Hitler, Dönitz and the Baltic Sea

Hitler, Donitz, and the Baltic Sea: The Third Reich's Last Hope, 1944-1945

"..historian Howard D. Grier persuasively argues here that Hitler did possess a strategy to regain the initiative in 1944-45 and that the Baltic theater played the key role in his plan.

In examining that strategy, Grier answers lingering questions about the Third Reich's final months and also provides evidence of its emphasis upon naval affairs and of Admiral Karl Donitz's influence in shaping Hitler's grand strategy. Donitz intended to starve Britain into submission and halt the shipment of American troops and supplies to Europe with a fleet of new Type XXI U-boats. But to test the new submarines and train their crews the Nazis needed control of the Baltic Sea and possession of its ports, and to launch their U-boat offensive they needed Norway, the only suitable location that remained after the loss of France in the summer of 1944."


Amazon.com: Hitler, Donitz, and the Baltic Sea: The Third Reich's Last Hope, 1944-1945: Books: Howard D. Grier

Anyone read this one?

 

Hello, Kai-Petri...

Yes, I have read and am working up a review on Grier's very interetsing book. I think his premise is entirely valid, and, looking carefully at the chronology of events, the Allies came within a hair's breadth of having to confront Typ XXI Unterseebooten in the Atlantic.

Hitler's foreign policy with Finland was involved to a degree, in the attempt to keep the Soviet Baltic Fleet from activity in the Baltic. As a loyal Finn and an officer, would you comment on the German operations Tanne Ost (Hochland) and Tanne West (Aland Islands). These seem ill-conceived for the times, the German attempt at Hochland especially.

I do know as a naval officer with sea experience during the cold war in the Atlantic, that the Typ XXI cast a long shadow. Soviet boats based on the German Type XXI posed a serious threat in the post war years.

Lou

BT K

 

I read it and own it - it's a very interesting book. In addition to what was mentioned by USS Gold Star the book also adds a unique approach to many of Hitler's decisions on the German Western Front in 1944-45 - including the decisions to leave hundreds of thousands of troops bottled up in the French port cities and of course - The Battle of the Bulge.

It's well worth the read. I too am hoping to have a review of it up soon (at The Globe At War).

 

Yes, I believe it was more of Hitler daydreaming and perhaps getting a revenge more than anything else. The German troops were withdrawing at the time from the Baltics so having won any extra ground "this week" would have ended in losing it "the next week" or losing the troops there. The Tanne Ost operation was a huge failure and totally unnecessary. the Tanne West was never started but I guess Hitler had other things to think about by then. Tanne West would have been mostly an operation to pressurize the Swedish to keep on selling goods to the Germans.

 

question :

Does or is there mention of why Hitler wanted the Finnish isles defended so heavily in the fall of 1944 against the Soviets as the GErman truppen were so bottle-necked as it was it was futile to keep them defended

 

Not any good reasons, Erich. It seems everybody else considered the operations totally useless then but Hitler considered them almost priority 1. If you just looked at the operational maps and troop positions you must have realized what would happen soon, but then again it might be Hitler was turning to the "fortress cities" thinking at the time.

 

is it on amazon