Karl Dönitz (1891–1980)
Born 1891 CE, died 1980 CE.
Karl Dönitz (German: [ˈdøːnɪts] ; 16 September 1891 – 24 December 1980) was a German naval officer and politician who briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as the head of state of Nazi Germany after the latter's suicide during the Second World War in April 1945. He held this position until the dissolution of the Flensburg Government, about two weeks after Germany's unconditional surrender to the Allies. As Supreme Commander of the Navy beginning in 1943, he played a major role in the naval history of the war. He began his career in the Imperial German Navy before the First World War. In 1918, he was commanding UB-68, and was captured as a prisoner of war by British forces. As commander of UB-68, he attacked a convoy in the Mediterranean Sea while on patrol near Malta. Sinking one ship before the rest of the convoy outran his U-boat, Dönitz began to formulate the concept of U-boats operating in attack groups Rudeltaktik (German for "pack tactic", commonly called a "wolfpack") for greater efficiency, rather than operating independently. By the start of the Second World War, Dönitz was supreme commander of the Kriegsmarine's U-boat arm (Befehlshaber der U-Boote [BdU]).
Text from the Wikipedia article Karl_Dönitz, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.