Dönitz: The Last Führer by Peter Padfield Read Free Book Online Page B

ways. For it turned out the cruiser was despatched to the Mediterranean and he was able to enjoy a culturally and socially broadening life very different from that he would have experienced in the Home Fleet, whose officers lived at the few northern bases in closed societies no different from those of garrison regiments in provincial towns, where monotony manifested itself in excessive drinking, indebtedness and petty disputation over rank and status.
    Similarly in professional matters, he obtained a far wider experience and many more opportunities to exercise initiative and judgement than would have come his way in the fleet. Also as a protégé of his idol, von Loewenfeld, his natural ability was fostered in a demanding, often unconventional but rewarding atmosphere. The first officer’s confidence in him was revealed immediately he reported to the Captain, von Klitzing, for he was given the important and for an inexperienced
Fähnrich
unusual post of signals officer. This was a particularly significantassignment in a scouting cruiser in those days of the infancy of wireless telegraphy, and says more for the opinion von Loewenfeld had formed of him than a written report. Late in life he could still recall his horror when he was told of his assignment, especially when he learned he had just five weeks to prepare himself for large-scale fleet exercises. He was spared this test at the last moment; war broke out in the Balkans and the
Breslau
was despatched to the Mediterranean to uphold Germany’s interests in company with the new battlecruiser,
Goeben
.
    This was splendid news for the crew, and Dönitz when he heard the announcement so far forgot his reserve as to launch himself jubilantly at von Loewenfeld’s side; the first officer, as pleased as he, overlooked the indiscipline. They embarked stores, coal and ammunition hurriedly overnight and sailed early the next morning.
    A few days and they were in milder southern weather, passing Gibraltar, the British lion couchant guarding the entrance to the middle sea; soon afterwards they were steaming through the narrows of Valletta harbour, Malta, to replenish bunkers at this British fortress commanding the centre of the strategic board. What, one wonders, were Dönitz’s thoughts as from his mooring station aft he gazed up at the formidable stone walls and battlements sparkling in the clear air and saw inside the basin the White Ensigns blowing from the jacks of the lines of warships of the British Mediterranean Fleet? He would have had more than a passing acquaintance with British naval history; it was studied with some fascination in the German service; Tirpitz and von Bülow had spent a great deal of the first decade of the century mesmerized by the 1807 Battle of Copenhagen when the British fleet had wiped out the Danish Navy in a pre-emptive strike without declaring war—and which the British First Sea Lord, Fisher, had been prepared to repeat, so it was believed, on the German Navy before it grew too large. ‘Lord Fisher of Copenhagen’ was the name he enjoyed in Berlin and Kiel.
    Now a more serious danger threatened. It had been clarified by the very events in the Balkans which had brought the
Goeben
and
Breslau
racing out to the Mediterranean. For the fighting threatened to draw in Austria-Hungary against Serbia; Serbia was supported by Russia; Russia was in alliance with France, and as Germany was bound to support her ally, Austria, the great European war was only one rash step away. While the
Breslau
, after filling her bunkers in Grand Harbour, was on her way to the trouble spot, the German Ambassador in London was informed that in the event of the Balkans war spreading to the greatpowers, Britain would find it impossible to remain neutral; she had formed links with France and Russia and she would come in on their side. The Ambassador sent a report of the interview to Berlin. The Kaiser erupted, scribbling impetuously in the margin, ‘The final struggle