In 1945, when the Red Army invaded Berlin, Hitler committed suicide and left a will appointing Karl Dönitz as the new president of the German Empire and Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht.
Although the last Fuehrer was ultimately unable to prevent the destruction of the Empire, Dönitz, as the inventor of the "wolf pack tactic", his military strength has affected countless people in later generations.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > but why did the "wolf pack tactics" that made Churchill "fear" in the first place come to an end? </h1>
Born in Berlin, although Dönitz lost the love of his mother from an early age, he grew up under his father's knee and was strictly disciplined to study history and cultivated many hobbies.
After graduating from high school, under the influence and influence of his father, Dönitz aspired to become a German navy, so he was admitted to the famous local naval school.
He did not want to become an alternate officer in the Navy in just two years, and he was very skilled in various military exercises.
One day, when Kaiser Wilhelm II was watching a military exercise aboard the battleship Crown Prince, the towed rope suddenly wrapped around the Bresse's propeller as he towed the target ship ahead, and the Crown Prince was getting closer and closer to the Bresse, and if no action was taken, there would be unforeseen consequences.
At this time, Dönitz jumped into the sea with a sailor's knife and cut the cable in time, so that the exercise could be carried out smoothly, so Dönitz also received a commendation.
In February 1918, Dönitz served as captain of the submarine UC-25 and was awarded the Knight's Cross for successfully sinking five transport ships.
However, during the attack on the British Mediterranean merchant ships on 4 October, Dönitz's submarine was severely damaged by the British aircraft carrier and eventually captured, and the British immediately imprisoned him in Yorkshire, where he was not released until October 1917.
But the captured Dönitz was not idle for a moment, and it was during this time that he began to conceive of what would later be frighteningly "wolf pack tactics."
However, as a new submarine tactic, Dönitz was not successful, and even the entire Allied army finally tasted the pain thanks to it.
In the eyes of western countries, the British navy was the first in the world at that time, and the strength of their Royal Navy also became the pride and glory of the country at that time. But Germany was different, and its naval power had always been weaker than other countries.
And at the beginning of the First World War, although the Strength of the German Naval Army was not very bad, they were unlucky, and after encountering the British Royal Navy, they were blocked in the harbor by the other side.
Germany also considered going to sea and facing the British Royal Navy head-on, and defeated the British Royal Navy's fleet through a decisive battle at sea.
But they imagined it too simply, and if they wanted to break the other side's blockade, it was often not enough to rely on the decisive battle at sea. After a big war, not only failed to achieve its own goals, but also was blocked in the port and "unable to move".
Therefore, before the war, Germany despised submarines and other weapons, but after several defeats, Germany realized that only submarines could freely roam the rivers. In the case of the naval power is not strong enough, the submarine can make up for this shortcoming, not only small size, the production cycle of submarines is much less than before other weapons.
After realizing this problem, the German Navy began the road of submarines that did not pay attention to quality development and blindly valued the number of submarines.
If Germany wanted to defeat britain by relying on overseas colonies to provide supplies, it could start by sinking the transport ship and leaving the other side short of supplies, so that the British would all be trapped on the island because of the material problem.
So in 1935, the German Navy dispatched submarines to hunt down British transport ships.
A total of 350 ships were dispatched that day, and before the British could react to what was going on, they were thrown into the sea.
At this time, there were many German submarines in the sea, and the British knew that Germany had begun to change tactics.
At that time, the Germans were particularly excited, and finally decided to start vigorously developing submarines, and Dönitz, who had always advocated relying on submarines for combat, was very satisfied with this achievement.
It seems that Germany wants to make up for the losses suffered in the First World War, and the British shipbuilding industry this year will also be reduced to ashes under the German invasion, becoming a bright landscape in the sea.
After seeing this situation, the senior british first navy officer at the time believed that if it was not paid attention to, britain's final destination would only sink on the bottom of the German submarine.
The British had tried to mobilize the power of the Royal Navy to control German submarines and prevent them from sneaking attacks. In a short period of time, the British navy did achieve some success in following the example of the French army, and Germany temporarily abandoned the attack on Britain because of too many wars.
But just when Britain thought it could breathe a sigh of relief, it didn't expect that Germany's submarine force in World War II was even more crazy than before.
In World War II, although the German navy was still inferior to the British Royal Navy, Hitler's submarines at this time no longer stayed on the surface impression, but strongly encouraged the navy to cruise to develop submarines, and Dönitz also began his own plans.
From this point on, Dönitz was deploying a series of plans, of which wolf pack tactics were his biggest secret.
However, Dönitz's consideration of the formation is very comprehensive, generally obtuse angle. The reason for this consideration is that the angle of shooting is not necessarily accurate, especially the submarine and the military leader of the other side are still in the most secret place, because the ship is moving, it is impossible to carry out aiming shooting.
His idea coincided with the strategy of the German Navy. Therefore, the German Navy adopted two strategies in conjunction with Dönitz's plan, namely the surface ship single ship and the submarine force.
In order to ensure that he could get his own booty quickly and accurately, Dönitz had to arrange it carefully. As the commander of the German submarine force, he was inseparable from his shadow in every Anglo-French battle.
In the early days of the war, the German submarine force was carefully deployed, and although it was small, Dönitz was confident of sinking the British ships in one fell swoop.
In 1940, Germany occupied the west coast of France and the ports of the nearby bays, and Germany gradually increased the number of submarine bases. At this time, the "wolf pack tactics" pursued by Dönitz also reached the peak at this time, setting many amazing records.
Sure enough, under Dönitz's leadership, more than 200 merchant ships were sunk and more than 700,000 tons of supplies were lost, while their own submarine force did not suffer much loss. At its worst, even Churchill exclaimed, "German submarines are the ones that disturb me the most."
After the anglo-French coalition lost to Germany, although France surrendered to Germany, Britain refused to bow down.
In order to allow Britain to once again taste the dangers of "wolf pack tactics", Germany only lost more ships. Germany thought that wolf pack tactics would win the country a higher glory and become the best submarine combat country in the world, but this luck gradually moved away from Germany.
In the end, Dönitz's "wolf pack tactic" went to extinction because it was captured by the British.
Many people think that Dönitz's "wolf pack tactics" are perfect, and the reason for the defeat is because it has suffered too much loss against the British Royal Navy, and it is now impossible to make up for the depleted resources.
In fact, although Germany's defeat caused a lot of damage to the economy, it was ultimately against naval power, and its responsibilities were not as serious as imagined by the army and air force.
Because of the many victories of the "wolf pack tactics", Dönitz has been blinded by the horn of victory, blindly stuck to his own, using submarine tactics wherever it is necessary to fight, and finally ignoring the significance of innovation. Therefore, looking back at the tactics of the German Navy for so many years, the British have already mastered their routines and organized special forces to deal with Dönitz's "wolf pack tactics".
With the continuous innovation of British means, efforts began to be made on anti-submarine bombs, and various radar detectors were used to prevent Germany from sneaking into the seabed every time. In addition, the British built up a better escort fleet to be used at any time to counter the victorious pursuit of the German submarine force.
In addition to the radar detectors, there are flares known as "snowflakes" that make it completely unworkable for Dönitz to fight in the night.
It wasn't until 1943 that Dönitz's submarine was destroyed, the "wolf pack tactic" officially failed, and the largest Atlantic naval battle in history brought the repeatedly frustrated Allied forces to a perfect end.
When Dönitz knew that his tactics would not work, he also thought about changing his tactics in time and using a single yacht method to continue to deal with the British, but he did not expect that this tactic had just been officially implemented, and his two sons were killed in World War II, and as a father, he realized the pain of losing his relatives.
However, his loyalty to Germany was seen by Hitler, and he finally chose Dönitz as his successor. After taking office, Dönitz formed a new government, and the mess left before Hitler left was left to him.
Since the submarine incident, Dönitz seems to have lost interest in anything, but in order to protect the property of the people of the country, he put down his face and identity to reconcile. It wasn't until the end of the world war that life was back to square, and Dönitz paid his own price for it – he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and released in 1956.
As a German general, Dönitz repeatedly launched unjust wars and was reviled by posterity, and even British journalists described him as "the most dangerous person". However, Dönitz's achievements in the war and the idea of insisting on the development of submarines are very advanced, but in the face of the continuous emergence of new weapons in other countries, even if the number of "wolf pack tactics" is large, it will not change Dönitz's self-contained status quo.