Nazi who ordered, ‘Kill and keep on killing', dies peacefully

Press, 27 December 1980, Page 6

Nazi who ordered, ‘Kill and keep on killing', dies peacefully

NZPA-Reuter Aumuehle, West Germany Former Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, the man who succeeded Adolf Hitler in 1945 and agreed to Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender, has died. He was

89. Admiral Doenitz, commander of Germany’s U-boats during World War Two, died at his home in the North German village of Aumuehle near Hamburg. He had been ill for several months and spent some time in hospital last month. The tall, stiff-necked admiral announced Hitler's death in a broadcart to the German people on May 1, 1945, and told them the Fuehrer had appointed him as his successor. He immediately tried to negotiate a surrender and iater authorised General Alfred Jodi to sign the unconditional surrender demanded by the American Allied Commander, General Dwight Eisenhower. The grand admiral was one of the war’s fiercest and most feared German J av, i commanders. He had ia fanatical faith in submarines and used to tell his crests: “Kill and keep on killing, v "No survivors,** he would the commanders of

his U-boats. “Humanity is a weakness.” Shortly- after the German surrender. Admiral Doenitz tried to escape by sea but was arrested and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment at the 1946 Nuremberg warcrimes trials. Among the charges or which he was convicted were permitting continuation of an order to shoot Allied commandos taken prisoner and ordering the continuation of the war as Head of State after Hitler’s death. In 1947 he was moved to the sprawling red-brick fortress of Spandau to West Berlin, along with Hitlers former deputy, Rudolf Hess, and other Nazi prisoners. * fa prison, he showed an obsession for keeping fit and would continuously pace up and down his cell for exercise. ~ “I have to keep healthy to get out of this hole,” he once said. Released in 1955 after a successful prostate operation, he settled fa Aumuehle with his wife, a i nurse at’a - Hamburg hospi- ’■'? Three years later, he pubfahed controversial memoirs underAih* title. "1 Render t Atcmint.* accusing • General ' Eisenhower of placsfig East

Germany in the hands of the Russians by insisting on an unconditional surrender. Born .in Berlin : fa 1891, Doenitz whs the son of an enfanceri The sea was his liteiuuf he first joined the Genmto Navy fa 1910* - He oemmanded some.?:of thTfhrtiStag during World War One, and toWdia a book that he ' foqpd ’. a new ilwM

Unlike other leading Nazi officers whose names were associated with atrocities, Doenitz won the wartime respect of even some of ms enemies. Senior Allied naval officers visited him after his release from Spandau. While willing to talk about his wartime experiences, he avoided commenting on West German politics except for occasional statements urging an end to the prosecution of former Nazis. Doenitz joined the Nazi Party at its inception and began building a vast , submarine fleet even before a 1935 treaty with Britain released some of the restrictions imposed on German armament by the Treaty of He was raade an admiral to 1942 after scoring important successes with U-boats early in the war and became grand admiral in 1943. Once in 'command, ■ he dismisred all senior German admirals who. believed fa .the superiority of surface vessel*. fa 1945, he commanded the operation in which thousand* of German rrturere were ferrite «cro*» tte tic jSre Mtewlß vandng RuMinn troops.'-' h BolhtotHejwnr 4* to action duringthewar. .