On the first of October 1946, in the German city of Nuremberg, after more than ten months of trial, twenty-one of the most important political, military, and economic leaders of Nazi Germany heard their sentences read before the International Military Tribunal. These high-ranking representatives of the criminal Nazi regime were finally called to answer for the unspeakable atrocities committed during the Second World War. Most of the accused were sentenced to death by hanging, while three received life imprisonment. One of those three was the German admiral who had built and directed the German Navy, and who, for most of the war until his retirement in 1943, bore responsibility for the atrocities committed by Nazi naval forces.
His name was Erich Raeder. Erich Johann Albert Raeder was born on 24 April 1876 in Wandsbek, then part of the German Empire. In his youth, he was deeply influenced by his father’s strict values, which emphasized hard work, thrift, religion, and obedience, principles Raeder upheld throughout his life. He joined the Imperial Navy in 1894 and rose steadily through the ranks due to his intelligence and dedication, eventually becoming chief of staff to Admiral Franz von Hipper in 1912.
Known for his cold and distant personality, Raeder was a man whom even his closest friends admitted to knowing very little about. During his early career, the most influential figure in the Navy was Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the autocratic state secretary of the Navy. Tirpitz aimed to make Germany a world power by building a powerful fleet that would deter Britain from going to war with Germany and shift the balance of power in favor of the Reich. Under his leadership, the German Navy grew from a small coastal defense force in 1897 into the formidable High Seas Fleet by 1914.
The First World War began on 28 July 1914. Two years later, in May 1916, Raeder participated in the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of the war, fought between the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet. Although the British lost more ships and sailors, they maintained naval dominance. The war, which ended on 11 November 1918, had a profound impact on Raeder’s personal life.
He lost his two younger brothers, who were killed in action, and the stress related to the war caused his first marriage to fall apart. In 1920, he married his second wife, and together they had one son. That same year, Raeder was involved in the failed Kapp Putsch, an attempted coup against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. The goal of the coup was to undo the German Revolution of 1918–1919, overthrow the Weimar Republic, and establish an autocratic government.
It was supported by parts of the Reichswehr, the German Army, as well as nationalist and monarchist factions. After the failure of the coup, Raeder was marginalized in the Navy and transferred to the naval archives, where for two years he played a leading role in writing the official history of the Navy in the First World War. Following this period, Raeder resumed his steady rise in the naval hierarchy. In October 1928, he was promoted to admiral and made chief of the naval command of the Weimar Republic’s Navy.
Seeking to counter his image as an anti-republican right-wing extremist, which had persisted since the days of the Kapp Putsch, he repeatedly declared his support for the Weimar Constitution. In April 1931, Raeder dismissed Reinhard Heydrich, the future head of the Nazi Reich Security Main Office, from the Navy for conduct unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman. Heydrich, a notorious womanizer, was removed after compromising the virtue of a shipyard director’s daughter. By the early 1930s, Raeder’s political views were complex.
On one hand, he fundamentally rejected social democracy and supported an authoritarian right-wing government. On the other hand, he had no sympathy for Adolf Hitler and referred to his political speeches as criminal. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. Raeder generally resisted attempts by the Nazi Party to establish influence within the Navy, though he preferred compromise over confrontation whenever possible.
However, he could not avoid a confrontation with Reinhard Heydrich, who had never forgiven Raeder for dishonorably discharging him in 1931. Heydrich engaged in petty harassment, such as tapping Raeder’s telephone and spreading rumors that Raeder was a secret anti-Nazi who refused to discharge Jews from the Navy. Although Raeder maintained throughout his life that he was above politics, in 1937 Hitler awarded him the Golden Party Badge to honor his work in promoting National Socialism within the Navy. In April 1939, Raeder attained the highest possible naval rank, becoming Grand Admiral.
The Second World War began on 1 September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. When Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, Raeder was shocked and shattered. Germany’s surface fleet was inadequate to fight the British Royal Navy. This war had come at least five years too early, and Hitler had previously assured Raeder that they would not have to confront a war until 1944.
In the early months of the war, the Allies used Norwegian airfields to transfer aircraft to the Finns, who were fighting the Soviets in the Winter War from November 1939 to March 1940. Additionally, the Allies were mining Norwegian waters, alarming the Germans. If the Allies successfully used Norwegian naval bases or mined Norwegian waters, they could cut off Germany’s vital iron ore imports from Sweden and tighten the blockade of Germany. In October 1939, Raeder proposed the invasion of Norway to Hitler.
His primary motivation was to use the country as a base for naval attacks on Britain. Only in early 1940 did Raeder first mention protecting the sea lanes for Swedish iron ore as a secondary reason for the occupation. On 9 April 1940, under the code name Operation Weserübung, Nazi Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. Denmark’s strategic importance to Germany was as a staging area for operations in Norway.
The invasion of Denmark lasted less than six hours, making it the shortest military campaign conducted by the Germans during the war. Norway, in contrast, surrendered only after two months, on 10 June 1940. The invasion proved costly for the Navy, which lost a heavy cruiser, two of its six light cruisers, ten of its twenty destroyers, and six submarines. Almost all of the other capital ships were damaged and required dockyard repairs.
For a time, the German surface fleet had only three light cruisers and four destroyers operational. In the aftermath of the Norwegian campaign, the German invasion of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands began on 10 May 1940 and became known as the Battle of France. These countries, along with France, were conquered within six weeks. The rapid defeat of France allowed the German Navy to establish bases on France’s western coast.
This move was strategically crucial, as it meant German warships no longer had to pass through the dangerous English Channel to return to friendly ports, and it extended their reach into the Atlantic to target convoys. Following France’s surrender, Raeder saw a chance to boost the Navy’s strength by seizing French ships and staffing them with German crews. However, Hitler opposed this idea, fearing it would push the French Navy to align with the Royal Navy. British concerns about Raeder’s plan led to the attack on neutral French Navy ships at the naval base at Mers-el-Kébir.
The British bombardment on 3 July 1940 killed 1,297 French servicemen, sank a battleship, and damaged five other ships, for a British loss of five aircraft shot down and two crewmen killed. After the attack, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote that it was the most hateful decision, the most unnatural and painful, in which he had ever been concerned. From September 1940, Raeder urged Hitler to pursue an aggressive Mediterranean policy as an alternative to an attack on Russia and voiced serious objections to the Russian campaign before the defeat of England. However, after receiving an endowment of 250,000 Reichsmarks, equivalent to more than 2.
1 million US dollars today, on the occasion of his 65th birthday in April 1941, he changed his position. Once the decision had been made, he gave permission, six days before the invasion of the Soviet Union, to attack Russian submarines in the Baltic Sea. It was common in Nazi Germany for many high-ranking officers of the German military to receive systematic bribes from Hitler in the form of extra payments, grants, and even gifts of land and estates. After the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the German Navy was forced to fight not only in the Atlantic but also in the northern seas to stop Allied convoys supplying the Soviet Union.
At the same time, Raeder wanted to start firing on US warships even if unprovoked, and throughout 1941 urged Hitler to declare war on the United States. Raeder’s career as a top naval officer effectively ended after the Battle of the Barents Sea, fought on 31 December 1942 between British and German naval forces in the Arctic Ocean. A British convoy of fourteen merchant ships, carrying over 100 aircraft, 2,000 vehicles, 200 tanks, aviation fuel, and other essential supplies, was on route to the Soviet Union when it was intercepted by a German fleet led by Admiral Oskar Kummetz. Despite being outgunned, the British, commanded by Captain Robert Sherbrooke, effectively defended the convoy.
British destroyers and smaller warships skillfully used smoke screens and aggressive tactics to fend off the German heavy cruisers and destroyers. The Germans failed to destroy any merchant ships, leading to a significant strategic and morale victory for the Allies. The battle’s outcome had profound consequences, exposing the ineffectiveness of the German surface fleet in such engagements. Admiral Kummetz, on his way back to Norway, chose to maintain radio silence to avoid reporting his failure.
However, Hitler eventually learned about the incident not from his admirals but from Reuters, which broadcast the news with great fanfare on the night of 1 January 1943. The news infuriated Hitler, especially since he received official confirmation from Raeder only on 6 January, six days after the British radio announcement. Following Hitler’s outrage, Raeder offered his resignation. Karl Dönitz then replaced him as commander-in-chief of the Navy, and Raeder was named admiral inspector, a purely ceremonial office.
The Second World War in Europe ended on 8 May 1945, and the following month Raeder was captured by Soviet troops and imprisoned in Moscow. At the end of July, he was taken to Nuremberg to stand trial on several counts: conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression, participation in war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The most serious charge against Raeder was that he carried out unrestricted submarine warfare, including the sinking of unarmed merchant ships of neutrals, non-rescue, and the machine gunning of survivors, contrary to the London Protocol of 1936. Raeder was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life imprisonment.
He was surprised by the verdict, as he had expected to be sentenced to death. Due to his ill health, he was eventually released in September 1955. Erich Raeder died of natural causes on 6 November 1960 in Kiel, West Germany, at the age of eighty-four.
There were no tears shed for Erich Raeder.