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Authors: Stephen Budiansky
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part of Prussia’s rising or at least aspiring middle class; his father was employed by the Zeiss optical firm. Karl collected rocks and fossils, founded a literary society and managed to convince six of his classmates to join, played the flute, and studied art.
If there was one striking difference between the two young naval officers-to-be, it was Dönitz’s burning ambition to fit in. Like the Royal Navy, the Imperial Navy took a hard look at cadets’ social status and charged their parents a fee that effectively limited admission to the upper middle classes; unlike the Royal Navy the German service maintained an air of Prussian aristocratic exclusivity even as its ranks swelled with the sons of the middle class inculcated with the Second Reich’s hyperpatriotism and cult of soldiership. Admiral Fisher had done away with distinctions between executive and specialist officers; the German navy exaggerated them, demanding almost feudal deference to shipboard commanders. Officer cadets were subjected to arduous physical tasks bordering on hazing; they were taught gentlemanly refinements such as fencing, riding, and dancing; a rigid aristocratic code of honor still condoned dueling to settle tiny perceived slights. 19
Dönitz excelled in it all. Reports by his commanders praised his diligence, enthusiasm, and perspicacity as well as his charm, popularity with fellow officers, “very good military appearance,” and social deftness. A memoir the young officer published in 1917 reveals a bright but exceedingly shallow young man, describing his part in sea battles and visits to foreign ports without a hint of self-awareness or irony. The language reads like a cross between a
Boy’s Life
adventure story (“There, now our salvo lands and the foremost destroyer sustains three hits! There, now another five! Suddenly, there is only his bridge foc’s’le to be seen. He has had enough!”) and a third-rate travelogue (“the fairy-tale town of Istanbul”). He passed out of the U-boat course in January 1917 and was preparing to take up his first posting when, at Admiral Scheer’s headquarters, the long-awaited telegram from the Kaiser arrived instructing that “the unrestricted campaign shall begin on February 1 in full force.” Dönitz was assigned as a watch officer on
U-39
, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Walter Forstmann, already a legendary ace who had sunk 300,000 tons of shipping and been awarded the Pour le Mérite. Later in the year Dönitz received his first command of his own, the minelayer and attack boat
UC-25
. “I felt as mighty as a king,” he said. 20
———
ON APRIL 9, 1917, two commonplace-looking gentlemen in civilian clothes arrived at Liverpool on the American passenger steamer
New York
and were quickly hustled aboard a special train, which departed at once for London. It was three days after America’s declaration of war, which President Wilson said his country had at last been driven to as a direct consequence of Germany’s abandonment “of all restraints of law or of humanity” in its submarine campaign.
During the voyage over an alert steward had noticed that the initials embroidered on one of the men’s pajamas did not match his name on the passenger list and reported him to the captain as a suspicious character. The captain had a quiet laugh; he was in on the secret that the two suspicious passengers, sailing under the names S. W. Davidson and V. J. Richardson, were in fact two American naval officers, Rear Admiral William S. Sims and his aide, Commander J. V. Babcock, traveling incognito. Sims, up until a few weeks before the president of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, had been hastily summoned to Washington in late March and, with war imminent, dispatched at once to England to establish high-level contacts with the U.S. Navy’s counterparts in the British Admiralty.
Upon his arrival in London, Sims was immediately ushered in to see Admiral John Jellicoe, the first
If there was one striking difference between the two young naval officers-to-be, it was Dönitz’s burning ambition to fit in. Like the Royal Navy, the Imperial Navy took a hard look at cadets’ social status and charged their parents a fee that effectively limited admission to the upper middle classes; unlike the Royal Navy the German service maintained an air of Prussian aristocratic exclusivity even as its ranks swelled with the sons of the middle class inculcated with the Second Reich’s hyperpatriotism and cult of soldiership. Admiral Fisher had done away with distinctions between executive and specialist officers; the German navy exaggerated them, demanding almost feudal deference to shipboard commanders. Officer cadets were subjected to arduous physical tasks bordering on hazing; they were taught gentlemanly refinements such as fencing, riding, and dancing; a rigid aristocratic code of honor still condoned dueling to settle tiny perceived slights. 19
Dönitz excelled in it all. Reports by his commanders praised his diligence, enthusiasm, and perspicacity as well as his charm, popularity with fellow officers, “very good military appearance,” and social deftness. A memoir the young officer published in 1917 reveals a bright but exceedingly shallow young man, describing his part in sea battles and visits to foreign ports without a hint of self-awareness or irony. The language reads like a cross between a
Boy’s Life
adventure story (“There, now our salvo lands and the foremost destroyer sustains three hits! There, now another five! Suddenly, there is only his bridge foc’s’le to be seen. He has had enough!”) and a third-rate travelogue (“the fairy-tale town of Istanbul”). He passed out of the U-boat course in January 1917 and was preparing to take up his first posting when, at Admiral Scheer’s headquarters, the long-awaited telegram from the Kaiser arrived instructing that “the unrestricted campaign shall begin on February 1 in full force.” Dönitz was assigned as a watch officer on
U-39
, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Walter Forstmann, already a legendary ace who had sunk 300,000 tons of shipping and been awarded the Pour le Mérite. Later in the year Dönitz received his first command of his own, the minelayer and attack boat
UC-25
. “I felt as mighty as a king,” he said. 20
———
ON APRIL 9, 1917, two commonplace-looking gentlemen in civilian clothes arrived at Liverpool on the American passenger steamer
New York
and were quickly hustled aboard a special train, which departed at once for London. It was three days after America’s declaration of war, which President Wilson said his country had at last been driven to as a direct consequence of Germany’s abandonment “of all restraints of law or of humanity” in its submarine campaign.
During the voyage over an alert steward had noticed that the initials embroidered on one of the men’s pajamas did not match his name on the passenger list and reported him to the captain as a suspicious character. The captain had a quiet laugh; he was in on the secret that the two suspicious passengers, sailing under the names S. W. Davidson and V. J. Richardson, were in fact two American naval officers, Rear Admiral William S. Sims and his aide, Commander J. V. Babcock, traveling incognito. Sims, up until a few weeks before the president of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, had been hastily summoned to Washington in late March and, with war imminent, dispatched at once to England to establish high-level contacts with the U.S. Navy’s counterparts in the British Admiralty.
Upon his arrival in London, Sims was immediately ushered in to see Admiral John Jellicoe, the first
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