Hans-Georg von Friedeburg

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Hans-Georg von Friedeburg Generaladmiral
Friedeburg as Konteradmiral in 1943
Commander of the Marine High Command
In office 1 May 1945 – 23 May 1945
Preceded by	Karl Dönitz
Succeeded by	Walter Warzecha
Personal details
Born	(1895-07-15)15 July 1895 Alsace-Lorraine, German Empire
Died	23 May 1945(1945-05-23) (aged 49) Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Allied-occupied Germany
Awards	Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross
Military service
Allegiance	German Empire  Weimar Republic  Nazi Germany
Branch/service	Imperial German Navy  Reichsmarine  Kriegsmarine
Years of service	1914–45
Rank	Generaladmiral
Commands	Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine U-27

Hans-Georg von Friedeburg (15 July 1895 – 23 May 1945) was a German admiral, the deputy commander of the

A prominent German naval officer of the post-war period, he was appointed Deputy Commander of the German U-boat fleet in September 1941. Overseeing German U-boat training and deployment of the U-boat bases in France, he later organised U-boat picket lines in the mid-Atlantic to find and attack Allied convoys. Promoted to rear admiral in 1942, von Friedeburg assumed command of the German U-boat fleet in February of the following year. He was awarded the Ritterkreuz des Kriegsverdienstkreuzes mit Schwertern on 17 January 1945. He succeeded Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine when Dönitz became Reich President upon Hitler's suicide (and per Hitler's last will), and was promoted to general admiral on 1 May 1945.

In early May 1945, von Friedeburg was ordered by Dönitz to negotiate the surrender to the Western Allied forces. Arriving at Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's headquarters in Lüneburg, Germany he was informed that an unconditional surrender to all Allied forces was necessary and not negotiable. Upon receiving permission from Dönitz, he signed an instrument of surrender of all German armed forces in the Netherlands, northwest Germany and Denmark on 4 May 1945. On 7 May 1945, he was present at the first signing of the German Instrument of Surrender by General Alfred Jodl in Reims.

Von Friedeburg was in Berlin on 8 May 1945 for the second signing of the

Death

On 23 May 1945, the same day that members of the Flensburg Government were arrested, von Friedeburg became a prisoner of war of the British Army in Plön, and committed suicide by swallowing poison. His body was buried at Adelby Cemetery near Flensburg.^[1]

Personal life

His son Ludwig von Friedeburg (1924–2010) became a sociologist and later a politician, serving from 1969 and 1974 as Minister for Culture in the state of Hesse.

Awards

• Iron Cross (1914)
  • 2nd Class
  • 1st Class
• Knight's Cross Second Class of the Order of the Zähringer Lion with Swords
• Knight of the Order of St. John
• Cross of Honour
• Wehrmacht Long Service Award 4th to 1st Class
• Spanish Cross in Silver with Swords
• Clasp to the Iron Cross (1939)
  • 2nd Class
  • 1st Class
• War Merit Cross with Swords
  • 2nd Class
  • 1st Class
• Kapitän zur See and 2nd admiral of the U-boats^[2]
• Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross (17 January 1945)

References

Citations

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hans-Georg von Friedeburg.

• Hans-Georg von Friedeburg in the German National Library catalogue
• Hans-Georg von Friedeburg @ Geocities at the Wayback Machine (archived October 29, 2009)