Hitler, Donitz, and the Baltic Sea (6 page)

Once Model’s forces began to fall back to the Panther Position, concern for coastal defense became more acute than it had when the Baltic Fleet had been bottled up in Kronstadt Bay. During the Soviet offensive, particularly after Model assumed command, the army group increasingly worried that the Soviets would attempt amphibious landings behind the
front to cut off its retreat between Lake Peipus and the Gulf of Finland.
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Hitler repeatedly expressed his apprehension regarding this possibility, and naturally it was also frequently discussed in naval circles. Intelligence reports and POW interrogations indicated that the Soviets were, indeed, preparing a landing behind the German front.
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The army also worried about the appearance of Soviet vessels off the Estonian coast. Following the order to retreat to the Panther Position, Model asked Hitler on at least four occasions for air raids on the Soviet fleet, hoping to reduce the threat of a landing by bombing Russian warships and transports while still in their winter berths.
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Hitler, however, decided against the attack. He claimed that although the fleet’s destruction was certainly desirable, there were too many difficulties involved for the Luftwaffe.
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On 7 February Model asked Dönitz to strengthen minefields and reinforce surface vessels in the Gulf of Finland. Dönitz replied the same day, informing Model that he was sending minesweepers, naval artillery barges, and motor torpedo boats from Norway, the English Channel, and Holland to bolster coastal defense. Dönitz concluded his message by promising Model that he would help in any way possible, an assurance of support that army commanders along the Black Sea would have prized highly.
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Thus, a scant four months before the Allied invasion of Normandy, Dönitz withdrew additional naval forces from the West to bolster Narva’s defenses.

On the night of 13–14 February the Soviets carried out a landing in Narva Bay, although on a smaller scale than the army group had feared. The Germans wiped out a unit of battalion strength (about four hundred troops, who included some women) that landed at Merekuela and drove off another force attempting to land at Silamae. As a result, OKH requested the navy to transfer cruisers to Narva Bay to prevent larger landings in the future.
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Model, however, continued to fret about a major landing.
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On 16 March the army group conducted a planning exercise to consider countermeasures against a possible large-scale landing west of Narva. The exercise assumed a Soviet landing force of three infantry divisions and two tank brigades, whose purpose would be to attack German forces in the Narva area from the rear and gain possession of the shale oil region. The study concluded that the army group needed two full divisions in reserve along the coast and that both the navy and Luftwaffe should strengthen their forces in this sector. Model reported the results of this exercise to Hitler, outlining measures that required attention by all three branches of the armed forces.
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Dönitz’s response to Model’s war game and his assessment of Narva’s importance were extensive and demonstrated his anxiety. Dönitz assured
Hitler that the navy’s primary task in the Baltic remained that of preventing the Soviet fleet from breaking out of the Gulf of Finland. For this purpose, Dönitz stated, the reinforcement of the mine barrages in the Gulf was already under way and would continue as soon as the ice melted. To protect the mine barrages, three destroyers and eight motor torpedo boats had been transferred to Reval. In the event of a Soviet landing or attempted breakout of the Russian Baltic Fleet, Dönitz intended to dispatch cruisers and two flotillas of torpedo boats. Even more, the grand admiral assured Hitler that due to the special importance of the Baltic, if the Soviet fleet succeeded in breaking out into the sea not only would the above-mentioned vessels sail against the Soviets but he would also send into action all operational submarines from training flotillas in the Baltic.
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Model could not have asked for more.

The same day Dönitz informed Hitler of these measures, he composed a report on the significance of the Narva position to Germany’s overall strategy, carefully including military, diplomatic, and economic factors. He prepared this report at Assmann’s suggestion, who felt army commanders were not sufficiently aware of the critical need to hold the Narva area. In this report Dönitz set forth the reasons why German domination of the Baltic was decisive. He explained that the Baltic was the only effective route to supply German forces operating in Finland and the Baltic States. The economic exploitation of Scandinavia and Finland for Germany’s war effort was possible only by the transportation of raw materials and other goods through the Baltic. The Baltic was the only suitable training area for U-boats—of particular importance now for the new models of submarines in production—and other naval forces, as well as the sole location in which to test new types of vessels; its loss would paralyze the war at sea. Finally, Baltic Sea lanes were the only routes by which to deliver war materiel and food to Finland, without which that country could not remain in the war.
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Dönitz claimed that if the army held at Narva, the navy could maintain the blockade of the Soviet fleet in Kronstadt Bay, although the German retreat from Leningrad meant the southern part of the mine barrage had to be extended to the west. But if the army withdrew farther, Dönitz warned, the navy would no longer be able to sustain effectively the blockade in the inner Gulf of Finland. This would grant the long-inactive enemy fleet a training area and enable it to sail into the open Baltic. He added that the Russian fleet was numerically far superior to German naval forces in the Baltic. Dönitz concluded by pointing out the dire consequences should the Soviets succeed in bringing their fleet into the Baltic, namely, the loss of Swedish iron ore, the danger to the
army’s flank on the coast, uncertainty as to whether Finland could continue to fight, and paralysis of the U-boat war against the Anglo-Americans. For these reasons the Narva position must be held at all costs.

A final motive for the navy’s interest in the Narva sector was the location of vast deposits of shale oil west of Narva. These shale oil deposits, estimated at 5 to 6 billion tons, covered an area one hundred kilometers long and up to forty kilometers wide.
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Although the process of gaining oil from shale by distillation was more costly than drilling, the Germans estimated the Estonian deposits would last 1,500 years. The shale oil works were under expansion, with a projected annual production of a million and a half tons upon completion. The oil derived from Estonian shale was used for German tanks and, most of all, for naval vessels. This was the only area of the Reich where an increase in oil production could be achieved. As of February 1943, annual production reached hundred thousand tons of oil, of which the navy received 72 percent, with a projected fivefold increase by the beginning of 1944.
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Besides the granting of freedom of movement to the Soviet fleet, which also would jeopardize the shipping of oil back to Germany, one of the navy’s objections to retreat to the Panther Position was that it would endanger the shale oil works. Gen. Walter Warlimont, deputy chief of OKW’s operations staff, reviewed the navy’s protests and asserted that in view of Germany’s fuel situation, any amount of petroleum was of great importance.
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Hitler also recognized this, and it was one of the reasons for his delay in granting permission for the retreat during the Soviet winter offensive.
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In early February Hitler ordered the reinforcement of coastal defenses in the oil area and increased flak protection for the oil works. The next day Model commanded that the shale oil area be the center of all defensive measures.
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As Dönitz explained in his analysis of the strategic significance of the Narva position, this sector was important not only for military and economic reasons but also for Hitler’s foreign policy. If this was the case for Narva, it had been even more so for Leningrad.

The diplomatic reasons for Hitler’s determination to retain positions around Leningrad concerned Finland and, to a lesser extent, Sweden.
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Finnish forces north of Leningrad would be far more vulnerable to a Soviet attack if the Germans abandoned their positions around the city. A peace between Finland and the Soviets would cause numerous problems for Germany. First of all, the Finnish Army tied down a considerable number of Russian divisions and protected the southern flank of Germany’s Twentieth Mountain Army in northern Finland. The minefields and submarine nets necessary to blockade the Russian fleet could not be maintained without Finnish assistance. Finland was important to Hitler not only for tying
down Soviet troops and protecting the Baltic, however; the nickel Germany received from the Petsamo mines was vital to the war economy.

Hitler’s concern over Finland’s attitude was not unfounded. Uncertain of German prospects of victory since Stalingrad, in the fall of 1943 Finnish envoys met with the Soviet minister to Sweden, Madame Alexandra Kollontai, to discuss the possibility of peace. The Finns viewed the construction of the Panther Position with alarm, fearing that the army group’s withdrawal from Leningrad would facilitate Soviet operations against Finnish forces on the Karelian Isthmus. Finnish anxiety increased in January as Soviet troops advanced toward the Baltic States.
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Goebbels noted that Hitler would have preferred to withdraw to Narva shortly after the start of the Soviet offensive but that concern for Finland prevented him from ordering the retreat earlier. Even before Army Group North withdrew to the Panther Position, almost immediately upon the request of the Finnish commander in chief, Marshal Gustav Mannerheim, Germany accelerated arms shipments to Finland and even transferred night fighter units to protect Finnish cities, a sure indication of that country’s importance to Germany.
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Yet this was not sufficient to calm Finnish fears. On 12 February the Finns sent their former prime minister and ambassador to the Soviet Union, Dr. Juho Paasikivi, to Stockholm to receive Soviet terms from Madame Kollontai. This caused considerable alarm within the Skl, because Germany required Finnish cooperation to maintain the blockade of Russia’s Baltic Fleet. The conviction that Finland’s decision to conclude peace depended on Army Group North’s ability to halt the Soviet offensive gave the navy an additional, yet inextricably related, reason for shoring up the Narva sector.
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Although Finland rejected the Soviet peace conditions in March, Hitler fretted over the consequences of a Finnish armistice.
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In the meantime he took precautionary steps to try to ensure that Germany would retain control of the Baltic should Finland surrender. In mid-February he ordered OKW to prepare plans for the occupation of the Finnish island of Hogland (Suursaari) in the Gulf of Finland and the Åland Islands at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia. With Army Group North holding steady in the Panther Position and Finnish displeasure with Soviet terms evident, in March Hitler began to exert pressure on Finland by reducing the shipment of arms. In mid-April he halted grain shipments and the delivery of all war materiel. The Skl objected to these measures, fearing they would weaken the position of military circles in Finland, and on 2 May the navy received permission to resume delivery of naval goods.
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To strengthen Finnish resolve, in April Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, head of Armed Forces High Command (OKW), invited Mannerheim to send some officers to the Narva front to see how the situation had stabilized.
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The day before Keitel’s invitation to the Finns, Lindemann met with Hitler at the Berghof (Hitler’s home near Berchtesgaden), where Hitler told him that the Narva front was especially important with regard to Finland. Hitler ordered Lindemann to eliminate a dangerous bulge in the Russian bridgehead over the Narva River southwest of the city of Narva. Hitler repeatedly emphasized to Lindemann that he attributed the utmost importance to the Narva front.
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The significance of the Narva sector did not diminish during the lull from late April until mid-July. On several occasions Hitler personally intervened to prevent the withdrawal of divisions from Narva or to insist that the sector, which had a disproportionately large number of units, be further reinforced. At the end of March the army group had eleven of its forty divisions in the Narva sector—even though it accounted for a tiny portion of the Panther Position’s total frontage.
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Concern for possible Soviet landing attempts remained high. In March and April the navy carried out extensive minelaying operations to seal off Narva Bay and also laid an antisubmarine net between Nargön and Porkkala.
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The navy’s determination to hold the Narva sector in order to keep the Soviet fleet blockaded within the Gulf of Finland is further revealed by the mines allotted for this purpose. In mid-March 1944, Adm. Oskar Kummetz (Commander, Naval High Command, Baltic) commented that in contrast to previous proposals, the Skl considered his recommendation for the number of mines in the Gulf of Finland too low.
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Furthermore, when he suggested the Skl examine the possibility of transporting men and materiel from northern Estonia in case the army withdrew to a bridgehead around Reval, Meisel replied, “At a time when the leadership is firmly resolved to hold the Baltic States, the Skl should not make proposals for the evacuation of Estonia to OKW or to other branches of the armed forces.”
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Although army-navy cooperation on the Eastern Front’s northern sector was generally quite good, in the spring of 1944 an interservice dispute arose regarding the Estonian port and capital city of Reval, which Hitler declared a fortified place
(feste Platz).
Considered operationally decisive sites, a fortified place’s defenders were to allow themselves to be surrounded and hold out until they were relieved—or perished. The army was completely uninterested in the city, maintaining that its defense served only naval interests, and requested that the navy assume responsibility for Reval’s defense.
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Meisel protested, informing OKH that Reval was important to
the entire Wehrmacht due to its pivotal role in protecting the Baltic. Meisel explained that German control of the Baltic did not benefit only the navy, for the safe delivery of Swedish ore imports and protection of the army’s flank from the sea served the overall defense of the Reich. He also pointed out the Baltic’s military and political significance with regard to Finland and its decisive value for U-boat testing and training.
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Dönitz had earlier asserted that the navy could not effectively blockade the Gulf of Finland west of Reval and that it was therefore of the utmost importance to him that the city be held at all costs. His rationale was that Reval served as the main base for naval vessels guarding the minefields in the Gulf of Finland and that Nargön Island was the southern anchor for the antisubmarine nets in the Gulf.
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Reval remained a fortified place for the army.
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The projected garrison of three divisions (in addition to various security units) for Reval, or nearly 10 percent of the army group’s units, indicates the importance of this city.