Erich Raeder

Erich Johann Albert Raeder (24 April 1876 – 6 November 1960) was a German grand admiral who shaped the Kriegsmarine’s early World War II operations and was later convicted of war crimes. He reached the navy’s highest rank in 1939, led its forces until January 1943, when Karl Dönitz took over, and received a life sentence at Nuremberg. He was released early in 1955 due to poor health.

Raeder grew up in Wandsbek, in Prussia’s Schleswig-Holstein province, the son of a headmaster. His father, Hans Raeder, held strict authoritarian views and drilled into him the importance of hard work, thrift, religion, and discipline. Hans also taught his children to admire the “non-political” expert government of Otto Bismarck, warning that democracy would lead to selfish party politics. Like many middle-class Germans of the era, he despised the Social Democrats for prioritizing working-class interests over the national good. Raeder carried this mindset throughout his life, insisting he was “apolitical”—above partisan squabbles—and that his support for naval power was purely for Germany’s benefit.

Raeder joined the Imperial Navy in 1894 and climbed quickly, becoming chief of staff to Franz von Hipper in 1912. His rise owed much to intelligence and hard work, though from 1901 to 1903 he served under Prince Heinrich of Prussia, gaining a powerful patron. His cold, distant personality meant even friends admitted they barely knew him. The navy’s dominant figure was Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, whose “risk theory” aimed to build a fleet strong enough to deter Britain from war. Tirpitz transformed the small coastal force of 1897 into the High Seas Fleet by 1914. In 1904, Raeder—fluent in Russian—observed the Russo-Japanese War. From 1905, he worked in public relations, meeting Tirpitz and learning to lobby journalists and Reichstag politicians for the 1906 Third Navy Law, which committed Germany to building all-big-gun battleships to match Britain’s new Dreadnoughts. Before World War I, Raeder captained Kaiser Wilhelm II’s private yacht, a post that often led to quick promotion.

During the war, Raeder served as Hipper’s chief of staff and in combat roles, taking part in the Battle of Dogger Bank (1915) and the Battle of Jutland (1916). Hipper hated paperwork, so he delegated heavily to Raeder, giving him more influence than his title suggested. The German navy was split between two schools: Tirpitz’s followers, who wanted a battleship-centered “balanced fleet” for a decisive battle against the Royal Navy, and Commander Wolfgang Wegener’s camp, which argued Germany could never outbuild Britain and should instead rely on cruisers and submarines for commerce raiding. Hipper initially considered forwarding Wegener’s papers to the Admiralty but changed his mind after Raeder wrote a critique attacking Wegener’s ideas. This sparked a long feud, with Wegener claiming Raeder was jealous of his superior concepts. In May 1916, Raeder helped plan a battlecruiser raid that lured out the British force, leading to the Battle of Jutland, where he played a prominent role.