Sultan’s palace of Dolma-Bagtsche and blinking against the sun towards the
Midilli
yacht with the red half-moon above.
The Breslaus have pity on them and fetch them on board in the dinghy. Then up anchor and we cruise out against the wind and current of the Bosphorus.
Hardly anything is gained. The yacht often drives further downstream than it makes to windward. Finally a man from the Consulate, thinking we are incapable, cannot hide his displeasure.
Quickly we put him to the tiller—but he soon asks penitently for relief. He has brought us further downstream.
In the evening it becomes calm; we have to anchor before Arnautkoij.
Our guests have found it wonderful and set out satisfied for the journey home on the electric railway. The oldest of us delays somewhat at first, then bites the sour apple and telephones the First Officer to ask for the steam pinnace … 83
In July 1915 the
Breslau
ran into a deep-sea mine the Russians had laid off the entrance to the Bosphorus; now both German ships were out of action. While the cruiser was being repaired a naval brigade was formed to assist the Turks in the vital struggle against allied landings at Gallipoli. Dönitz himself either volunteered or was sent to the infant Air Service where he received some training as a pilot and served as observer-gunner in reconnaissance flights over the enemy positions.
He was in high spirits at this period; he had just become engaged to Sister Inge. As he tells the story in his memoirs, the flooded
Breslau
had scarcely made fast inside the Bosphorus after running into the mine, than a Turkish destroyer came alongside to take the cruiser’s landing party to the Dardanelles. He had no time to wash or shave before jumping aboard her, whereupon she steamed off for the Sea of Marmora, making a brief call at Stamboul to fill the water tanks.
What luck, I thought! I leaped from the deck, ran down a short street to the German Embassy hospital, asked there for Sister Inge, became engaged to her within three to four minutes in my unwashed state and in a temperature of 30 degrees and came running again punctually back to the destroyer in order to travel to the Dardanelles for my war mission as a flyer. 84
This would have been in character; as his friend, von Lamezan’s, wife described him, all his life he was a ‘pusher’!
Nevertheless, the early proposal—in terms of his age and rank—raises questions. Was it a need for the feminine element in his life missing since the age of three and a half, a desire to regain something of the permanence lost when his father died, a temperamental need for very close companionship such as had distinguished his cadet time with von Lamezan, even an inner sensitivity that he masked in the masculine ethos of the mess? Such speculations come to mind, particularly as young officers were not encouraged to marry—partly on financial grounds, mainly perhaps because dependants at home might take the edge off their risk-taking aggressiveness in battle. So far as money went, Dönitz was the most junior kind of lieutenant, not yet two years out of his time as a
Fähnrich
, and needing for the next two years, by official estimate, some 600 Marks annually over and above his salary just to keep up the style of a single officer. Then again, it was wartime and he was about to embark on an even more hazardous service than he had been engaged on up to that time. And yet it may be that he was simply very much smitten, a natural ‘pusher’ and young enough not to count the cost.
Of one thing there can be no doubt: he was regarded by his superiors as a model officer. A personal report on him at this time (dated August 1915) by his Captain, von Klitzing, is the first of a series of brilliant commendations preserved in his personal file in the German naval archives:
I can only confirm the previous favourable judgement. Dönitz is a charming, dashing and plucky officer with first-rate character qualities and above-average
Midilli
yacht with the red half-moon above.
The Breslaus have pity on them and fetch them on board in the dinghy. Then up anchor and we cruise out against the wind and current of the Bosphorus.
Hardly anything is gained. The yacht often drives further downstream than it makes to windward. Finally a man from the Consulate, thinking we are incapable, cannot hide his displeasure.
Quickly we put him to the tiller—but he soon asks penitently for relief. He has brought us further downstream.
In the evening it becomes calm; we have to anchor before Arnautkoij.
Our guests have found it wonderful and set out satisfied for the journey home on the electric railway. The oldest of us delays somewhat at first, then bites the sour apple and telephones the First Officer to ask for the steam pinnace … 83
In July 1915 the
Breslau
ran into a deep-sea mine the Russians had laid off the entrance to the Bosphorus; now both German ships were out of action. While the cruiser was being repaired a naval brigade was formed to assist the Turks in the vital struggle against allied landings at Gallipoli. Dönitz himself either volunteered or was sent to the infant Air Service where he received some training as a pilot and served as observer-gunner in reconnaissance flights over the enemy positions.
He was in high spirits at this period; he had just become engaged to Sister Inge. As he tells the story in his memoirs, the flooded
Breslau
had scarcely made fast inside the Bosphorus after running into the mine, than a Turkish destroyer came alongside to take the cruiser’s landing party to the Dardanelles. He had no time to wash or shave before jumping aboard her, whereupon she steamed off for the Sea of Marmora, making a brief call at Stamboul to fill the water tanks.
What luck, I thought! I leaped from the deck, ran down a short street to the German Embassy hospital, asked there for Sister Inge, became engaged to her within three to four minutes in my unwashed state and in a temperature of 30 degrees and came running again punctually back to the destroyer in order to travel to the Dardanelles for my war mission as a flyer. 84
This would have been in character; as his friend, von Lamezan’s, wife described him, all his life he was a ‘pusher’!
Nevertheless, the early proposal—in terms of his age and rank—raises questions. Was it a need for the feminine element in his life missing since the age of three and a half, a desire to regain something of the permanence lost when his father died, a temperamental need for very close companionship such as had distinguished his cadet time with von Lamezan, even an inner sensitivity that he masked in the masculine ethos of the mess? Such speculations come to mind, particularly as young officers were not encouraged to marry—partly on financial grounds, mainly perhaps because dependants at home might take the edge off their risk-taking aggressiveness in battle. So far as money went, Dönitz was the most junior kind of lieutenant, not yet two years out of his time as a
Fähnrich
, and needing for the next two years, by official estimate, some 600 Marks annually over and above his salary just to keep up the style of a single officer. Then again, it was wartime and he was about to embark on an even more hazardous service than he had been engaged on up to that time. And yet it may be that he was simply very much smitten, a natural ‘pusher’ and young enough not to count the cost.
Of one thing there can be no doubt: he was regarded by his superiors as a model officer. A personal report on him at this time (dated August 1915) by his Captain, von Klitzing, is the first of a series of brilliant commendations preserved in his personal file in the German naval archives:
I can only confirm the previous favourable judgement. Dönitz is a charming, dashing and plucky officer with first-rate character qualities and above-average
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