The Odyssey of a U-Boat Commander

by Erich Topp

  In 1848 the political forces of nationalism and liberalism, so strong elsewhere in Europe, failed to win the upper hand. Occasioned by problems in the fleet, the Revolution of 1918 was directed against the war and the monarchy. But it was burdened with the stigma of the military defeat and the fact that it seemed to exploit a national emergency. Its leaders, the moderate Social Democrats, trusted neither the "Red" sailors nor the socialist working class and found themselves before long driven into a compromise with the forces of the old regime, in particular the military, in order to ward off attacks from the far left. It is not surprising that the day of this revolution, November 9, was never celebrated during the Weimar Republic.

  Hitler's so-called National Revolution of January 30, 1933, was tainted from the beginning by terrorism. There was genuine social change, but political hubris very quickly brought on war, military collapse, physical destruction, and through criminal actions of the regime the greatest moral defeat ever in the history of the German people.

  July 20 was an uprising of the national conscience against this regime's crimes and injustice. The plan miscarried and it became impossible to avert the ultimate catastrophe. Nevertheless, July 20 like the revolutionary days of 1848 belongs to those events that we can be proud of and that did not prove futile if we allow for a longer historical perspective. July 20 is and remains a day of great and lasting significance in that it was a manifesto for justice and freedom. It bolstered the reputation of the German people after the events of the Third Reich and after the collective and unjust accusation that the Germans had been lax in their resistance against Hitler's regime of terror.

  By now many years have passed. Most of us no longer carry within ourselves an intimate picture of the events of those days. But there are still witnesses who, coming from different points of view, tell us about that day. Usually they can be divided into two groups. The first has char acterized July 20 from the beginning as an uprising of the national conscience against a regime of crime and terror. By contrast, we who were fighting the enemy at the front and knew relatively little about events back home condemned July 20 as a stab in the back of the fighting soldiers, as collaboration with the enemy, as high treason, and as a breach of our service oath. Today we have gained distance to those events and can judge them without passion, soberly. But what had really happened?

  After five years of war and struggle for our very existence, an assassination attempt was launched against the Fi hrer. The men responsible were a group of military officers who had sometimes close, sometimes looser contacts to labor leaders, politicians, and representatives of the Catholic and Lutheran Churches. What had brought these people together? It was the totalitarian claim of the regime toward its citizens, a claim that disregarded all religious and moral obligations on part of the state. The conscience of a nation rose against this claim, represented by the few who knew and were determined to resist.

  An extraordinarily clever leadership had managed to convince the entire nation that it found itself in a struggle for survival against capitalism, against Jewish bankers, against Bolshevism, and against enslavement by other European nations. By employing a confusing combination of truths and lies, Nazi propaganda easily overpowered the average citizen. Today we know that we were the aggressors against the Czechs, the Poles, and the Russians; that we murdered millions of Jews; that thousands of political dissidents were killed; and that we drove great, progressive minds in the sciences and in art into exile.

  An oath sworn on a person who disregards all ethical rules has its limitations under these extraordinary circumstances. But only a few were able to stop obeying; only a few had the information required to see the breadth and depth of the problem and the inner strength to nullify an oath that Hitler himself had broken from the very beginning.

  History provides many instances of seemingly inescapable and tragic entanglements. Those who have the strength to cut through the Knot of Gordium at the risk of their lives must remain outside our considerations at this point. But even among the resistance there were failures. It would take matters too far to expose each member of the resistance to a close psychological analysis. Certainly, their privileged upbringing and their environment motivated their actions, but that renders the latter no less noble. For in the end it is actions that speak the loudest, especially if they are undertaken from the strength of inner faith and conviction.

  From my own experiences abroad, from the uncounted discussions I have had with those who were persecuted and driven out of Germany, I believe I can judge what the deed of July 20, 1944, means. The men of the resistance brought Germany the first credit after the war in the eyes of the world. Through their deaths they atoned for the terrible crimes that Hitler inflicted upon the German people and all his victims. I believe this will remain the lasting significance of this day.

  One day we had a fascinating discussion about the meaning of tradition. Among those present were Dr. Warner, a teacher who was more of a philosopher; Dr. Besch, a theologian who had become a teacher; Vice Admiral Gerlach; and myself. My notes taken during our discussion still occupy me today.

  Man is nothing without the knowledge, experiences, abilities, and insights that our forebears have been passing on to us from generation to generation and that we must adapt to our present context. This uniquely human characteristic we call tradition. Tradition transcends the life span of an individual and touches on all aspects of our social order: ethics and morality; religion and justice; culture and symbols. Taken literally, tradition refers to that which has been passed down from our ancestors, but as we use the term today it also points to the future in the sense that traditional forms can be filled with new meaning. Wherever such a reevaluation process does not occur, tradition degenerates into a mechanical, self-justifying habit that mistrusts any form of innovation and becomes stuck in certain permanent relationships as far as religion, society, and history are concerned.

  Tradition is tied to intellectual and spiritual currents. I raised the question to what extent it is linked to metaphysics as well. Surprisingly liberal for a theologian, Dr. Besch suggested that the rebellion against metaphysics reaches far back into the past. Already the Greeks, notably Xenophanes, tried to liberate logos from mythos. As a result of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment we can discover similar tendencies in the work of Hegel and Marx. To install a metaphysical superstructure above our body of traditions is not a necessary requirement, but it has been done often in the past. There are examples in our history where absolute atheists promoted traditional western values such as duty, justice, freedom, and humanitarianism. Dr. Besch had Frederick the Great in mind.

  I tried next to place the basic values of our tradition into the center of our discussion. For my generation faith, loyalty, courage, honor, and fatherland stood out as such basic values and commitments. Whole generations have lived with a combination of these values, sometimes leading to mirages and self-delusions. Myths grew up around them. Then came Darwin. He supplied the fighting hordes with scientific justifications for their actions-struggle for existence, selection of the fittest. Hegel and Nietzsche furnished the philosophical background. German idealism made war the "father of all things." Dr. Warner reminded us that Heraclitus's dictum is often misinterpreted because it is not to be taken liter ally. Rather it is a metaphor for the struggle of rival forces that constitutes the nature of the human existence.

  Gerlach added that the basic values as described by me did not only affect my generation but rather the history, legends, and myths of more than 2,000 years of western civilization. Their strongest representative is the hero. The encyclopedia defines a "hero" as "a warrior of extraordinary bravery whose deeds and fate separate him from the rest and make him a model for many." I had to think of Gottfried Benn's observation about "the lost illusions about the glory of the hero and the myth of power" and how already Cervantes in Don Quixote had satirized the role of the hero in a changed world. But I also was reminded of the men in totalitarian states who st
ood up for justice and freedom and who maintained their stand until the bitter end despite physical and mental torture. Were they not heroes, too? I remembered the U-boat commander who removed a portrait of Hitler from his boat's wardroom with the words, "We are not in the habit of worshipping idols." He criticized the regime, did not believe in the final victory, but did his duty nonetheless. Denounced by his executive officer, he was arrested, tried, and executed for "undermining the fighting spirit of the military." I saw the women in the bombed cities who fought for the lives of their children between their workplace and the air raid shelters and lost this struggle. Were they not heroes?

  We all agreed that a modern soldier's chief task is to prevent war through his very existence, even if he must be trained to use nuclear weapons as a last resort. His relationship to the word "hero" evidently differs from that of a traditional "warrior of extraordinary bravery." Every generation faces anew the challenge of analyzing and assessing the chain of traditional values that for centuries have determined our course of action and will matter in shaping our future. This is an inescapable task as long as each generation carries with it a sense of responsibility, creative energies, and the desire to improve state and society. The obligation to reevaluate traditions is particularly urgent after great catastrophes. The post-war generation cannot limit itself to setting new accents but must design a humanitarian order that can withstand the menace of totalitarian powers and Promethean forces.

  Once more I asked the question: Which basic values should we retain? We were unanimous in the view that the central virtues that had always informed a soldier's life are as valid as ever: intelligence, courage, justice, moderation. Gerlach listed intelligence first because it defined the goals and contents of the other virtues. Courage, for example, presupposes that I know whether my courage makes any sense. The past war produced many situations in which the traditional limits of decisions and of bravery were stretched, quite apart from the question whether the actions paid off or not.

  The same holds true for justice. Did we always know what was just? Intelligence provides us with the ability to come to alternative conclusions. Every soldier and every member of the resistance movement made a decision for and against a particular course of action. Every individual must be able to determine for himself or herself what constitutes courage, justice, and moderation. Not everyone is equipped to do this; those who are carry an even greater burden of responsibility than the rest. To live up to these virtues is something I owe to myself. One can expect from me that I do so, to the extent they can be taught; but you can never command others to embrace such virtues under pain of punishment.

  We also agreed that these basic virtues and their interpretations have changed little since the time of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. And yet it is our obligation to reassess them constantly against the backdrop of our changing world. Finally, I asked to what purposes the pursuit of these virtues should be tied. Is it enough to say that society should benefit from them, to further the bonttm commune? Or would we still need some kind of metaphysical consideration? We came to the conclusion that in this case everyone would have to come up with his own answer.

  Other nations enjoy the advantage of never finding their chain of traditions severed. On October 11, 1971, I was present when Japanese Emperor Hirohito visited Bonn. Japan, like Germany, is a conquered nation and is also burdened by many war crimes. For me, the Emperor personified Japan's traditions in the best sense of the word. In 1941 he listened to a presentation of Japan's top politicians and military leaders whose purpose was to gain the Tenno's consent for a declaration of war. His only reaction was to recite the words of an ancestor of his from a line of rulers that went back 2,000 years. It was a symbol of peace, words that stressed the importance of the sea as a link between countries and peoples. In 1946 Hirohito accepted before a U.S. military tribunal full responsibility for Japan's war guilt. There were no attempts at justifying what he had done. Here tradition, dignity, and form merged in an impressive combination. In contrast, Germany's top politicians of all stripes still try to make political hay out of confessions of guilt that lack any sense of historical dimensions.

  My time as Chief of Staff at the Fleet Command was a time of contemplation and learning. In this period I gained many new insights from many different sources, even though my experience had to remain a limited one given the massive holdings of the archives and the work of historians who were busy assessing the available materials. But the insights opened a world for me in which I wanted to participate and articulate my viewpoints by way of correspondence, book reviews, and panel discussions. This attitude encouraged me to become a consultant for the Bavarian Broadcasting Service when it did a six-part television series about "The German Soldier in World War II. " The North German Broadcasting Service interviewed me for its documentary "Gegen Engeland, " which chronicled the Battle of the Atlantic. I also agreed to be interviewed by the American Broadcasting System for a U.S. television production.

  Department Head for Planning; Deputy Inspector of the Navy; Navy Chief of Staff: November 1965 to December 1969

  I took up my post at the Defense Ministry at a time of strong tensions between the planning staff for the entire armed forces and its counterpart in the Navy. The overall planning staff had issued a decree that characterized the Navy's role as follows: "Operations are to be limited to the western Baltic and those parts of the North Sea coastal waters that are under German jurisdiction. There is no need to build guided missile destroyers. "

  My first considerations and questions were these: Is our way of presenting our case adequate? Does the other side lack essential insight and information? Is it just another case of how to cut up the pie, given limited resources in the defense budget? Or are we poor salesmen when it comes to promoting our ideas? I reached the conclusion that we needed very careful planning by systematically using scientific methodology and operations research.

  In dealing with our adversaries we had to develop a kind of fact-based rhetoric that was free of appeals to emotions and hypotheses and instead stressed reason, precision, insight into complex circumstances, the capacity for self-criticism, and a certain professional optimism. Here U.S., British, and French military policy supplied working models for us so that we did not have to start from scratch. My stint in Washington and my close connections to the Pentagon had familiarized me with the methods we needed to apply. In particular we had to deliver the proper ammunition to the political leaders of parliament so that they could present the concerns of the Navy with a high degree of credibility to the committees in charge of national security.

  As far as Berlin was concerned, NATO had created so-called contingency plans that allowed for a range of political, economic, and military countermeasures in case of renewed challenges by the other side. These options included so-called maritime control measures. They ranged all the way from electronic interference with enemy communications, interrupting enemy ship traffic, and blocking of certain waterways, to the blockade of large areas of ocean space. Next to the obvious ability to defend one's own country the implementation of such measures in times of crises required warships equipped with the latest in naval and weapons technology.

  For the next few months the emphasis of presentations and meetings rested on just that point, namely, to familiarize everyone engaged in toplevel planning with the need for modernization and the reasons behind it. At the same time we demonstrated to outsiders how crucial modernization was for the Navy itself. We knew that the restructuring of the entire Bundeswehr would hit the Navy hard. We were prepared to accept budget cuts and modifications of many kinds, but to preserve the core of a modern navy, as our own planning staff had worked it out, remained a goal we would not give up. Everyone of us, down to the lowliest sailor, had to keep this goal in mind.

  This goal kept us moving ahead, gave us inspiration when the going was tough, became the psychological basis for our personnel recruitment, and strengthened us in our daily work. It also gave us th
e backbone to stand up when we were challenged by others, for example the press, television, radio, members of parliament, friends in our own ranks, and representatives of the other branches of the military. In particular we tried to complete plans for the procurement of guided missile corvettes and present them to the defense committee. At the same time we lobbied individual members of parliament of all parties. By mid-1966 we reached the point that the acquisition from the United States of three guided missile destroyers of the Adams class became a distinct possibility, especially in the context of the "Offset Agreement" that tried to balance the cost of stationing U.S. troops in Germany by the purchase of American-made weaponry for the German military.

  In a meeting with the defense minister on September 17 the revised building program for the Navy was approved: We would buy three guided missile destroyers from the United States and construct four guided missile corvettes in German shipyards. The minister in particular expressed his appreciation for the Navy's successful efforts to save money and personnel. It was predictable on the other hand that our agreement with the minister would face stiff opposition from the overall planning staff of the armed forces, as well as from the ministry's economic and budget departments.

  On October 3, 1966, I became Deputy Inspector of the Navy, relieving Rear Admiral Hetz who took over as Fleet Commander. Among my first actions in my new post I sought the cooperation of my colleagues representing the Army and Luftwaffe, Major Generals Hubert Sonneck and Dr. Adolf Hempel, respectively. We arranged for a weekly conference to talk about all items before they would be passed on to the overall planning staff of the armed forces.

  After the four guided missile corvettes had been approved by the defense minister and at last also by the top leadership of the armed forces, our attention shifted to aircraft with ECM (electronic countermeasures) capabilities and so-called Elint trawlers (electronic intelligence). Already during normal times, but especially in times of international tension, it was paramount to gather a broad spectrum of insights into a potential enemy's intentions. Such insights allowed our side to select from a correspondingly broader choice of instruments to control the situation. Conventional methods of gathering such information, for example spies, could do little for us under the circumstances. About 90 percent of our information came from electronic reconnaissance. Therefore it was important to strengthen our capabilities in this area. The Navy in particular could make a considerable contribution to this intelligence-gathering effort by operating in the open waters of the Baltic Sea even in times of peace and by employing electronic listening equipment at relatively short distances against East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. This contribution made the Federal Navy an interesting and desirable partner in NATO's intelligence exchange.