Word: doenitz
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Dates: during 1942-1942
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Another favorite Doenitz variation on this theme: the wolf-pack leader singles out one ship in a convoy, draws the escort's attention to the single encounter while the rest of the pack, often operating on the surface in the dark, move in on the unprotected merchant units...
...Bacon. At his desk in Kiel, hardworking Karl Doenitz can, by twisting his close-cropped head, ponder a wall portrait of prong-bearded old Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, World War I evangelist of unrestricted U-boat warfare. Inscribed on the portrait he could read the U-boat credo: Die Tat ist alles-The deed is all. In other words: the only thing that matters in U-boating is the bacon you bring home...
...first year of the war Admiral Doenitz found operations in close-in British waters so costly* that he virtually ceased operations there, giving over the areas to his and the Luftwaffe's mines. Since U.S. warships joined British in convoying, his attacks on transatlantic convoys have also become more costly. The entrance of the U.S. into the war gave him a new field of operations, the Atlantic Coast. There he has another chance, perhaps his last, to prove that U-boats can bring home the bacon...
...break down Versailles restrictions against recreation of his fleet. He gained powerful supporters in the German Inner Circle: Admiral Otto Schniewind, former director of naval education, now Chief of Staff of the German Navy High Command, is his close friend. The Luftwaffe's Hermann Göring supports Doenitz' frequent demands for materials and money, though he is often said to oppose similar demands from Admiral Raeder. Gossip is that the porcine Marshal likes Doenitz because of quick-witted sympathy expressed one day when Herr Göring got his fat stomach caught in the hatch...
...gimpy little Paul Joseph Goebbels, though he publicly blamed the Athenia disaster on Britain, reportedly assailed Doenitz in a Cabinet meeting for "the ruthless sinking of the Athenia which has prejudiced neutrals." Propaganda Minister Goebbels is said to be coldly suspicious of the U-boat Admiral's close friendship for the daring onetime U-boat commander Pastor Martin Niemöller, whose services in Berlin Karl Doenitz attended right up to the time when Pastor Niemöller was jailed for preaching against the Nazis...