Did Raeder Order Lutjens to fight to the last Shell?

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wadinga
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Did Raeder Order Lutjens to fight to the last Shell?

Post by wadinga »

All,
In the Wikipedia article on Raeder is the following, based on a highly respected German historian's book.
After the Bismarck was disabled by a British torpedo hit on the rudder on 26 May 1941, Raeder sent a series of radio messages to Lütjens reminding him of his "fight to the last round" order of December 1939, a order that Lütjens faithfully obeyed.[257] The German historian Werner Rahn argued in "Germany and the Second World War, the official history of the Wehrmacht" that Raeder's orders to "fight to the finish" doomed most of the crew of the Bismarck to a watery grave; had Lütjens being given the option of scuttling or surrendering the Bismarck rather engaging in a hopeless battle, the lives of 2, 200 German officers and sailors could had been saved instead of the 110 who were saved.[
These communications to the Fleet Commander are not recorded in the KTB anywhere and I have never heard a whisper of such a thing before in any of the regular sources. Has anybody else seen reference to this? "No, Admiral Lutjens...I expect you to die!"

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wadinga
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paul.mercer
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Re: Did Raeder Order Lutjens to fight to the last Shell?

Post by paul.mercer »

I would have thought it highly unlikely that Raeder would have sent such a signal on his own accord being what I would call 'the old school' of Naval officers, possibly Hitler may have done after the Graf Spee incident.
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Re: Did Raeder Order Lutjens to fight to the last Shell?

Post by tommy303 »

I don't know of any message of the sort sent by Raeder to Luetjens; in any event, before the ship's command staff had given up hopes of repairing the damage to the rudders, Luetjens sent his own message to OKM which read:

"Torpedo hit aft. Ship unmaneuverable. We will fight to the last shell. Long live the Fuehrer. Fleet Commander."

A short while later a similar, but slightly differently worded message was sent by Luetjens to Hitler. It would appear that Luetjens was mindful of the fight to the end order of December 1939 and did not need reminding.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood and Earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned these defended;
And saved the sum of things for pay.
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Re: Did Raeder Order Lutjens to fight to the last Shell?

Post by tommy303 »

I think it was in Luetjens' nature to fight to the very end in any event. During a stop over in Texas whilst in command of the light cruiser Karlsruhe during the mid 1930s, Luetjens and his officers and cadets paid a visit to the Alamo in San Antonio. After the visit he reminded them that he hoped that should they ever be out numbered and in a hopeless situation that they would behave as well as the garrison of the Alamo had.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood and Earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned these defended;
And saved the sum of things for pay.
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Re: Did Raeder Order Lutjens to fight to the last Shell?

Post by Herr Nilsson »

Generally the behaviour of the ship's command is prescribed in "Dienst an Bord"-direction from 1937.
A ship has to be scuttled, if it is not able to fight anymore. One can read it just the other way round: A ship must not be scuttled as long as it is able to fight.
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Does anyone know the exact wording of the "fight to the last round" order of December 1939?

I just know of a supplement of the "Dienst an Bord"-direction that after evacuating most of the crew a captain and a part of the crew have to stay and to protect the flag with all weapons.
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Marc

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Thorsten Wahl
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Re: Did Raeder Order Lutjens to fight to the last Shell?

Post by Thorsten Wahl »

the scuttling command of Bismarck must therefore given shortly after 0930 british time, when the main guns were silenced
Meine Herren, es kann ein siebenjähriger, es kann ein dreißigjähriger Krieg werden – und wehe dem, der zuerst die Lunte in das Pulverfaß schleudert!
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Re: Did Raeder Order Lutjens to fight to the last Shell?

Post by wadinga »

All,

Apparently, according to Bercuson and Herwig, (not exactly my favourite Bismarck book) Raeder gave a General Order in December 1939 shortly after the embarrassment of Graf Spee's scuttling.

“ The German warship fights with the full deployment of its crew until the last shell, until it is victorious or goes down with flag flying”

David Irving (Boo,Hiss) suggests Hitler threw Erich a curve ball by first saying Langsdorff had to go out and fight to the death and Raeder should order him to do it, but then approving a signal giving the captain the options of internment in Buenos Aires or scuttling off Montevideo. Der Fuerher apparently forgot this latter approval and was appalled that Langsdorff had given up without a fight and blamed Raeder. The General Order was apparently Raeder's response to encourage the others, including Lutjens, although it would be nice to have better evidence than a B & H reference.

Where the noted (official) historian gets the idea that there were several transmissions to Lutjens to remind him of the conditions of his Hitler Oath after the rudder hit, but before his own fervent message to the Fuerher, and where they would fit in the timeline I have no idea. Does anybody have this Wehrmacht book to check?

(Marc, thanks for real evidence again :D )

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wadinga
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Re: Did Raeder Order Lutjens to fight to the last Shell?

Post by tommy303 »

I personally doubt that Raeder sent such a message to Luetjens, and it would in any event have been somewhat unnecessary. Luetjens, well before the fateful airstrike which crippled Bismarck, had given the crew his victory or death speech. As I said earlier, his fight to the last shell message to OKM (Raeder) was transmitted before damage control decided the situation was hopeless and may well have been the first, so far as I know, that was sent informing OKM that the ship was crippled.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood and Earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned these defended;
And saved the sum of things for pay.
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Re: Did Raeder Order Lutjens to fight to the last Shell?

Post by wadinga »

All,

The generic order quoted about was transmitted 22nd December 1939 after Raeder had endured an embarrassing "carpetting" from Adolf after the abject performance of the Graf Spee in comparison to the victories of the army, the Luftwaffe and even the u-boats. B and H quote Gedanken des Oberbefehlshabers der Kriegsmarine zum Kriegsausbruch BA-MA 1 SKL Teil CVII p5.

There seems to be no other explanation for the Raeder transmissions referred to above, other than that Werner Rahn "made them up". Opinions welcome of course, but additional factual information Most welcome.

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wadinga
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Re: Did Raeder Order Lutjens to fight to the last Shell?

Post by wadinga »

All,
Sorry to double post, but further research indicates that as Werner Rahn is the Senior Editor of the 27 plus volume reprint of the entire SKL KtB and official Wehrmacht historian it is actually impossible that he is wrong. :shock: As these signals were sent, but do not appear in the reconstructed KtB for Bismarck created by Hans-Henning von Schultze (PG's Radio and Intelligence officer), presumably it was some kind of "for your eyes only" transmission. I believe the SKL KtB Meisterwerke is only available in German and only the most prestigious libraries will have a copy.

Anybody out there have an idea how we can check this out?

All the best

wadinga
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Re: Did Raeder Order Lutjens to fight to the last Shell?

Post by tommy303 »

In all probability any communication between OKM (Raeder) and Fleet Command (Leutjens) would have been done in the double incription Enigma proceedures outlined in Der Funkschluessel M Verfahren
M Offizier und M Stab
(Enigma Officer and Staff Officer Procedures). In this type of coding, the body of the text was encrypted using the aforementioned proceedure, but the preamble stating from whom and to whom the message was intended and the key setting was encrypted using the normal Enigma general proceedure. Thus, personnel in Bismarck's decoding room could decode the preamble, but could go no further, and the text of the message could only be decoded by Luetjens or his chief of staff who had the upper level procedure manual showing how the machine needed to be set up to decrypt the internal text of the message. It was generally forbidden for anyone but the intended HQ or individual to go any further. It is thus likely that any fight to the very end message from Raeder to Luetjens might well have gone unrecorded aboard Prinz Eugen. In essence this constituted an 'eyes only' sort of message.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood and Earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned these defended;
And saved the sum of things for pay.
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Re: Did Raeder Order Lutjens to fight to the last Shell?

Post by wadinga »

Tommy and all,

Thanks for this useful input. The preface to the KtB transcript on this brilliant site says Hans-Henning von Schultz had access to both SKL records and PG's own reception logs during the chase, in order to recreate the Bismarck KtB. If Werner Rahn is correct and there were several additional messages, then they were obviously kept from H-H v S. As you have pointed out there is no time for coding and transmission of such signals between Gunter's first report of ship no longer maneuverable UHZeitgruppe 21:25 Transmission/reception 21:40 and UHZeitgruppe 21:40 which is the Last Shell message logged much later at 23:45.

But why is there such a long delay between Zeitgruppe and the message logging? Is this where Werner Rahn's messages from Raeder reminding Lutjens of the "death or glory" instruction is supposed to fit in? The "Last Shell" message UHZgp might be wrong and if it was originated much later things might fit together.

Lutjens' personal message "Last Man" message to "My Fuhrer" has UHZgp 23:58 and a logged time of only half an hour later at 00:32.

I think the "Last Shell" message was actually created much later, maybe around 23:15 after damage control crews had exhausted most of the remedies, and maybe Raeder had reminded Lutjens that no matter how hopeless his situation, surrender or premature scuttling was not an option.

Many here have suggested such a reminder would be unnecessary since Lutjens had already given his "Victory or Death" speech to the crew, but circumstances had certainly changed after the rudder hit. When the speech was given, there was a good chance of escape without further contact with the pursuing pack. Now the end was now inevitable and all Bismarck was required to do was create as much damge as possible before going under.

However we still need to know Werner Rahn's evidence for sure.

All the best

wadinga
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