammunition to attack the government. Even so, on 1 March 1928, the budget committee demanded that it be published. Instead, Marx published a new report "Report on the nature, extent and implementation of the so-called Lohmann undertakings" on the 10 March 1928 that focused explicitly on the financial aspects of the Phoebus-Film AG company. Marx shared the original report with the heads of the opposition parties to stress the national security implications of keeping it secret. On 31 March 1928, the Marx government acting on Saemisch's recommendations, retired Lohmann, drastically reduced his pension and made him liable for the sum of 120,000RM for damages associated with Phoebus. His expected promotion to Vizeadmiral was also permanently deferred.
Death During a business trip to Italy, Lohmann died of a heart attack in Rome on 29 April 1930, at the age of 52.
Rearmament programme
Lohmanns rearmament concept At the time there were two prevailing views in German Naval Command. The official strategy developed and advanced by the Chief of the Fleet Department and supported by Admiral Hans Zenker was to build Deutschland-class cruisers. These were unofficially known as "pocket battleships" by the British and officially called armoured ships in Naval Command, that were built in accordance with restrictions imposed by the Versailles treaty. These diesel driven ships were lightly armoured but heavily armed with six 11-inch guns and were to be fast with a range that exceeded any other cruiser or capital ship of the period. In this way, Loewenfeld and Zenker hoped to tie up the French Navy in support of their merchant fleet in the Atlantic, while keeping the sea lanes clear in the north of Scotland to ensure it wouldn't be subject to any further naval blockades. It also had the added benefit of what was known as "Bündnisfähigkeit" (alliance capability), i.e. should there be an alliance, the vessels would make a strong contribution to that alliance. By technically staying inside the terms of the treaty, they hoped to persuade the signatories of the treaty, Great Britain, USA, France, Italy and Japan to accept Germany into the group of countries with a navy and thus abolish the restrictions. Lohmann along with Rear Admiral , Director of submarines advocated for a rapprochement with the Soviet Union as they believed it could provide prohibited war materials and at the same time, improve economic ties with Germany. However Lohmann's views were rejected by Naval Command. Although his views were not welcome, he had a remarkably free hand as the officer responsible for relations with Moscow.
Funding The Occupation of the Ruhr beginning on 11 January 1923, failed to dent Lohmann's career. The Reichsbank provided 100 million gold deutsche marks to the Reichswehr for the possible escalation of hostilities, which never occurred. At the end of the occupation, the monies were never returned, instead what remained was shared amongst the services. By that point Behncke trusted Lohmann completely and in early 1923, assigned the Reichsmarine's share of what constituted black funds, amounting to 10 million Reichsmarks for Lohmann to administer. Other monies were collected by the Reichsmarine during that period by the sale of warships and submarines that were scrapped. This raised the black funds to 25million marks. A further deposit of 2.5million Reichmarks (RM) from Reichstag coffers along with 2.25million from other sources was provided for distribution by Lohmann, bringing the total to 29.75million marks.
When he received the funds, Lohmann began to gradually develop a plan under the title "Principle of Reconstruction", to both finance and secure prohibited war materials, believing he could count on receiving further funding totaling 40-50million marks in the future. A 1926 ministry memorandum "Denkschrift über die Notwendigkeit der Beschaffung eines langfristigen Kredites zur Sicherstellung gewisser militärisch notwendiger Marinebelainge, denen aus verschiedenen Gründen beim Ordentlichen Marinehaushalt nicht Rechnung getragen Werden kann" (Memorandum on the necessity of obtaining a long-term loan to secure certain militarily necessary naval assets which, for various reasons, cannot be taken into account in the regular naval budget) illustrated Lohmanns financial concept.
Financial concept