Unfair portrayal of Admiral Lutjens in SINK The BISMARCK (1964)

[Griff Murphey]

Thank you very much! Nice site. I went straight for the articles on the sinking of Shokaku and Kongo. Shokaku, especially, as "our" sub at Galveston sank her. Did not realize Cavalla took over 100 depth charges in kind - and of course survived. Kongo's sinking was interesting too. Never get torpedoed in a gale then continue all ahead full.

[S.A. Boggs]

I stand in awe @ much of the knowledge that I have found on these forums and I am a history student myself. What really sank the HMS Hood was greed on behalf of Hitler. If Hitler had never started the war the Hood was pretty safe. As to what caused the explosion is a matter of disagreement to this day.
Sam

[Phil McGrath]

Yup, it was a movie and that part is correct as is it was a movie only made 15 years after the end of hostilities. It would be nice to have a new more accurate movie made and modern special effects would be really good with that. Using Ludovic Kennedy's excellent book "Pursuit" as a basis would be a good idea too.


The Nazi navy was the least Nazi organization in WWII. The navy kept a chaplain's corps after Hitler abolished the chaplaincy service wide. Apparently the party didn't want to deal with the navy on these issues or maybe just didn't know how "reactionary" the navy was. Under Erich Raeder the Nazi navy even had some Jewish officers.

Lutjens wasn't a party guy, and as Rick says almost always gave the navy salute instead of the Nazi salute even to Hitler. So that part of the movie, among other's was incorrect. Unfortunately he, like many, probably most in the Nazi navy weren't party members but were complicit with the "program" which was a pity. He also showed himself, when it really counted, to be a marginal fleet commander which was good for us but bad for him, his ships and crews.

I always thought that Raeder was treated a bit unfairly. Under him the Navy paid scrupulous attention to the rules of warfare, he just had the misfortune to be on the wrong side.

Angus Konstam & Chris Henry's "Two Great Naval Battles of WWII" is a very good read, I think you will change your opinion of Adm. Lutjens being a marginal commander? The refusal too surrender Jewish sailors wasn't well known even in the high command. That was kept quietly between the Navy and Hitler, more too the point it was really between Adm. Donitz and Hitler. G.Adm. Raeder supported Adm. Donitz refusal too surrender Professional Officer's and Sailors that were loyal too German Navy it was during/at this time (1938-40?) you see the big shift in Hitler's loyalty too the Luftwaffe and why Adm. Donitz didn't get his much needed submarines too choke England too death with. On a side note that's the one BIG reason why Adm. Donitz didn't get a harsh penalty at Nuremburg.

[blackhawknj]

Strictly speaking the the entire Wehrmacht was non-Party. Party membership actually lapsed during active service, military personnel could not be tried in a civilian court. The military people who appeared before Roland Freisler's People's Court following the July 20 Plot had been expelled from the Wehrmacht by a "Court of Honor."
Again, it's a movie, you don't get your history from movies. There is that movie Submarine X-1 about the X-Craft raid, the ship is called the Lindendorff-? the raid commander is a Canadian who lost his submarine but is given a chance to redeem himself. The movie Cromwell compresses
9 years of history into a 2 hour movie.

[Art]

Strictly speaking the the entire Wehrmacht was non-Party. Party membership actually lapsed during active service, military personnel could not be tried in a civilian court. The military people who appeared before Roland Freisler's People's Court following the July 20 Plot had been expelled from the Wehrmacht by a "Court of Honor."
Again, it's a movie, you don't get your history from movies. There is that movie Submarine X-1 about the X-Craft raid, the ship is called the Lindendorff-? the raid commander is a Canadian who lost his submarine but is given a chance to redeem himself. The movie Cromwell compresses
9 years of history into a 2 hour movie.

In 1934 every member of the German military was required to take an oath of allegance to Adolf Hitler. So was the civil service. Not to Germany but to Hitler personally. Refusal to take the oath was a serious offense that could result in anything from a trip to Dachau to beheading. So saying that a person who pledged allegiance to Hitler was not necessarily a party member is true, but to me inconsequential. Now how many people in this forums would take a personal oath of alliance to a U.S. President, maybe I can be more clear, would anybody here take a personal oath of allegiance to Barak Obama????? Obama's an awful president, but he sure isn't Hitler and I definitely believe that I'd have to look a long way to find a guy on this forum who would raise his right hand to do that.

I also want to clarify something about my opinion on the "Nazi Military." Nazi Germany was a totalitarian regime that demanded personal allegiance to the "Fuhrer," not to Germany. Personal culpability for the horrors of the regime - There was resistance, Dachau was set up as a camp not for Jews or Gypsies, but rather for resistors to the Nazi government. Resistance ran all the way from people who simply tried to circumvent the system (Admiral Raeder, who wound up going to prison after the war anyway) to people like Bonhoffer and the Scholls who paid with their lives for denouncing the party, to Admiral Canarias, the Nazi Chief of Intelligence who was actually a spy for the allies; and whom the Nazis didn't discover until the war was almost over. Also children bear no responsibility for the miscues of their parents. The mass of Germans were, however, down with the Nazis until things started to unwind, or were intimidated. There are plenty of people who could have done something who didn't.

So I don't believe that all Germans were responsible, but I do believe a clear majority were cool with Hitler and yes, there is national, though not necessarily collective responsibility for that.

two_mausers_9971web.jpg

Our daughter is a school teacher. She once went into class to find a kid who was a perpetual whipping boy being bullied. She wrote up the offenders and sent them to the Principal, and gave disciplinary assignments to the entire class. The kids who were just watching but not participating said "but Miss, Miss, we didn't do anything." She said "that's right...you didn't do anything."

[PhillipM]

A vet I knew in Germany after the war dated a German girl. Remarking on the Nazi roundup, she said we were all Nazis.

[blackhawknj]

The Night of the Long Knives and Hitler's speech to the Reichstag on July 13, 1934 in which he declared himself to be the "Supreme Justiciar" of the Reich and warned that anyone who raised his hand against the State would be summarily liquidated served notice on the Germans that the rule of law was gone and superseded by the Will of the Fuehrer.
I like to quote the Walter Matthau character in Fail Safe who asks: "How far do you think Hitler would have gotten if every Jew he went after had a gun in his hand?!"

[Roadkingtrax]

Interesting discussion.