Word: nitze
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Before committing suicide in his Berlin bunker, Adolf Hitler made a will naming as his successor one of his most ruthless military associates: Grand Admiral of the German Fleet Karl Dönitz. Known as der Löwe (the Lion), Donitz had masterminded the submarine campaign that destroyed about 15 million tons of Allied and neutral shipping, with a loss of tens of thousands of Allied lives in World War II. "Kill and keep on killing," jug-eared, ice-blue-eyed Dönitz had exhorted his U-boat captains. "Remember, no survivors. Humanity is a weakness...
Near war's end the British were able to estimate the life expectancy of any U-boat 40 days. "Forty days was generous," says Author Schaeffer. But Admiral Dönitz, who lost two sons in the submarine service, kept sending the U-boats out. Schaeffer was assigned to commanders' training school just before the sub in which he had been on duty was sunk with all hand...