by Erich Topp
In 1967 an official trip to England allowed me to gain a close-up view of the British military leadership. Their self-image and inner strength seemed exemplary to me. The impressions I gathered confirmed that in the last war we faced a high quality opponent. Now we sat together in the same NATO boat, albeit at a friendly distance. The occasion for my trip was an invitation to participate in the Atlantic/Channel Symposium 1967 as well as an invitation to meet the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, and the Allied Commander in Chief, Channel, at Lancaster House, St. James, London, on October 4. We had lunch in the Painted Hall, an old, venerable building, in the presence of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.
In every respect my stay in England was an unforgettable, interesting series of events. In Greenwich I experienced the tradition of a world and sea power. Even in its afterglow the once mighty empire has its fascination. It has formed the English, given them both self-assurance and their sense of understatement. I met a number of the most outstanding representatives of this people and I returned home enriched through many valuable human contacts. Also impressive for me were the many cultural and historical attractions, such as the National Museum, Windsor, Eton, Winchester, Romsey Abbey, and all that with Captain E. G. Kray, our naval attache in London, as our expert guide.
On August 6, 1969, Defense Minister Schroder, then vacationing on the island of Sylt, made the decision that as of October 1 Admiral Kuhnle would take over my responsibilities as Deputy Inspector of the Navy and I would be without official assignment for the rest of the year. I decided to stay my course, fulfill my duties as usual, and suppress my own emotions. Outwardly I showed myself relaxed and accepted this exit in style, including the honor of receiving Germany's Great Order of Merit.
At the official retirement ceremony I made these points clear to the State Secretary:
1. I accept the decision not to send me to Norway because it is the right thing to do from a foreign policy point of view.
2. 1 consider myself the victim of political animosities abroad. Any other military establishment in the world would have compensated such a victim within its means in his own country. SACEUR will note with interest that the officer who was supposedly indispensable for the Navy is now being retired. The State Secretary replied: "You have done great things for the Navy as I already told you in connection with the Oslo affair. You have done much for the armed forces in general, but the constellation was not in your favor. Is it painful for you to take your leave?" I answered: "Real life always requires changes and adjustments, no matter how painful they may be." The State Secretary: "The Navy will have a tough time under Defense Minister Schmidt." My response: "The Navy is used to fight." The State Secretary: "That reminds me of MacArthur who, his troops surrounded by the Japanese in the Philippines, was ordered to return to Washington. As he left he set the signal, 'I shall return.' And return he did." Why did he tell me that? Did he somehow think I would make a comeback?
If I let my four years at the ministry pass in review, I must admit there were things I did not handle very well. On the other hand, I was clear in my mind that one can only play with the hand one has been dealt. I would also say that my time in Bonn brought me the satisfaction of realizing that our modernization program was now under way or at the very least well thought out.
Everyone approaches his assignment with certain experiences, with energy and enthusiasm. Then comes the realization that possibilities and limitations face each other in a rather stable relationship. Allow me to mention just two of these limitations: the small size of the Navy as one of three branches of the armed forces, and the organization of the ministry. I saw it as one of my obligations to maintain and defend the independence of the Navy as one of three equal branches of the military. This conviction had brought me into conflict with the leadership staff of the armed forces and led in the final analysis to my early retirement.
Things seemed ready to take another unforeseen twist when on November 5, 1969, I received a summons from the new Defense Minister Helmut Schmidt. He asked me if I would like to join a new and yet-to-beformed planning team. I then had a long talk with Dr. Sommer of the newspaper Die Zeit, who was to head the planning team and whose deputy I was slated to become. Based on the projections we had already done inside the ministry, I could present him with a draft proposal for possible modifications. Sommer and I agreed that our team should come up with alternative plans for the minister so that he would not have to rely exclusively on Fu S. This would enable him to be truly in charge of all planning activities. We also wanted to bring into the process groups of outside experts such as the ZOR (Center for Operations and Research), the operations and research groups of three major private institutes, and the people who analyzed the research and exercises of the armed forces.
I will never know whether my old adversaries in the ministry managed to persuade Schmidt to keep me off the planning team, or if the minister simply could not create an appropriate position for me considering my experience and rank. What weighed on me more heavily, and what Schmidt also stressed, was the possibility that as a member of the planning team I might have to argue in favor of positions that stood in contrast to the concepts I had lobbied for in parliament and before committees over the past three years. Schmidt indicated at the time that he could not guarantee a future for the MRCA (Multi-Role Combat Aircraft) or the frigate project.
The final "no" by the minister came packaged in a friendly retirement ceremony at which we were joined by State Secretary Karl-Wilhelm Berkhan and Lieutenant General Konrad Stangl, the head of the personnel department. This harmonious get-together over a glass of champagne gave me one more opportunity to speak up for the future concept of the Navy and the need for modernization. I gained the impression I had done a last duty for my service branch. On December 31, 1969, I left the West German Navy after eleven years. I was fifty-five years old.
I am grateful to the Navy for many things. Already as a young officer I had the privilege of carrying responsibility and of leading a handful of men during the war to the limits of acceptable risks and sometimes even beyond. We became comrades, and I have stayed in touch with some of them ever since. After my hectic yet fascinating years as a freelance architect I rejoined the Navy in the expectation of becoming a partner in a team of officers where we could work together for the common good beyond all intrigues and personal rivalries. Even if I suffered through many illusions, I would be much poorer in my human experiences without those years in the West German Navy.
During this time I discovered an entirely new political dimension. My connections to the mightiest navy in the world, my contacts with American officers in the Pentagon and at SACLANT in Norfolk, made it clear to me that Germany had undertaken a decisive step between 1949 and 1955. It had become a partner of the great sea powers. Still suffering under the consequences of its greatest defeat, torn in its substance, geographically divided and politically impotent, Germany succeeded in achieving something that Emperor William II had sought in vain, namely, to gain admittance to the "club of world powers" (Michael Sa- lewski) by means of her strong navy. The Kaiser never tired in pointing out to the German people the importance of the sea and the efficacy of sea power. But he failed just as much as Hitler after him to make the maritime factor a strong one in Germany's political pursuits. Hitler's goal of coming to an arrangement with England over matters of naval strength (the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of June 1935) in order to split world hegemony between the Anglo-Saxon sea powers and German domination over the European continent was based on a misconception from the beginning.
Germany's alliance with the naval powers in NATO has in a political sense answered both the question of our economic dependence on access to the sea and the problem of proper defense at sea. Germany, short on raw materials but highly industrialized, depends on the sea more than ever before in her long history. Half of all imports, and virtually all oil and ores, reach Germany by sea. It is a challenge for today and tomorrow to enlighten the German citi
zens about this dependency. Our ties to the West, to the naval powers, must remain the core of German policy.
Epilogue
We all have a tendency, as we look back, to condense the stations of our life and ascribe certain guiding themes to them.
I can still recite a verse I once read in the magazine Pflug and Speer of the youth movement I belonged to, a verse that summarized my feelings very well at the time: "Den Kramern lasst ihr Gold, den Ruhm den Schlnch- tern, bekennt Euch zu den Verachtern, die schwertlos ringen um den Hohen Preis. " (Leave the gold to the merchants, and glory to the warriors; become one of the scorners who fight, swordless, for the highest prize.) It was the time of a first rebellion against a world marked by utilitarianism, opportunism, the quest for guaranteed jobs, the pursuit of offices and public acclaim.
Then came the time when one became aware of one's own power and was prepared to lend this power to a cause that promised to change society and the political scene. A word by the aviator Ernst Udet may express what I mean: "Fate has given each of us the choice to become either a merchant or a soldier, to enjoy life or to forego happiness in favor of the idea that the little vessel of our existence carries out into the eternal stream of history."
After the crash of Icarus we learned to live within the limits of our own resources and to reject empty slogans. What counts is the individual human being and the more or less restricted world that man can and should help shape based on his inclinations, education, and insights for the bonum commune, the common good. This is how I understand the term and how I have consciously lived the decades of my life, as a soldier in two navies but also as an architect.
To equate the common good with liberty, equality, and fraternity in or der to bring about a society of absolutely free and equal human beings seems simplistic to me. Since the days of the French Revolution, intellectuals no less than the masses have been pushing the demand for greater equality and in the process have clipped our liberties. Grand designs suffocate in the banalities of everyday life, in the prevalent concern to become free of concerns. To be comfortable, to be taken care of from cradle to grave, are hardly incentives to awaken the creative powers that slumber in all of us. To create, deliberately and artificially, unlimited demand for material goods, seems to me a perversion of the common good. The "economic miracle," pride in our technological and scientific achievements, quantitative thinking, and the satisfaction of having amassed prosperity and international acclaim have weakened our appreciation for quality, for what furthers culture and the common good. The majority of our population would like to preserve this state of affairs and perpetuate this pact with the devil: "Stay fora while, you are so nice."
Last, has our state, supposedly based on democracy and justice, been set up to serve the bonum commune? Already, de Tocqueville in a grand vision had clamored against the uncontrollable power of political parties, big business, the parliaments, and the bureaucracy. He was fortunate not to be familiar with today's media. I see the dangers of petrified organizational forms of a state based on mere administrative functions. Yes, there are more protests and citizens' initiatives than are good for us. But where are people concerned about the survival of the basic values of our society?
It is essential to keep life in a state of suspense so that free minds can develop, minds that see their main obligation in dedicating themselves to the common good that every state should primarily pursue. We must get away from the empty phrases and ideologies of the day. We must create oases in the desert of hollow rhetoric, watch out critically for mirages that would offer perpetual safety and satisfaction. We need individuals responsible enough to see and mark the danger zones all around us, men who fathom the channel for our ship of life and become navigators to guide the next generation.
One event in my life stands out to me as the ultimate example for this vision of men as pilots and navigators. In 1938, still during the Spanish Civil War, my boat U 46 undertook a voyage to the ports of Melilla, Ceuta, and Lisbon. In Lisbon I chartered a bus to take those of my men who were not on duty sightseeing in the countryside. It was a hot day. After touring many sites of cultural and artistic interest we decided to cool off by going swimming in a remote bay along the Atlantic coast. We had barely entered the water when we were caught in a current that, no matter what we tried, carried us out to sea. Some of the men became desperate and panicky; others seemed paralyzed in their fear. It was a most unpleasant situation because there was nobody around who might have come to our rescue. I tried to throw off my own fears, gain some distance from the immediate impressions, and think through the situation rationally. In doing so I noticed that light objects floating on the water's surface were not being pulled out to sea but instead were moving toward the shore. This gave me the idea that if we kept our bodies as close to the surface as possible we might be able to swim back, just as the objects I had seen floating on the waves. I communicated my observation to some of the petty officers. Together we persuaded the rest of the men to follow our example of swimming back to the beach by staying close to the surface. Exhausted but safe, we all made it back.
I believe this true story can serve as a model for what I would like to say about becoming engaged and distancing oneself from the concerns of the contemporary world. Our times are marked by apocalyptic visions triggered by the exploitation and destruction of nature, the freeing of Promethean forces. Today we find ourselves in a situation in which the dangers that lurk in the social realm and the insecurity brought on by the information age have become so great that more often than not we react emotionally and irrationally, slaves of wishful thinking and existential fears. Many people are no longer capable of grasping simple factual situations and analyzing them in a critically detached manner free of emotional ballast.
We should learn to distance ourselves from our emotions just like those swimmers. That is how they managed to control the danger that threatened to destroy them. I do realize that appeals to reason are often dismissed as a purely intellectual exercise. They sound great in theory but make little sense when applied to the real world. Man, having conquered some of nature's most awesome threats by superior technology, is today his own worst enemy. As the poet Schiller once put it, "The worst of all horrors is man in his folly." It seems necessary to me to get away from certain creeds dictated by special interests and emotional attachments and to create for the orientation of human society realistic models to counter such folly.
There are many warning signs: riots reminiscent of civil war and bloody "demonstrations" in many German cities and abroad; a return to religious fanaticism in Iran, in Ireland, and in Lebanon; and the racial tensions in the Soviet Union. A clear analysis of existing dangers is vital to prevent future catastrophes. As Colonel General Ludwig Beck once said:
Nothing is more dangerous than giving in to spontaneous ideas, no matter how clever and genial they may seem, or to engage in wishful thinking, no matter how desirable the envisioned result. We need officers who think matters through to their logical conclusion, systematically and with solid mental self-discipline. Their character and their nerves must be strong enough to carry out what reason tells them to do.
My diaries are in front of me; recollections are rushing through my mind. What would my life be without these memories? I can still smell the fragrance of the flowering meadows on the edge of the village where we used to live. I feel the sand beneath my bare feet. I see myself swimming in the lake toward the rising sun not far from where we pitched our tents. I stand on the bridge of my boat next to my men. They wear oilskin clothing and seem permanently attached to their binoculars. I can see the depth gauge in our submerged boat as we descend to 800 feet. In the dim glimmer of the emergency lights I see the pale faces of my men as they look as if mesmerized at the indicator whose movement decides over life and death. I see the faces of my fellow students at the university, open to art and culture, and the American officers in front of their monitors at the Strategic Air Command, watching out for the freedom of the Wes
t. Before my eyes appear beggars, thieves, spies, in an onslaught of events, some of which made me a victim and a loser.
It is a divine gift to remember things that seem insignificant and yet stick with you thanks to their colorfulness, a weighty expression, a magnificent deed, or because they led to something great and truly meaningful. I remember fear and courage, perfidy and truth, as I pen down these lines. I never felt the sting of missed opportunities in me. And I have not hesitated to question my own actions and judgments. Whatever I have done I did on my own power and kept on going. When my chosen course led me astray I paid for it.
And one more thing: I was determined to resist any pressure from anyone to write this book. And then I did it anyway. One always finds a reason, even if it is the desire to tell one's grandchildren about a period in our history that only we can know because we shaped it and suffered through it. This period will loom like a shadow above us until the end of our days. But it should and must no longer burden our children and grandchildren.
