Hitler, Donitz, and the Baltic Sea: The Third Reich's Last Hope, 1944-1945

I found this book interesting as an insight into an area od Donitzs' life and command which has not been covered elsewhere. Other than that, there is not that much to commend about the book. Yes, it is well researched and reasonably well written. If you are interested in Donitz, then you will need to read the book. As far as the area of operations covered - well, that is your choice; it would not "grab" me. As a counterweight to the Atlantic and Med, it is about as interesting as that of his U-boats in the Far East.

This book offers an excellent view of hitlers final months, and his over-arching strategy. I highly recommend this book!

A well written and researched book with some compelling arguments that offers a convincing explanation that Hitler had indeed a strategy in the last two years of the war, other than a mad obsession with holding every inch of ground, no matter what the cost.

The basis of the book is that Hitler based his strategy on one simple premise, that to avoid total defeat he needed to neutralize the western allies for just enough time to defeat the Soviet Union, which would allow him to broker a peace deal with the western allies. To do this, he needed to keep the Baltic Sea firmly under German control; to allow for new revolutionary U-boats to be commissioned, (despite heavy allied bombing the new U Boats were starting to be produced faster than ever in early 1945) and their crews trained away from constant allied air and naval attacks, this would allow Germany to stop the flood of US supplies to the Soviet Union as well as making further British and American offensive operations in the west more difficult due to the disrupted supply lines.

The book shows how Hitler quite rightly understood that alternative strategies offered by his Generals merely proposed to delay Germanys defeat, while only Donitz and his new U-boats offered the only if slim possibility of victory.

The book is a delight to read, and deserves a wider audience.

Hitler's selection of Commander in Chief of the German Navy, Karl Doenitz as his succesor in the closing days of World War II is often viewed as puzzling and illogical. Howard Grier's "Hitler, Doenitz and the Baltic Sea" attempts to explain why the selection of a Navy man rather than a high-ranking Nazi party hack or a German Army Field Marshal to succeed Hitler made sense, at least to Hitler.

The reason for the selection stems from the Nazi's long-range plans for Germany to dominate, if not conquer outright, the entire world. Such plans would naturally have to include a full scale naval fleet. Nazi Germany, however, was never able to develop such a fleet, particularly after the invasion of Poland when the declarations of war by Britain and France against Germany, and Germany's subsequent invasion of the Soviet Union, necessitated Germany's primary economic and military focus on land-based warfare. Japan, however, in 1941 did have a full scale navy (arguably even the biggest and best in the world). It was for this reason, the use of Japan's naval forces against the navies of the Western powers, that Germany appeared to welcome Japan's attack on the U.S. and why Germany declared war on the U.S. immediately thereafter.

The author's book examines how the Nazis never lost sight of their hope for world domination through their own naval force and how even in the last year, months, and weeks of the war they planned to at least force a peace with the West (and then re-conquer lands lost in the East) by utilizing a new type of submarine, the XXI U-boat, to damage and destroy British and American shipping, with the end result being that the British would starve and the Americans would not be able to re-supply Britain or ferry troops and materiel to continue the war in Europe.

The book is a thoughtful analysis of the overall strategy of the Nazi Empire in the closing months of the war and helps explain why Hitler believed up to the end that the Nazis could reverse their fortunes. It also helps explain why the Nazis were desperate to hold onto ports in the Baltic Sea and retain possession of Norway: After the invasion of Normandy, these were the only areas left under German control that could be used to test the new submarines, train their crews, and launch a U-boat counteroffensive.

Although the book may appear to be of interest only to naval historians, particularly as it relates to World War II, its scope is more wide-ranging than that and would be useful for those interested in World War II in general as well.