Hitler, Dönitz and the Baltic Sea: the Third Reich's Last Hope, 1944-5 (review)

A glance at the map from Berlin northward reveals Eastern and Western approaches towards Prussian home waters divided by the Scandinavian Peninsula. In his in-depth study, Professor Grier looks at both, but, apparently due to a lack of action there, pays less attention to the Western one. This, however, was a vital German sea route to Norway and to the Atlantic protected by two large minefields, only completed in February 1945, and a struggle for command of the Skaggerak between Norway and Denmark certainly would have forced Sweden to show its true colors.

The Eastern or Baltic Sea approach is the main theater dealt with in the book. The Baltic, a virtual German lake since 1941, had been the primary route for bringing Swedish iron ore into Germany, as well as a secondary route for importing Finnish nickel. It was also the main supply line for German troops guarding mineral deposits in Lapland. Two German-Finnish minefields, which had bottled up the Soviet Navy in its Kronstadt naval base, were rendered inoperative when the Finns, after repelling a Soviet offensive, agreed in the fall of 1944 to an armistice with Moscow and then proceeded to declare war on the Germans.

The author then follows the retreat of the German Army Group North to Courland in Latvia, the fruitless efforts of the German Navy to maintain the minefields in the Baltic which had kept the Soviet Navy at bay, and its stubborn attempt to keep the Estonian islands out of Soviet hands. These naval undertakings, plus the presence of large pockets of German troops in the Baltic States, have been interpreted by some historians as breakwaters against the advancing enemy or even bridgeheads for future German offensives. Grier, however, contends that the most likely purpose of the deployment of the German Navy and of the Wehrmacht's pockets of resistance on Baltic shores was to safeguard the tests and exercises of new submarines. The submarine offensive being planned by Admiral Dönitz thus depended upon the willingness of the German armed forces to adopt Hitler's Durchhalt strategy, defense to the last cartridge.

Some further aspects of the situation require discussion. The defense of home waters is the first and, for most navies, the only task. Submarine exercises aside, in the fall of 1944 the German Navy was protecting a still formidable German war industry, at Peenemünde for example, and command of the sea later made possible large scale evacuations. The operational readiness of the new submarines was repeatedly delayed and eventually time ran out. We must also remember that at this time the Nazi leaders were desperately looking for new strategies that might stave off collapse. The tenacious German resistance in the West during this time has been explained as an effort to force the Western allies to reach a decision between an accommodation with Germany and a communist Western Europe – a nightmare of Neville Chamberlain and still feared by the British if not yet by the Americans. We also need to consider that perhaps the new submarines were not actually intended to be used to renew the Battle of the Atlantic but to defend Hitler's Zone of Fate: Norway and the Western approach to the Baltic.

Professor Grier's book is well worth its modest price even though its bibliography doesn't include a single Finnish-language source, despite the fact that Finland bulks large in his narrative. This means that certain valuable perspectives and facts are missing from this otherwise remarkable study. Perhaps the biggest loss, however, was Professor Grier's missed opportunity to visit Helsinki, which, aside from London and Moscow, was the only European belligerent capital that escaped enemy occupation during the Second World War.