The Pour Le Meriteinthe Kriegsmarine E, Edward Ebrite
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THE POUR LE MERITEINTHE KRIEGSMARINE E, EDWARD EBRITE The Order Pour le Merite, the highest military decoration of the German ~mpire, was awarded only 54 times to officers of the Imper- ial Navy during the entire course of World War I. Of these 84 Knights of the Order Pour le B|erite, 16 would again §erve t~eir Navy, the Kriegsmarine, during the Second World War.± All 16 of these young naval heroes would rise to high positions in World War If; nine of them would reach flag rank, and two of these would actually become Generaladmiral, a rank achieved by only ten other persons. Although none of the 16 would further add to their laurels by also winning the highest decoration of World War II, as would their Army peers, Rommel and Sch6rner, they would all nevertheless per- form highly important service in the second war. A brief summary of the World War II performance of these 16 persons, in the order in which they received the Pour le Merite, follows: Io Adolf yon Trotha was awarded the Pour le Merite on 5 June 1916 as Kapit~n zur See and Chief of Staff to Admiral Reinhard Scheer, commander of the German High Seas Fleet at the Battle of Jutland. Trotha was born in 1868, joined the Navy in 1886, and ultimately became Vizeadmiral and Head of the Admiralty before retiring in 1920. From 1934 to 1940 he was leader of the Reichs- bundes deutscher Seegeltung <Union for German Naval Prestige). In 1939 he was re-entered on the active list, at the age of 71, as a char. Admiral, although he did not hold any active command prior to his death in 1940. 2. Walther Forstmann received the Pour le Merite on 12 August 1916 as a Kapit~nleutnant and commander of submarine U-39. Born in Essen-Werden in 1883, Forstmann joined the Navy in 1900 and ended World War I as the second ranking U-boat ace with 380,000 tons sunk. After obtaining a doctoral degree between the wars, he was appointed in August 1939 to head the Munitions Detachment- Osnabr~ck. In 1940, after briefly heading OKW Armaments Liaison in Copenhagen, he became Chief of the Armament Staff-Denmark for the remainder of the war, being promoted Kapit~n zur See zur Ver- f~gung in 1942. 3. Lothar yon Arnauld de la Periere was born in 1886 and join- ed the Navy in 1903. From 1911 to 1913 he was torpedo officer in the cruiser "Emden" and at the outbreak of World War I was an ad- miralty staff officer. He did not receive command of his first submarine until January 1916, but in the following ten months his success exceeded that of all other U-boat commanders. On one three week cruise in the Mediterranean in August 1916 he sank 54 ships totaling 91,000 tons. He won the Pour le Merite on Ii October 1916 as a Kapit~nleutnant and commander of U-53 and ended the war as the number one U-boat ace with a record of more than 200 ships and 400,000 tons. In World War II von Arnauld became the Naval Representative in newly liberated Danzig until March 1940, after which he was successively Naval Commander-Belgium and Netherlands, -Bretagne, and then -Western France. In February 1941, on his way to taking command as Admiral Southeast, his plane i0 was shot down over France and he was killed. He had just been promoted Vizeadmiral z. V. 4. Max Valentiner, born in 1883 and a member of the Navy from 1902, was awarded the Pour le Merite as a Kapit~nleutnant and commander of U-38 on 26 December 1916. He finished the war with 300,000 tons sunk, but then took refuge in Norway to avoid pro- secution by the British as a war criminal for sinking the passenger liner "Persia" without warning in 1915 with the resultant loss of 335 persons. In World War II he rose to the rank of Kapit~n zur See z. V., leading the Submarin~ Acceptance Command until he was relieved in March 1945. He died on 19 June 1949. 5. Hans Walther was a 33 year old Kapit~nleutnant when he won his Pour le Merite on 9 January 1917 as commander of U-52. During World War II he was the Naval Leader of the Reserve Defense In- spection Office-Koblenz until 1940, and then was Konteradmiral and Head of the Essen Recruiting District until his release in August 1942. He was not further employed. 6. Heino yon Heimburg was born in Hannover in 1889 and joined the kaiserliche Marine in 1907. At 28 he was the youngest naval officer to be awarded the Pour le Merite, which he received on Ii August 1917 as an Oberleutnant zur See and commander of UC-22. From 1937 to 1939 he was Judge on the Military Court, after which he was Inspector of the Reserve Defense District in Bremen until April 1943. He was a Vizeadmiral attached to the Naval Group Command-North at the time of his release in May 1943. After the war he was taken prisoner by the Russians, in whose captivity he died in October 1945. 7. Karl Bartenbach, born in B6c~ingen in 1881 and in the Navy since 1898, was a Korvettenkapit~n in World War I and was awarded the Pour le Merite on 27 October 1917 as Leader of the U-boats in Flanders. Although he was appointed char. Vizeadmiral upon mobil- ization for World War II and was attached to the officers reserve pool, he did not actually hold any active command position prior to his retirement in May 1943. Bartenbach died in 1949. 8. Hans Adam earned his Pour le Merite as a Kapit~nleutnant and commander of U-82on 6 November 1917. This native Rhinelander, born in Wesel in 1883, became Kapit~n zur See z. V. in World War II, serving from 1940 to 1941 in the Submarine Training Division and from 1941 to 1944 as Leader of Armaments Inspection-Netherlands in Rotterdam. He was released from active service in February 1945 and died in 1948 at the age of 9. Robert Moraht received his Pour le Merite on 7 November 1917 as a 33 year old Kapit~nleutnant and U-boat commander (U-64). After the war he returned to civilian life and acquired a doctor- ate in political science. In World War II, as Fregattenkapit~n z. V., he served as Harbor Master at both Kirkenes and Aalesund, as Naval Commandant of Bergen, on the Staff of Naval Group Command- Norway, and finally, from July 1944 to the end of the war, as Commandant of Bornholm Island. He was a Russian prisoner of war until October 1948 and died at 71 in 1956. I0. Hans Rose, perhaps one of the more famous Pour le Merite Knights, was born in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1885 and received his highest recognition on 20 December 1917 for his exploits as commander of submarine U-53. Rose was probably best known for his undersea trip to neutral America in October 1916, when U-53 actually tied up at Newport, R. I. and where he met with U.S. ii naval officers. Not finding the cargo submarine "Bremen," which he had planned to escort home, he subsequently lay in interna- tional waters off the Nantucket Shoals Lightship and, after gal- lantly removing all crews to the Lightship, he proceeded calmly to sink five British ships. American destroyers stood by help- lessly watching this legal mayhem until, finally out of torpedoes, U-53 dipped her colors and submerged for the trip back to Germany. Rose ultimately ended the war as the fourth leading U-boat ace. During World War II he served as Armaments Inspector-MHnster until October 1939, was in the office of Commander U-boats to January 1940, and then was Commander of the U-boat Training Sec- tion until May 1940. After a brief tour as Chief of Staff to the Admiral-Norwegian North Coast, he became Naval Commandant of Trondheim from July 1940 until his release from active duty as Kapit~n zur See z. V. at the end of July 1943. II. Hans Howaldt was a 29 year old Oberleutnant zur See when he won his Pour le Merite on 23 December 1917 for service as com- mander of UB-107. At the beginning of World War II Howaldt brief- ly commanded the Mine Ship "Hansestadt Danzig" during minelaying operations in the North Sea, then as a Kapit~n z. S. z. V. he was an advisor in the Ship Building Section of the Naval High Command until going on leave of absence in 1943. 12. Hans-Joachim yon Mellinthin was born in Schievelbein in Pomerania in 1887 and entered the kaiserliche Marine in 1906. He was a Kapit~nleutnant and commander of UB-49 when he became a Knight of the Order Pour le Merite on 25 February 1918. He served in World War II as a Fregattenk~pit~n z. V. in the Arma- ments Inspectorate-Paris, as acting commander of the Atlantic Coast Picket Boat Flotilla, as an advisor and then Chief of Staff to the Chief of Sea Transport, and finally, from 1941, as Chief of Staff of the Naval Arsenal-Gotenhafen until his retirement in December 1942. 13. Wolfgang Steinbauer, who was born in Strassburg, German Alsace, in 1888, entered the Navy in 1908 and won the Pour le Merite as an Oberleutnant z.