The Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen in the Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941. Painting by British artist Jon Kindred.
Although
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau posed a considerable threat
to the British while lying at Brest in 1941 and the repeated raids by the Royal
Air Force were far too inaccurate to do any serious damage, Hitler felt the two
units were too exposed, and ordered them to return. Operation 'Cerberus', the
daylight dash through the English Channel in February 1942, was probably the
Kriegsmarine's greatest success, for it took the British completely by surprise,
the two battle-cruisers and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen slipping past
ineffectual air and sea attacks. Apart from slight damage to Scharnhorst from a
magnetic mine during the final phase it had been a humiliation for the British
and proof that audacity pays.
The two great grey ships appeared off
the entrance to the French Atlantic port of Brest just after dawn. They were Germany's 32,000-ton battleships, Scharnhorst
and Gneisenau returning from marauding raids against Allied shipping
in the Atlantic.
They had sailed from Kiel at the beginning of 1941. Evading the
British Home Fleet based at Scapa Flow, they had broken through the Denmark
Strait into the Atlantic. For the next two
months like gigantic pirates they roamed the Atlantic shipping lanes sinking
more than twenty ships totalling over 100,000 tons. It was the first—and
last—successful foray by German battleships against Allied merchant shipping in
the Second World War. Then in early March they seemed to disappear into
Atlantic mists.
At 7 a.m. on 22 March 1941, as sullen
French dock workers watched, they tied up at the quai Lannion in Brest. It was nearly a
year since France had fallen
and the French Naval base had been taken over by German dockyard workers from Wilhelmshaven. They had
returned to Brest
because they were badly in need of repairs. The two-months' cruise had revealed
serious defects in Scharnhorst's boilers. The tubes of the
super-heaters, especially, had given constant trouble threatening a major
breakdown. German dockyard engineers who examined her estimated ten weeks would
be needed for repairs. When her Kapitän, Kurt Hoffmann, reported this news to
Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, head of the German Navy in Berlin, the German Admiralty staff were
shocked at the extent of the repairs necessary.
Her sister ship Gneisenau was
also in need of minor repairs. The refit of both battleships went ahead quickly
but no Frenchman was allowed to work on them, for French workmen in the repair
depots ashore went as slow as they dared to hold up the work of the German
conquerors. Throughout the dockyard and in the town, the inhabitants were not
only surly and hostile, but some of them were in touch with French underground
agents, who would pass the information about the repairs to Britain.
After the ships' arrival eight
depressing days passed with unceasing rain and frequent false air-raid alarms.
Then on the evening of 30 March came the real thing. The wail of sirens was
followed by the crash of bombs. The flak gun crews poured up a curtain of fire
but their shells could not reach high-flying planes.
Ashore, many officers of the German
Naval Staff were killed when the hotel where they were accommodated was hit and
caught fire. The ships were undamaged but when the fragments of bombs were
examined by German experts next day they made an important discovery. The RAF
had dropped 500-lb armour-piercing bombs specially made to crash through the
armoured decks of the warships. The Germans then knew that this was no routine
dock raid. These bombs were direct evidence that the RAF knew they were there.
Now the raids would never cease. They were right. The RAF started to come day
and night when weather permitted.
At dawn on 6 April a RAF
torpedo-bomber suddenly dived out of the clouds. It was a Coastal Command
Beaufort from St. Eval in Cornwall, piloted by Flying Officer Kenneth Campbell,
who made a most courageous and determined attack upon Gneisenau. She was
tied up to the buoy against a wall at the north end of the harbour, protected
by the curving mole. The little hills all around the harbour bristled with
clusters of guns and moored near the mole as extra protection were three flak
ships.
The battleship's position appeared to
be impregnable. Even if an aircraft managed to deliver a low level attack it
would not be able to pull out in time and must crash into the high ground
surrounding the harbour.
But Kenneth Campbell dived down to
deck level and flew steadily past the blazing muzzles of the flak ships' guns.
He skimmed over the mole and dropped his torpedo at point-blank range towards Gneisenau's
stern. As he did so, the German flak gunners hit him and he crashed in
flames into the water.
But he had done his job. Seconds later
his torpedo exploded against Gneisenau on the starboard side aft. Water
rushed in and she began to list heavily. A salvage vessel which came alongside
to pump tons of water from her scuppers had difficulty keeping her from
sinking.
The bodies of Campbell and his gallant aircrew, Sgts.
Scott, Mullis and Hillman, were fished out of the harbour and brought on board
the battleship. Their bodies were draped in flags and placed on the
quarterdeck, where a guard of honour was mounted as a mark of respect.
While this chivalrous ceremony was
taking place, the salvage crews managed to pump enough water out to right her,
since she could not remain in danger at the buoy. RAF spotter planes were now
informing the British about every move of the battleships. Another attack like Campbell's on Gneisenau
would probably sink her.
The following morning Gneisenau again
entered dry dock where inspection confirmed that Campbell's torpedo had wrecked the starboard
propeller and shaft tunnel. This would need six months to repair. She would be
out of action twice as long as Scharnhorst.
When the British heard about Campbell's heroic act he
was awarded the highest decoration for gallantry, the Victoria Cross. The
citation said: "Despising heavy odds Flying Officer Kenneth Campbell went
cheerfully and resolutely to his task. By pressing home his attack at close
quarters in the face of withering fire on a course fraught with extreme peril,
he displayed valour of the highest order."
As a result of Campbell's torpedo both battleships were now
due for a long stay so the German Navy decided to put their static fleet to
some use. A detachment of a hundred midshipmen were sent from Germany to the Brest battleships to complete their training.
They were posted equally to both ships and, as anti-aircraft defence was most
vital, this was their main task. It became a brutal battle training for these
budding officers. For some it was very short.
On the night of 10 April, the sirens
again wailed and the first bomb explosions could be heard above the roar of the
flak guns. Suddenly there came a series of tremendous flashes and explosions and
a red glow lit up Gneisenau's superstructure. She had been hit by three
bombs and was on fire. The bombs killed fifty and wounded ninety of her crew,
the heaviest casualties being among the flak crews and the young midshipmen. At
the time of the raid many of the off-duty midshipmen were in their quarters
between decks. Most of them were killed by fragments of other big bombs
exploding on the quayside.
As ambulances drew up at the ship's
gangway and long rows of stretcher cases were taken to hospital, Captain
Hoffmann went across from Scharnhorst to offer help. He ordered a
working-party to fight the fires on the mess decks, but they had to flood one
magazine before the fires were controlled and Gneisenau out of danger.
The Germans' main concern was to conceal
the extent of the damage from the French, but each battleship could only make
ten coffins, and this meant tiiey would have to call in French carpenters to
make many more. When the order was given the news of the German dead spread
rapidly among the inhabitants of Brest.
After this they arranged for most of
the crews to sleep ashore in barracks, leaving only flak gunners and a duty
watch in the ship. This raid also decided the authorities in Berlin
to step up the A.A. defences of Brest.
They increased the number of 4-inch guns to 150 and smaller flak guns to 1,200,
to make a murderous concentration of fire. Also the two battleships were moved
closer together. The lock gates were closed and protected by nets against
torpedoes fired by either intruding submarines or wave-skimming planes.
In Scharnhorst's old berth,
Hoffmann built a wooden and sheet-iron replica of her on the hull of an old
French cruiser, Jeanne d'Arc. Nets hung from the battleships' masts to
the dockside with paint sprayed over them to make them resemble clumps of
trees. On the roofs of the Naval
College the surviving
midshipmen erected wooden huts to make it look like a village.
A network of artificial
smoke-generators which could shroud the port under a thick fog within a few
minutes was installed around the harbour. This last precaution aroused protests
from the Luftwaffe who maintained that the dense smoke would endanger their
fighter operations. This artificial fog also nearly caused a collision between
the two battleships when they came to leave harbour.
The flak and the fighters gave them
protection during the day but in darkness it was a different story. As the
RAF's heavy bombing continued nearly every night it looked as though not only
would the ships be damaged but most of their crews endangered. Although many of
them were taken at night in lorries to barracks in Brest, many were still being killed ashore so
it was decided to move them farther out to avoid the raids.
They were moved at night to La Roche
fifteen miles from Brest near the sleepy little
Breton town of Landerneau.
Both places were on the main line to Paris
and the railway was used a lot to move crews about.
Hidden in a small forest of birch
trees near Landerneau, barracks were built for the crews of each ship. It was
also planned to build extra ones for the crew of another German battleship, Bismarck, due
in for a refit after her own Atlantic merchant shipping forays. Outside the
dockyard at Brest
the large buoys swung at their moorings awaiting her arrival.
While the other two German battleships
were being repaired in Brest, Bismarck
was sheltering in the German-occupied Norwegian port of Bergen.
But on a moonless night—20 May 1941—she slipped out, escorted by the heavy
cruiser Prinz Eugen. At noon next day, when the news reached the
Admiralty in Whitehall, the Home Fleet was
ordered to sail from Scapa Flow to intercept
the German ships south of the Denmark Straits.
At dawn on 24 May the two German ships
were in action with the British fleet, which included the veteran battle-cruiser
Hood and the battleship Prince of Wales on her maiden voyage. The
Royal Navy had the worst of the battle. Hood, hit by Bismarck and
Prinz Eugen, blew up. Prince of Wales was so badly damaged that
she took no further part in the action. But smaller Royal Naval ships still
shadowed the fast-steaming Bismarck.
In the afternoon the new
aircraft-carrier Victorious was detached from the main force to attack
her. When 825 Squadron of Swordfish rose from her flight deck to make a night
attack on the German battleship, the leading plane was piloted by Lt.-Cdr.
Eugene Esmonde.
At 11:30 p.m., when they were 120
miles from the carrier, Esmonde's Swordfish squadron sighted Bismarck. Flying 100 feet above
the waves in the darkness, they let go their torpedoes from less than 1,000
yards. As they banked away there was a roar followed by a flash and a curling
plume of flame.
The Bismarck had been hit
amidships.
The torpedo slowed her down, and after
a three-day chase the Home Fleet again brought the Bismarck into action. This time
she was alone. Four hours before the battle the Prinz Eugen had slipped
away. The Bismarck
sank under the guns and torpedoes of the Royal Navy.
It was on the night of 7 May that
German naval officers at Brest, surreptitiously
listening to the B.B.C. news, heard: "At 10:37 G.M.T. the German
battleship Bismarck
was sunk."
The German Navy in Brest
took the news of Bismarck's
sinking gloomily. Equally depressing was the lack of news of her escorting
cruiser, Prinz Eugen. Had she too been sunk? Or had she escaped and was
preserving radio silence in case her calls were intercepted by the pursuing
Royal Navy? For five days there was silence. Then at dawn on 1 June a buzz of
excitement went round the battleship crews. Prinz Eugen had appeared at
the entrance to Brest
Harbour.
She brought grim news. When her
captain, Helmuth Brinkmann, made a report to Grand Admiral Raeder in Berlin about the fate of the Bismarck, he stated that the
British battleships now had such good radar equipment that it could not be
evaded.
The rest of the situation was also
depressing. Despite German precautions, day and night raids on Brest docks became a familiar part of their
daily life. Almost every day, the B.B.C.'s nine o'clock news reported that
bombers had visited Brest
to attack the German warships.
The British realized that this
constant bombing might eventually cause the Germans to make a desperate dash
home. A series of conferences was held between Admiralty and Air Ministry
planners.
As a result Coastal Command was ordered to establish three separate
dusk-to-dawn radar reconnaissance patrols off Brest and along the Channel. They became
known as "Stopper," which covered from Brest
to Ushant, "Line SE" from Ushant to Brittany
and "Habo" from Le Havre to Boulogne. Fighter Command
also organized daylight Channel sweeps known as "Jim Crow."
On 29 April 1941 an Air Ministry
letter to the three RAF Commands—Fighter, Bomber and Coastal—said: "Scharnhorst
and Gneisenau may attempt to reach a German port up the Channel
route during the period April 30th to May 4th inclusive. It is considered
probable that the Straits of Dover will be navigated in darkness. It is
considered unlikely that the enemy would attempt the passage of the Straits in
daylight. But if this should be attempted, a unique opportunity will be offered
to both our surface craft and air striking force to engage the enemy ships in
force whilst in the Straits of Dover." Bomber Command was instructed to
have strike forces in readiness for the Germans leaving Brest.
At this stage, the RAF were well ahead
of the Germans in their tactical appreciation. It was not until 30 May—a month
after the Air Ministry had considered the possibility of a Channel
break-out—that the German Naval Command West in Paris
sent a memorandum to Grand Admiral Raeder in Berlin
suggesting a contingency plan: "The possibility of bringing heavy ships
through the English Channel should be
carefully examined. The route is shorter than the Iceland passage. There are good
escort possibilities, both air and sea. Enemy radar could be jammed. Superior
enemy units would not be present and the passage would be in the close
proximity of our own harbours to which ships could be taken in the event of
breakdowns."
Raeder reacted strongly against this
suggestion. He drew up a formidable list of hazards: "1. The difficulty of
navigation in narrow waters. 2. The battleships must be seen by the British. 3.
The danger from mines, torpedo boats, torpedo-carrying aircraft and
dive-bombers."
But Raeder's principal objection was
that mine-sweepers could not clear a wide enough path for the ships to take
avoiding action in the event of torpedo attack. He concluded, "The naval
war staff therefore consider an unobserved and safe escape through the Channel
to be impossible." This view entirely coincided with that of his opposite
number in London,
First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound.
Raeder had good reasons for being
cautious. For he had only five battleships—including the "pocket"
battleships—to the Royal Navy's fifteen. He had no aircraft-carriers, although
the Graf Zeppelin was under construction—but never completed—whilst the
British had six operational carriers.
Raeder, one of the ablest and most
professional naval officers Germany
has ever produced, nursed his ships like a duck with ducklings. During the
fourteen years in which he was its Commander-in-Chief no one had guarded the
honour of the German Navy more jealously than he.
When Raeder rejected the Channel plan
it was generally felt among the admirals in Berlin that this was the end of the matter.
For Hitler trusted Raeder's judgement and had promoted him to Grand Admiral,
second only to Goring as Hitler's adviser for the prosecution of the war.
It came as a surprise when Admiral
Krancke, Raeder's personal representative on Hitler's Supreme Staff, was
summoned to the Führer's headquarters and, standing stiffly to attention,
listened pale-faced to the tirade of abuse concerning the German capital ships
and their officers which Hitler hurled at him.
Hitler, at war with Russia since June, was becoming alarmed at the
numerous small British commando raids on the coast of Norway,
starting with the Lofotens in March 1941. He considered the Norwegian coastline
to be the most vulnerable section of his Western Wall. The news had also reached
Hitler that British convoys were bringing tanks, aircraft and guns to the
Eastern Front. He decided that Norway,
where in any case he had always thought the British intended to open a second
front, had now become even more strategically important.
Meanwhile the RAF continued to keep up
their non-stop bombing attacks on Brest.
A month after Raeder had rejected the Channel plan—on the morning of 1 July—it
was Prinz Eugens turn. While she lay alongside the eastern basin of the
commercial dock, a RAF bomb smashed the ship's armour-plating and exploded in
the most vulnerable compartments— the plotting room and transmitting station.
It killed forty-seven men, including her first officer, Cdr. Otto Stoos, and
wounded thirty-two. It also put Prinz Eugen out of action for three
months.
On the other hand, Scharnhorst was
refitted and on the morning of 23 July left for La Pallice, 250 miles to the
south, for trials to test her super-heaters and practise firing her guns.
Captain Hoffmann chose the shoal-dotted waters around La Pallice because they
afforded the best protection against submarines and he needed only a few patrol
boats to keep watch.
A tanker took her place in the dock as
a decoy and was covered with netting. To disguise the direction of her
departure, the Germans put out false oil trails leading north from Brest. In spite of this
careful camouflage, the ever-watchful RAF spotted the move and reported that Scharnhorst
was moving south from her berth. Was she about to break out into the Atlantic? As spotter planes watched her, the opinion grew
that this might be the long-awaited escape.
Unaware of the British suspicions, the
battleship performed perfectly, reaching a speed of thirty knots without
difficulty. She returned to La Pallice that evening, expecting to remain there
for several days while minor adjustments were made.
Before dark a group of Stirling heavy bombers attacked her and made one direct
hit with a heavy armour-piercing bomb. More heavy bomber attacks during the
night damaged La Pallice docks. At dawn a RAF photographic reconnaissance plane
was over La Pallice. As it revealed little serious damage it was decided to
mount the most massive daylight raid on both battleships.
Ninety-nine RAF bombers took off,
arriving over the battleships at 2 p.m. Three Flying Fortresses, sixty-three Wellingtons and eighteen Hampdens attacked the Gneisenau
in Brest while eight Halifaxes bombed the Scharnhorst in La
Pallice.
This was the first time Fortresses,
fitted with the new Sperry bombsight for high altitude bombing, had taken part
in a raid on the Brest
battleships. They had arrived in England just three months before
and the attack that hot July afternoon on the German battleships was only their
third operation.
Because of the height at which they
operated they carried special aircrews—none of them over 24 years old. The
pilots of the three Fortresses, Wing-Cdr. Macdougall, Sq. Ldr. MacLaren and
Flt.-Lt. Mathieson, were told to concentrate on the Gneisenau. At eight
minutes past two they started bombing from a height of 30,000 feet, each
aircraft dropping four 1100-lb. bombs which burst on the quays and docks.
Although accurate flak was seen following them a thousand feet below they were
too high for the German defences. After they had released their bombs three
Messerschmitts climbed steeply towards them but the Fortresses turned away and
lost them.
At the same time Wing-Cdr. Maw led the
low-level British-built bombers down to 6,000 feet, their bombs bursting among
the dockyard buildings. Pilot Officer Payne went down to 3,500 feet and as his
bombs straddled the Gneisenau both he and his front gunner, Sgt.
Wilkinson, were wounded by flak.
The Halifaxes attacked the Scharnhorst at
La Pallice from 12,000 feet. She was easily identified by the high-flying
bomber pilots from a cloudless sky, and a row of five bombs hit her. Thick
smoke began to pour from her as terrific explosions shook the ship. Two bombs
exploded on deck, causing a great rent. Yet she was lucky. The three heavy
bombs that penetrated the armoured upper deck and smashed through the hull
failed to explode, although they caused her to take in 6,000 tons of water.
The ship began to settle with a heavy
list. But the efficient repair-parties quickly righted her and the damage was
promptly repaired. A signal went to the port authorities for divers, who found
the impact with Scharnhorst's deck had torn the steel off one of the
bombs and had helped to prevent it exploding. The holes in Scharnhorst's hull
were soon patched up.
Good luck was still with her for, miraculously,
there were no casualties. She returned to Brest
at twenty-seven knots.
The autumn of 1941 was the beginning
of bad times for the German war machine. Hitler's blitzkrieg against the
Soviet Union was slowing up at die onset of
the savage Russian winter. Hitler was personally conducting the campaign from
his headquarters at Rastenburg in East
Prussia, known as Wolf's Lair.
Since the start of the Russian
campaign Admiral Raeder had heard nothing from his preoccupied Führer. But on
17 September, as the Admiral was preparing plans for using his battleships in
the Atlantic shipping lanes again, he was summoned to a conference with Hitler
at Wolf's Lair.
Hitler did not want to hear about the
Atlantic plan. He was convinced the British were going to invade Norway and
interrupted to say, "The Atlantic can be left to the U-boats. Your
battleships, all your major units, must be stationed along the Norwegian coast.
They can be of some use in guarding Norway against invasion. They will
be safer there from air attack than in Brest."
He called Norway the "zone of
destiny." Hitler, who had referred to himself to Raeder as "a land
animal," said to him, "Battleships are not good for anything. The big
guns would be more useful and less vulnerable in emplacements ashore. I have
plans for disarming these steel monsters and using them for the defence of the
Norwegian coast."
There was a second conference in
November when Hitler produced a marked map of the Norwegian coast with areas
shown from which the two battleships and Prinz Eugen could operate
against the British. He was impatient with Raeder. What was the major part of
German sea power doing bottled up and being bombed in Brest? He ended by inquiring harshly,
"What solution does the Navy have?"
To placate him, Raeder brought out a
contingency plan by Naval Group West in Paris
which had been pigeon-holed. It suggested that, while awaiting completion of
repairs to the battleships, an attempt might be made to send Prinz Eugen on
a lone dash through the English Channel to a
German port.
Hitler, who had appeared uninterested, even bored, suddenly looked
up and commented, "Why only the Prinz Eugen? Why not all the
ships?"
Raeder, who was not expecting even the
Prinz Eugen plan to be taken seriously, was astonished. He replied,
"A dash through the Channel by a solitary cruiser is a very different
matter, mein Führer, from a movement by a whole fleet."
Hitler was the last person on earth to
be put off by such a statement. "The issue of war will be decided in Norway,"
he said. "Unless the British are fools they will attack us there."
As he said this, he looked directly at
Raeder and gave the Nazi salute in dismissal. Raeder flew back to Berlin and sent a signal to Admiral Saalwächter, Chief of
Naval Group West in Paris,
asking how soon the battleships could put to sea. He was not displeased when he
received a reply that the two battleships would not be ready until December. It
was just as well. By then Hitler, obsessed with the Russian front, might have
forgotten this hare-brained idea.
At first Raeder tried to gain time
saying he must have discussions with his staff. He explained the position to
his Chief of Staff, Admiral Fricke, in Berlin
and also to Admiral Wagner, head of the Operations Section directing the war at
sea, saying, "Hitler wants the ships back in home waters, for he believes
there might be an attempt at a British invasion in the Norwegian area."
As the Berlin naval chiefs studied the basic
aspects of the plan their first objection was the state of crew training. The
better trained the crews were, the more chance they had of pulling off a daring
operation like this. Yet through no fault of Captain Hoffmann and his fellow
commanders, the crews' training and morale was very much below standard.
Brest-bound as they were, always under the threatening shadow of the RAF, they
were only able to carry out restricted exercises and drills. But the greatest
obstacle to the plan would be the need for the strictest secrecy. Except for
the most senior officers at Brest,
no one could be allowed to know what was to happen. This would mean the crews
could not be inspired by their training instructors with a promise of glory.
Yet the more Admiral Wagner studied
the Führer's plan the more he found he was not against the operation. This was
because the entire world naval situation had changed suddenly on 6 December
1941, when America
had come into the war. He considered the days were now over when the Germans
could keep the ships in Brest
as a constant Atlantic threat.
In his view, to do this indefinitely
would be to invite disaster. The situation seemed quite plain; on one side
there were the British with the increasingly destructive power of their bombing
raids; but on the other side there was the menacing voice of the Führer.
"You will remove the ships where I can employ them in the Norwegian
theatre. Otherwise you will give me their guns and I will mount them in shore
batteries. Make your choice, meine Herren."
Was there an alternative to a
break-out through the Channel? They could bring the ships north of Britain round by the Iceland route. But in their path in
Scapa Flow lurked the might of the British battle fleet which was bound to
intercept—and send them to join Bismarck
at the bottom.
However, his intelligence reports
revealed that the English appeared to have very little in the Channel.
His chief, Admiral Raeder, still did
not like the plan. Like First Sea Lord Dudley Pound in the Admiralty in London he feared for his
capital ships. If the ships were put out of action by the RAF or Royal Navy, it
would be the virtual end of the German Navy as a force. Feeling that the ships
would be too like sitting ducks on the narrow waters of the Channel, he told
Wagner, "I cannot make this proposal to Hitler that we break through the
Channel."
Wagner argued the risk might have to
be taken. He said, "If the ships are dismantled we will present the
British with a bloodless victory. The German Navy will never hold up its head
again. To concede victory to the enemy without a fight is to sentence the
German Navy to death."
Faced with these views, and the
Führer's fanatic insistence, Raeder began to give way a little—but he was still
not convinced.
On 29 December, he had a stormy
meeting with Hitler when the Führer persisted in his plan. When Raeder said
that, after being in port for so long, his ships could hardly be expected to
face the powerful British Home Fleet without some preparation, Hitler once
again raved about "the uselessness of the battleships." He refused
even to allow the time for lengthy "shake-down" sea-going exercises
and firing practice which Raeder wanted. For as he pointed out quite
reasonably, they might easily be bombed and sunk while on these
practices.
Raeder flew back to Berlin
and passed the whole matter over to Naval Group West in Paris. Although the operation would be under
the immediate command of Vice-Admiral Otto Ciliax who commanded the Brest ships flying his flag in Scharnhorst, Naval
Group West in Paris
was responsible for all operational directions.
The Commander-in-Chief of Naval Group
West was 59-year-old General-Admiral Alfred Saalwächter. Fair-haired and
blue-eyed, he had an exceptional mind. Although smallish in height, he was
regarded in the German Navy as riesengross— "gigantic in
stature."
A Prussian, born at Neusalz on the
River Oder, he had been a submarine commander in the First World war, but
although he had been awarded the Knight's Cross in 1940, he was no friend of
the Führer, with whom, like so many German admirals, he had had differences.
Between wars, Saalwächter had gone
round naval ports inspecting establishments and training personnel. He wrote a
standard book on naval warfare for the German Navy, Seekriegsanleitung, which
became the textbook for all officers.
His headquarters—Naval Group West—were
in the Avenue Maréchal Faijolle, near the Bois de Boulogne.
It was a large, four-storied mansion
of Napoleon III period.
The only indications of its naval importance were two striped sentry boxes at
the entrance, each with a German sailor in blouse and gaiters carrying a rifle.
Saalwächter had a staff consisting of
about fifteen high-ranking naval officers, with several hundred petty officers
and technicians. On the upper floors of the mansion were the "cabins"
where the staff officers lived and took their meals. In the basement was a big
garage with a fleet of staff cars. The drivers were civilians, mostly white
Russians. Their leader, ironically enough, had been a Russian admiral in the
First World war.
As there were few German troops in
metropolitan Paris
at that time Saalwächter's staff led a strange isolated life. They worked so
hard they often did not go out for days at a time but they always had seats at
the Paris Opera House because their chief liked opera. The only time
Saalwächter appeared relaxed was when he was stealing an evening from his
headquarters at the Opera.
