This has been one of a number of books in either biography or memoirs categories of the elite or main players from World War 2 that I have read and again this is excellent reading.
The book gives details of his earlier career in the German Navy during World War 1, inter war years then through to World War 2 and his days as the last leader of the Third Reich - covers everything from torpedeo development / failures, submarine development or advancement to counteract Allied advances in anti submarine warfare, uboat losses and the aces, the constant pressing to enlarge the uboat fleet and gain a naval air arm - this book is well written, easy to follow and certainly not something you will get bored with.

The book is fairly complex reading; only because, I feel, that I was looking at it from "my side", and the analysis was that much more difficult. Doenitz was a remarkable man, a brilliant strategist, and a professional soldier in the highest regard. One has to constantly keep referenced to the basis of Doenitz's dissertation, and moreso, keep in proper perspective the historical trackwork of the war.
One of the things that I found a little humourous was the statement that Doenitz was "appalled at the pictures of the contrentration camps". I believe that statement was to keep his neck out of the noose! And he was smart enough to know that he was in a position to "stay above" any indictments of war crimes and atrocities. His only crime, as recorded, was to have been "GrandAdmiral ReichMarine". To his credit, many allied high-ranking officers, Nimitz in particular, accorded him the highest respect and esteem. To his fear and chagrin, Eisenhower seemed to be "gunning" for him; at least as I perceived it.
Excellent book. Read the liner notes on rear cover. I think you will agree. Gives one pause to wonder...

My friend lent me this book. It was my first book on the naval aspect of the Second World War. I figured after the hundreds I had read on the land and air element I should start to look into the naval war. I could not put this book down, I devoured it. I have been gobbling up submarine books since that day.
Wow! First you have to be awed by the fact that this is a book written by the man that became the successor to Hitler. Second, its the best way to get the big picture of the U-boat campaign from the German viewpoint. Doenitz wrote this before he found out about allied successes in breaking his naval codes.
There are many fascinating stories here, about individual submarine actions, convoy battles, raids, rescue missions. Great stuff that you could make into great movies some day. You really get a good sense of how close the Germans were to winning the war. Thankfully, and Doenitz goes into it, the Third Reich did not take the U-boat arm seriously until it was too late. Whew!
Doenitz was charged with war crimes after the war and jailed. Specifically for conducting unrestricted submarine warfare.
Like every nazi that seems to write after the war - he defends himself by saying that being at the front he was not aware of everything going on back at home. Truth? Maybe, maybe not. But you cannot stop yourself from sympathizing with the man who was left holding the bag in May of 1945. We forget that the Allies waged unrestricted submarine warfare against the Japanese from the beginning. Doenitz has written that some American admirals were sympathetic after the war, and tried to get him acquitted. Very interesting story. A must for every World War Two reader.

Do you know Doenitz? Are you a WWII enthusiast? A historian? A submariner? Then, this book is a MUST HAVE. There are lots of books about the WWII submarine campaign, from both sides, many of them better written. So what's special? No other book provides that specific background knowledge and information. Why didn't Germany build more submarines than it did in the crucial early years? How did the wolf pack tactics evolve? What measures did the German Naval High Command take after discovering their torpedo crisis? How did they counter Allied scientific breakthroughs? Why didn't they devine Enigma was being broken? Finally, you will hear the German opinion about Roosevelt's "Short of War" strategy - nowaday's United Nations would be in turmoil...

Second, if you can read between the lines, this book will reveal the personality of one of the mightiest leaders of WWII. Was he a war criminal? Maybe, but certainly his biggest crime was to be a soldier (with very limited horizon apart from his daily duty) who happened to fight on the wrong side. Bad luck, for both sides...

This book certainly doesn't replace other narratives about the "Atlantic War", but it supplements all of them. Only here, you can find the background story.

If you're looking for more WWII memoirs, try Doenitz' superior, Raeder, and DON'T OVERLOOK Churchill, as he was the greatest writer among all of them.

If you still have no idea as to who Doenitz might have been, then try to read Lothar Guenther Buchheim's vivid picture about how the submariners themselves felt, instead; that is indeed great war literature.

Admiral Karl Doenitz the architect of U- boat campaign in World War II which nearly brought Allied powers to the brink of a defeat.Britain particularly vulnerable to this form of war since London depended on overseas colonies for much of her economic sustenance.Battle of Atlantic unarguably the most bitter ,protracted campaign of World War II where fortunes of rival navies fluctuated widely.This was a campaign whose outcome to a large extent determined by technical innovations.In the opening chapters of the book Doenitz recounts his experiences as a U-boat commanderin the Mediterrenean theatre in World War I.This made him evolve wolf-pack tactics for assailing Allied merchant shipping which sailed in convoys.Belated introduction of convoy took the sting out of U-boat offensive in World War I.Independent sailing of ships offered U-boats plenty of targets.Now number of targets shrank with large expanses of water virtually robbed of shipping.So Doenitz spread the U-boats out across probable path of a convoy.Once a U-boat is able to sight a convoy it got in touch with shore HQs which inturn vectored other U-boats in the neighbourhood towards the target.This formed an effective tactical riposte to the convoy:concentration of merchant shipping defending escort forces with corresponding concentration of attacking forces.Remarkable strides in the field of wireless telegraphy made this possible.British remained complacent about U-boat menace.Development of Asdic,convoy ,Prize rules governing the conduct of war at sea account for British optimism.But Doenitz employing U-boats on the surface enmasse during nights to deliver concentrated attacks rendered Asdic impotent. Despite establishing patrol lines Atlantic ocean offered still sufficent room for convoys to evade contact.Occasionally convoys slipped through U-boat cordon.Here radio intelligence helped the U-boat Command.BAMS code no 3 directing convoy traffic was broken by xb-dienst the cryptanalytical branch of of German naval intelligence .As a result Doenitz could exactly plot the course taken by the convoys.Thus during the outbreak of hostilities U-boat command had an edge over Allied A/S measures.By spring of 1941 U-boats had taken a dreadful toll of British shipping with over 400 ships sunk which represented a rate of sinking twice that of new construction.Admiralty now took measures to curb U-boat menace.Despite all the damage wreaked by U-boats it was by no means invincible.Actually U-boat was not a submarine but a submersible since it operated mostly on the surface ,diving only to escape destruction.This gave scope for ship or airborne radar detection.Then U-boat while co-ordinating manoeuvres for launching massed assault generated thick volume of signal traffic.This was picked up HF-DF aboard convoy escorts.Soon a U-boat will find a destroyer streaking towards it forcing it to submerge thus losing contact with the convoy.This frequent chatter turned out to be achilles heel of Doenitz wolf-pack tactics.By mid-1941 British succesfully penetrated German naval Enigma cipher directing the deployment of U-boats.Allies now knew where Doenitz was sending his boats to form patrol lines.More and more convoys were steered away from waiting U-boat packs ; precious shipping thus saved.Doenitz dwelts extensively in his memoirs about the problem of interception calling for more U-boats for combing Atlantic wastes.Little did he know at that time that break into the German naval cipher helped Allies to outwit U-boat command.Ultra was closely guarded secret of World War II.Its revelation has led to a re-appraisal of Battle of Atlantic.For a long time after the war Germans believed allied use of short wave ASV radar,HF-DF betrayed U-boat positions.After word at the end of the book by German naval historian Jurgen Rohwer has given a fresh perspective on the campaign.By mid-1943 the U-boat offensive was in ruins defeated by a combination of special intelligence,HF-DF ,ASV,escort carriers,superior escorting techniques and improved depth charges.Here lay ,I believe Doenitz failure as a commander.According to his biographer Peter Padfield,he saw only his goals;ignored obstacles probable reaction of others.Though Doenitz speaks about new U-boats-TypeXXI,XXIII,Walter-they never appeared on time in sufficent numbers to influence the outcome of the struggle.Other topics of interest in this book:Doenitz indictment of Prize regulations,torpedo failures which plagued the Norway campaign,German version of Laconia tragedy,his interaction with the top leaders of Nazi Reich.Finally this was a book which I wanted to read desperately.For many months it featured in my Amazon.com wish list.

Doenitz clearly speaks with authority, given his role in WWII. However, he missed the big picture of what was happening and how some of his own decisions (e.g. constant radio contact) contributed to Germany's ultimate defeat.

I found this book very difficult to read. You should either be well-rested or stock up on caffeine before tackling this tome. (hence, the two star rating)

Karl Donitz wore many hats in World War II. The one he is most remebered for was his command of the U-Boat Fleet, and later in the War, the whole German Navy! He was faced with an enormous challenge in just these two positions, but then even later he put in charge of the German government and all facets of the many difficult decisions leading to surrender. This book is interesting for the World War II reader, but it is also an interesting study in human nature. Bravery, fear, and courage are displayed throughout this account of the rise and fall of the German Navy. Wonderful and factual!

With all due respect, and Doenitz in his postwar years did command a great deal of respect in Germany, and still does today amongst German Naval Officers....As a soldier who had done his best under the circumstances.`

The original (German) edition of his book is well written and easily understood, and there is no question about the man's genius as a naval tactician. Doenitz had maximized the effectiveness of limited U-Boat resources by pack attacks on allied convoys. But he had sat on his laurels for too long.

The troubling part of his tactical strategy was that after the "happy times" in 1942 and to the end he continued to send his U-Boat men on virtual suicide missions into the North Atlantic. The man was too naive to accept the allies' upper hand in surface detection radar technology and in communications intercept and code breaking successes. After adding another rotor to the navy's enigma machines, he continued business as usual: Incessant radio communications with his commanders at sea. Instead of giving U-Boat commanders a free hand, (running silent) he attempted to micro manage every U-Boat's mission from shore. Recognizing and adopting to technological changes quickly obviously had strained his intellectual capacity. He could have saved thousands of young submariners by halting these reckless pursuits of heavily defended allied convoys, especially by mid 1944 when it became common knowledge that Germany had lost the war.

Although Doenitz had distanced himself from the Nazi political gangsters and Hitler's OKW toadies like Keitel and Jodl, he nevertheless remained a true believer and admirer of the Fuehrer. Going so far as to risk personal injury or death on a difficult journey to the Fuehrerbunker, a madhouse fifty feet below the rubble of Berlin, April 20th, 1945, not to miss Hitler's final birthday. And there and to the end it was: "Heil Hitler" as usual for the Admiral.

And so Doenitz had soldiered on, ignoring the ugly cancer that had grown on his country.

Karl Doenitz was the mastermind of the German U-Boat Campaign in the battle of the Atlantic. He was a fanatical Nazi and his loyalty to Hitler led to him being named his successor and he rang what was left of Germany for a few days prior to surrender.

His memoirs are well written interesting and clearly the work of an intelligent man. Doenitz was a officer on U-Boats in the first world war. In that war the convoy system had defeated the U-Boats. Anti submarine techniques were ineffectual but the concentration of merchant ships in conveys emptied the seas of ships and meant that most U-Boats were unable to find targets. In the inter war period the British developed ASDIC a sonar system which enabled them to locate submarines under water. The invention of ASDIC made the British confident and as a result the naval agreements negotiated with Germany in the thirties allowed Germany to construct submarines.

Despite this Germany decided to give only a small priority to submarine construction favoring the development of a battleship fleet. At the outbreak of war there were only some 30 submarines in service. Germany's naval construction had been predicated on a war in 1942. As a result the surface navy was small and it only had 4 battleships by 1941. It became clear quickly that the U-Boat was a potent weapon.

Doenitz who had risen to command the U-Boat arm worked out the strategy to make the U-Boat a success. His strategy was to have the U-Boat used as a surface weapon at night. U-Boats were difficult to see and could slip past escorts and sink ships before they were detected. He further developed a tactic which set up a patrol of boats which acted as a picket line and allowed him to direct boats to intercept conveys as they were found.

The book is fascinating as it reveals the development of U-Boat tactics and the miniature of the process of running the U-Boat war. Doenitz describes the training process, how many boats he had to have for those purposes, the design of the optimal boat, problems with torpedoes and the ebb and flow of war.

The problem with the book is that it only gives one side of the campaign. Doenitz himself never really learnt the reason for his defeat.

Technology was one of the big reasons for the German defeat. By 1942 the Allies had started to employ radar which allowed them detect U-Boats shadowing conveys and in conveys. As the Germans developed techniques to detect radar the Allies developed tighter band radar to avoid detection. Radio detection techniques also allowed them to locate U-Boats to avoid them or to sink them. The use of Ultra allowed the penetration of the U-Boat cipher and allowed re-routing of conveys. In addition there was a continual development of weapons technology with the development of hedgehog depth charge systems, Very Lights and Contact fuses.

The best book on the U-Boat campaign is Clay Blair's magnificent two-volume study. Despite that this book is a fascinating portrait of one of the more important German commanders in the war. It is also a good picture of the mechanics of naval command.

This is not a book of words, it is a life, a soul and a confession by the head of the UBoat Command, the German Navy, and the man who was made Furher by Hitler when Hitler decided to commit suicide.

And as these are his memoirs, he has had time to reflect from his jail cell on his history and he has a message for you, me and all of us.

Donitz's recounting of the last two weeks of Germany before the surrender, and while he was Furher, taught me that WWII is not an adventure story, it is a horror story. This portion of the book, the last chapter, is the most incredible chapter I have ever read on WWII, or anything else for that matter.

Before hearing his story, I was your typical WWII buff, reading the books, reciting the exciting parts...always wondering why the WWII veterans in my family tree refused to talk about the war. And, if you, want exciting stories full of incredible UBoat exploits, then this could be the book for you.

But, eventually, he made it all so real to me that his writings, his experiences, they shamed me, they taught me of my gross naivety. You start to feel his pain, and the pain was great.

And he taught me why my old uncles never talked about it. They wanted to forget the pain. But, sadly, their children, such as I, were left with nowhere to learn this. We saw only the Hollywood version.

I will never be able to read a WWII book looking for adventure stories anymore. Donitz's memoirs cured me of that. May we never have another war. And I thank him for the lesson.

As a student of history, I found this book to be an excellent source for WWII history. Not only does he discuss the battles and the commanders, he also discussed the realities of war, and dealing with Hitler. A must read for anyone interested in WWII.