Burkard Baron Von Mullenheim-Rechberg - Battleship Bismarck: A Survivors Story

BATTLESHIP

BISMARCK

This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Bundesarchiv, Koblenz

Kapitn zur See Ernst Lindemann

New and Expanded Edition

BATTLESHIP

BISMARCK

A Survivors Story

By Burkard Baron von Mllenheim-Rechberg

Translated by Jack Sweetman

BLUEJACKET BOOKS

Naval Institute Press
Annapolis, Maryland

This book has been brought to publication by the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

1980, 1990 by the United States Naval Institute

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book was originally published in German by Verlag Ullstein. The English translation of the first edition was published in 1980 by the Naval Institute Press. This 1990 edition is a translation of a new and expanded edition first published in German in 1987 by Verlag Ullstein.

First Bluejacket Books printing, 2002

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mllenheim-Rechberg, Burkard, Freiherr von, 1910

[Schlachtschiff Bismarck. English]

Battleship Bismarck: a survivors story / by Baron Burkard von Mllenheim-Rechberg; translated by Jack Sweetman.

p. cm. (Bluejacket books)

Originally published: Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 1980.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61251-294-5 (e-book)

1. Mllenheim-Rechberg, Burkard, Freiherr von, 1910 2. Bismarck (Battleship) 3. World War, 19391945Personal narratives, German. 4. World War, 19391945Naval operations, German. 5. Germany KriegsmarineBiography. 6. SailorsGermanyBiography. I. Title. II. Series.

D772.B5 M8313 2002

940.545943dc21

2002070334

In honored memory
of the
German Resistance
19331945

When I lived through the opening days of September 1939, the war that was so suddenly at hand and would later limit the operational life of the battleship Bismarck to only nine days, appeared to me as nothing less than a natural catastrophe, a fateful, somehow outbroken war. And yet much less than one which had been forced upon us from without, as the Reichs propaganda loved to pretend. I immediately regarded it as Hitlers warhis very own, coddled creation, something he had long planned and pursued in a skillful deception of German and world opinion from January 1933 to August 1939.

If and when the individual German understood Hitlers lust for war, whether sooner or later, naturally varied from person to person. A tiny, politically insignificant minority had seen through Hitler even before he took power; yet there are those who until today have not and will not see this unscrupulous warmonger for what he was.

But for those who took a critical perspective and from the beginning understood the war as one cynically unleashed by Hitler out of racial fanaticism and megalomania to enslave the continent of Europe, the very first German projectile would appear as having been fired in the service of a politically reprehensible and nationally ruinous goal. To feel this way was purely a question of individual perception that on its part became the impetus of the wish to see the Fhrer disappear in the best interests of the nation, and the sooner the better. Because of the impossibility of escape from the wartime situation, the growing doubts I had felt soon after Hitlers emergence,

The first edition of the life and death of the battleship Bismarck and the majority of her crew appeared in 1980. In accordance with the interests of my publisher, the United States Naval Institute, it was limited to the maritime aspects of these themes. I dedicated it to the memory of those whopresumably without exceptionhad risked their lives in naive faith in Hitler, who seemed to them to be the incarnation, the living spirit of Germany. The book was published in ten languages, sometimes in several printings, and provoked a friendly, almost worldwide response. Among the numerous letters received from readers were many from Germans and others who from their own knowledge or experiences provided interesting additions to the contents in my story. Among the foreigners I must mention by name is first of all the Briton Donald C. Campbell. During the final phase of the battle on 27 May 1941 Campbell was a senior lieutenant and air defense officer on HMS Rodney. His personal narrative makes fascinating reading. Others furnished details regarding various phases of the Bismarcks operations, such as, for example, our meeting with the Swedish aircraft carrier Gotland in the Kattegat on 20 May 1941, the voyage up the Norwegian coast, the dummy ships intended to deceive us in Scapa Flow, the location of the Bismarck by British direction finding after the loss of contact on 25 May, and the British destroyer attacks on the Bismarck the night before the last battle. As for Germans, there appeared for the first time the only survivor from the forepart of the ship, whose battle station was in the damage-control center adjacent to the First Officers command center: Maschinengast Josef Statz. Towards the end of the battle Statz succeeded in reaching the platform of the devastated forward conning tower through a communications shaft and, in the last phase of the ships life, gathered sensational impressions. Thanks are due to all these correspondents for allowing me to work their valuable contributions into the present narrative. It is my final account as a participant in the operation.

Above all, however, the new version of the work delves into politics. I have included events and ideas that affected me as a citizen, which I was in addition to being a professional naval officer. But to keep political content within bounds, I have proceeded along strictly autobiographical lines, sketching only those events and ideas that actually touched my life. And I describe them according to my knowledge and perception at the time; all subsequent reflections are expressly identified as such. This expansion of the scope of the book has allowed me to utilize politically oriented entries in the personal diary of Captain R. N. T. Troubridge, British naval attach in Berlin, 193639. The family of the late Captain Troubridge kindly granted me permission to use this record following the appearance of the English-language edition of the first edition of my book. His comments show Troubridge to have been an unusually sharpsighted observer of the German political scene in the years immediately before the war.

Altogether, the present work will expand my previous, purely naval narrative into a general historical record. Here I have tried to show something of the inner tension felt by those Germans to whom doubts about the Hitler state came early. In the course of years the conformity of our views revealed in an ever clearer light the women and men who, sooner than others, identified the stranglehold from which it was imperative to free our fatherland, and fought in the German Resistance. Their clear vision, their suffering as patriots, their courage, and their sacrifice of life and liberty determined the dedication of the second edition of this book.

Burkard Baron von Mllenheim-Rechberg

January 1987

Brown refers to the brown shirted uniforms worn by members of the Nazi