Memoirs

Rating:
Summary: The Man Behind the Mystery
Review: Karl Donitz wore many hats in World War II. The one he is most remebered for was his command of the U-Boat Fleet, and later in the War, the whole German Navy! He was faced with an enormous challenge in just these two positions, but then even later he put in charge of the German government and all facets of the many difficult decisions leading to surrender. This book is interesting for the World War II reader, but it is also an interesting study in human nature. Bravery, fear, and courage are displayed throughout this account of the rise and fall of the German Navy. Wonderful and factual!

Rating:
Summary: Once You Start You May Never Stop
Review: My friend lent me this book. It was my first book on the naval aspect of the Second World War. I figured after the hundreds I had read on the land and air element I should start to look into the naval war. I could not put this book down, I devoured it. I have been gobbling up submarine books since that day.
Wow! First you have to be awed by the fact that this is a book written by the man that became the successor to Hitler. Second, its the best way to get the big picture of the U-boat campaign from the German viewpoint. Doenitz wrote this before he found out about allied successes in breaking his naval codes.
There are many fascinating stories here, about individual submarine actions, convoy battles, raids, rescue missions. Great stuff that you could make into great movies some day. You really get a good sense of how close the Germans were to winning the war. Thankfully, and Doenitz goes into it, the Third Reich did not take the U-boat arm seriously until it was too late. Whew!
Doenitz was charged with war crimes after the war and jailed. Specifically for conducting unrestricted submarine warfare.
Like every nazi that seems to write after the war - he defends himself by saying that being at the front he was not aware of everything going on back at home. Truth? Maybe, maybe not. But you cannot stop yourself from sympathizing with the man who was left holding the bag in May of 1945. We forget that the Allies waged unrestricted submarine warfare against the Japanese from the beginning. Doenitz has written that some American admirals were sympathetic after the war, and tried to get him acquitted. Very interesting story. A must for every World War Two reader.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Overview of U-Boat War
Review: This is an excellent summary of the U-Boat war from the man who ran the German side of the conflict. He admits his errors frankly. His writing style is direct and factual. An outstanding book for any student of World War II.

Rating:
Summary: WWII is not an adventure story, it is a horror story
Review: This is not a book of words, it is a life, a soul and a confession by the head of the UBoat Command, the German Navy, and the man who was made Furher by Hitler when Hitler decided to commit suicide.

And as these are his memoirs, he has had time to reflect from his jail cell on his history and he has a message for you, me and all of us.

Donitz's recounting of the last two weeks of Germany before the surrender, and while he was Furher, taught me that WWII is not an adventure story, it is a horror story. This portion of the book, the last chapter, is the most incredible chapter I have ever read on WWII, or anything else for that matter.

Before hearing his story, I was your typical WWII buff, reading the books, reciting the exciting parts...always wondering why the WWII veterans in my family tree refused to talk about the war. And, if you, want exciting stories full of incredible UBoat exploits, then this could be the book for you.

But, eventually, he made it all so real to me that his writings, his experiences, they shamed me, they taught me of my gross naivety. You start to feel his pain, and the pain was great.

And he taught me why my old uncles never talked about it. They wanted to forget the pain. But, sadly, their children, such as I, were left with nowhere to learn this. We saw only the Hollywood version.

I will never be able to read a WWII book looking for adventure stories anymore. Donitz's memoirs cured me of that. May we never have another war. And I thank him for the lesson.

Rating:
Summary: Hitler's Poodle
Review: With all due respect, and Doenitz in his postwar years did command a great deal of respect in Germany, and still does today amongst German Naval Officers....As a soldier who had done his best under the circumstances.`

The original (German) edition of his book is well written and easily understood, and there is no question about the man's genius as a naval tactician. Doenitz had maximized the effectiveness of limited U-Boat resources by pack attacks on allied convoys. But he had sat on his laurels for too long.

The troubling part of his tactical strategy was that after the "happy times" in 1942 and to the end he continued to send his U-Boat men on virtual suicide missions into the North Atlantic. The man was too naive to accept the allies' upper hand in surface detection radar technology and in communications intercept and code breaking successes. After adding another rotor to the navy's enigma machines, he continued business as usual: Incessant radio communications with his commanders at sea. Instead of giving U-Boat commanders a free hand, (running silent) he attempted to micro manage every U-Boat's mission from shore. Recognizing and adopting to technological changes quickly obviously had strained his intellectual capacity. He could have saved thousands of young submariners by halting these reckless pursuits of heavily defended allied convoys, especially by mid 1944 when it became common knowledge that Germany had lost the war.

Although Doenitz had distanced himself from the Nazi political gangsters and Hitler's OKW toadies like Keitel and Jodl, he nevertheless remained a true believer and admirer of the Fuehrer. Going so far as to risk personal injury or death on a difficult journey to the Fuehrerbunker, a madhouse fifty feet below the rubble of Berlin, April 20th, 1945, not to miss Hitler's final birthday. And there and to the end it was: "Heil Hitler" as usual for the Admiral.

And so Doenitz had soldiered on, ignoring the ugly cancer that had grown on his country.