What was the military branch of Erich Topp from Mar 1958 to Dec 1969?
Erich Topp Erich Topp ( 2 July 1914 – 26 December 2005 ) was the third most successful of German U-Boat commanders of World War II . He was a recipient of the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords of Nazi Germany . He sank 35 ships for a total of . After the war he served with the Federal German Navy , reaching the rank of Konteradmiral ( rear admiral ) . He later served in NATO . Early life and career . Topp was born in Hannover on 2 July 1914 . Topp joined the Reichsmarine on 8 April 1935 as a member of Crew 34 ( the incoming class of 1934 ) . He received his military basic training in the 2nd company in the 2nd department of the standing ship division of the Baltic Sea in Stralsund ( 8 April 1934 – 13 June 1934 ) . He was then transferred to the school ship Gorch Fock on 14 June 1934 , and to the light cruiser on 27 September 1934 . Under the command of Kapitän zur See Günther Lütjens , Topp sailed on Karlsruhes fourth training cruise . Karlsruhe left Kiel on 22 October 1934 . The ship sailed via Skagen , the Azores and Trinidad on the east coast of South America , passed the Cape Horn , up the west coast of South , Middle and North America to Vancouver . At Callao ( 25 January – 6 February 1935 ) they joined in the 400-year celebration of Peru . Karlsruhe returned to Kiel on 15 June 1935 , travelling through the Panama Canal to Houston , Charlestown and Vigo , Spain . Following his journey on Karlsruhe , Topp attended the main cadet course at the Naval Academy Mürwik ( 30 June 1935 – 29 June 1936 ) . During this time frame at the naval academy , he advanced in rank to Fähnrich zur See ( officer cadet ) on 1 July 1935 . Starting on 30 June 1936 , he underwent a number of specialized weapons training courses for cadets at various naval schools . On 16 October 1936 , he was again transferred to Karlsruhe , staying onboard until 31 March 1937 . The next day , he was promoted to Leutnant zur See ( Second Lieutenant ) and took a torpedo training course which he completed on 17 April . On 18 April , he was yet again posted to Karlsruhe , serving as an adjutant until 4 October 1937 . On 5 October 1937 , Topp started his U-boat training at the U-boat school in Neustadt in Holstein before he became an instruction officer at the naval non-commissioned officer training department in Friedrichsort , a borough of Kiel , on 2 June 1938 . Topp was then posted to the Wegener Flotilla on 26 September 1938 . There , he was appointed 1st watch officer on under the command of Kapitänleutnant Herbert Sohler . On 1 April 1939 , Topp was promoted to Oberleutnant zur See ( sub-lieutenant ) . National Socialism . In May 1933 , Topp joined the Nazi Party and in 1934 also joined the Allgemeine-SS . Topp took the Hitler oath , convinced it was the right thing to do . To the beginning of the war at least , his peers regarded Topp as a Nazi . Topp made the acquaintance of Martin Bormann , Hitlers personal secretary and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery . Bormann married the sister of Topps crew mate , Walter Buch . Topp was close enough to be invited to Bormanns residence in Berchtesgaden . Topps political outlook was not shared by his uncle . His aunt through marriage , Anna Topp , was Jewish . During the Nazi reign she was sent to and survived the Theresienstadt Ghetto . In his memoirs Topp claimed not to have believed in Nazi ideology . One analyst wrote , the contrasts and Topps individual course make obvious the limitations of any quantitative study [ of his political convictions ] . Topp came to terms with the Nazi regime and its crimes postwar . He entered into heated arguments with former comrades over the cause for which they fought . Topp was particularly critical of Admiral Karl Dönitz , commander-in-chief of U-boats and later the Kriegsmarine . After the war , Topp expressed his view that the German naval command , and his superior Karl Dönitz , knew of the Holocaust . Topp referenced Dönitzs commitment to National Socialism , admiration for Hitler , and his presence at the Posen speeches . Topp was critical of Dönitzs pretensions to have been an apolitical soldier . Topp said of Dönitz , that his failure to do anything about it comes very close to a passive toleration of these insane crimes . Few former U-boat commanders were as vocal in attacking Dönitzs character . His aunts experiences in the ghetto from 1943 may have been a factor . Dönitz confronted Topp personally when the latter called upon him . He purportedly greeted Topp with a question , I understand you think I should have been executed ? He presented Topp with his accusation , underlined , and a letter from Samuel Eliot Morison , the official historian of the United States Navy , which accepted Dönitzs defence that he knew nothing of the Nazi crimes . It was Morison who told Dönitz of Topps accusations , or doubts , as Topp later claimed they were . World War II . World War II commenced following the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 . U-46 , under the command of Sohler , had already been at sea since 19 August , returning to port on 15 September . Topp sailed on three further patrols on U-46 ( 3 October – 7 November 1939 , 19 December 1939 – 10 January 1940 and 11 March – 23 April 1940 ) . During these patrols , U-46 sank one ship of on 17 October and another ship of on 21 December . For his service on U-46 , Topp was awarded the U-boat War Badge ( ) on 7 November 1939 and the Iron Cross 2nd Class ( ) in January 1940 . On 1 May 1940 , he was transferred to the 1st U-boat Flotilla . Command of U-57 . After eight war patrols under the command of Kapitänleutnant Claus Korth , command of of the 1st U-boat Flotilla was passed to Topp on 5 June 1940 . Topps fifth war patrol began in Kiel on 11 July 1940 and was destined for the North Atlantic , into the North Channel , and The Minch . Because the Gruppenhorchgerät , a hydrophone array , was experiencing technical difficulties , Topp took U-57 to port for repairs . U-57 arrived in Bergen on 15 July , departed again that day only to return to Bergen on 20 July . Two days later , U-57 was able to begin its patrol . The Befehlshaber der U-Boote ( BdU—supreme commander of the U-boat arm ) credited Topp with the sinking three ships of of shipping . On 7 August , U-57 arrived in Lorient , France . On 14 August 1940 , U-57 departed from Lorient on its tenth war patrol . Again Topp led U-57 into the North Atlantic , the North Channel and the Hebrides . On this patrol , Kretschmer sank three ships of , and damaged another ship of . On 3 September 1940 , U-57 collided with the Norwegian vessel Rona near the lock at Brunsbüttel and sank . Following the loss of U-57 — the boat was later raised and used for training purposes — Topp was awarded Iron Cross 1st Class ( ) and initially remained with 1st U-boat Flotilla . On 4 November , he was sent to Blohm & Voss , the shipbuilding works in Hamburg , for construction training of , a Type VIIC U-boat . Transfer to U-552 . On 4 December 1940 , Topp took command of U-552 and commissioned the U-boat into the 7th U-boat Flotilla . Following sea trials and training , Topp , with Leutnant zur See Siegfried Koitschka as his second watch officer , took U-552 on its first war patrol on 13 February 1941 . The patrol which was destined for the North Atlantic west of Ireland began in Kiel . That day , they headed for Brunsbüttel where they stayed one day . The following day , U-552 made a stopover at Cuxhaven before leaving for Heligoland on 15 February . After three days at Heligoland , Topp took the boat into the North Atlantic . U-552s first patrol ended in Saint-Nazaire , France on 16 March 1941 . On this patrol , Topp sank two ships of . The second patrol on U-552 began on 7 April 1941 from Saint-Nazaire and targeted the shipping routes in the North Atlantic , south of Iceland . On this patrol , the BdU credited Topp with the sinking of three ships and one escort totaling . The patrol ended on 6 May , again in Saint-Nazaire . In reality , Topp sank three ships totaling , and damaged one ship of which was then sunk by ( Adalbert Schnee ) . The third ship sunk during Topps second patrol in command of U-552 , was the troopship S.S . Nerissa ( 5,583 GRT , 207 casualties and 84 survivors ) on 30 April 1941 about 140 nautical miles west of the North Channel . This sinking resulted in the third largest loss of life for a ship sunk by U-boats in the approaches to the British Isles during the Second World War . On 25 May , Topp took U-552 on its third war patrol . The next day , U-552 returned to Saint-Nazaire before heading for North Channel on 3 June . The BdU assumed that Topp sank three ships of and he was awarded the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross ( ) on 20 June 1941 . This patrol ended on 2 July in Saint-Nazaire . Later analysis revealed that the true tonnage sunk accumulated to . One of the ships was the Norfolk . The vessel carried mail an steel plates among 4,000 tons of general cargo . Captain Frederick Lougheed and 69 men were saved ; one man was lost . Korvettenkapitän Harro Schacht was Topps commander in training on U-552s fourth war patrol . The patrol , which began on 18 August and ended on 26 August in Saint-Nazaire , resulted in the sinking of one ship of . This ship had previously been damaged by ( Reinhard Suhren ) . Following this patrol , Topp was promoted to Kapitänleutnant ( Captain Lieutenant ) on 1 September 1941 . The fifth war patrol took U-552 into the North Atlantic , patrolling southeast of Greenland . Topp left Saint-Nazaire on 4 September and sank three ships of . U-552 returned to Saint-Nazaire on 5 October . Reuben James and Second Happy time . The next patrol began on 25 October and ended on 26 November 1941 in Saint-Nazaire . This was also Koitschkas last war patrol as first watch officer on U-552 . On U-552s sixth war patrol into the North Atlantic , east of Grand Banks of Newfoundland , Topp sank the destroyer on 31 October 1941 , the first United States Navy warship to be lost in World War II while it escorted Convoy HX 156 . The torpedo struck a forward magazine , blowing the ship apart . All of her officers and over 100 of the crew went down with the ship . The destruction of the Reuben James facilitated a worsening of already rapidly deteriorating diplomatic relations between Nazi Germany and the still nominally neutral United States of America . President Franklin D . Roosevelt used the incident to shift public opinion toward a confrontational stance with the European Axis powers . Support for the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s gradually eroded . On 13 November 1941 amendments to the act allowed for the arming of US merchant ships , their operation in the war zone , and active assistance to the British Empire to increase the tonnage available to it . Hitler and the Nazi leadership wished to keep the US neutral and the order to minimise contact at sea remained in force , at least until Operation Barbarossa had destroyed the Soviet Union . Roosevelt did not publicly mention the destroyer was escorting a British convoy , was not flying the Ensign of the United States , and was in the process of dropping depth charges on another U-boat when it was engaged and sunk . On 11 December 1941 , Hitler declared war on the United States . Dönitz ordered immediate offensive operations off the East Coast of the United States . Codenamed Operation Drumbeat ( Unternehmen Paukenschlag ) , the U-boat fleet inflicted the largest naval defeat on the United States Navy in history . Though few in number at the beginning—just five—the U-boats pressed home attacks close to the shore , from Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico . The American failure to initialise a blackout , ship captains insistence on following peace-time procedures , and lack of effective naval defences contributed to high losses . 397 ships were sunk during Drumbeat . The Germans termed this period , the Second Happy Time . Topp crossed the Atlantic and joined Wolfpack Zieten . Oberleutnant zur See Albrecht Brandi joined Topps crew as a commander in training on U-552s seventh war patrol . The patrol to the West Atlantic , Grand Banks of Newfoundland , and Nova Scotia started on 25 December in Saint-Nazaire . Topp sank three ships totaling before returning to Saint-Nazaire on 27 January 1942 . Topp experienced mechanical problems with his torpedoes . On 15 January he expended four on the small merchant ship Dayrose from a range of 800 metres before a fifth sank it . Topp signalled BdU about the incident . Topp experienced the same problems in the sinking of Frances Salman , five miles south of Cape Race . Repeated failures were psychologically unnerving . Unable to load the spare torpedoes from deck stowage due to icing and inclement weather , BdU called him home . The eighth war patrol took U-552 to West Atlantic and to the East Coast of the United States . Topp left Saint-Nazaire on 7 March , returning on 27 April . On this patrol , he sank seven ships with a total tonnage of . While at sea , Topp received the message on 11 April that he had been awarded the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves ( ) . He was the 87th member of the Wehrmacht to be so honoured . On 11 April , Karl Dönitz also awarded him the U-boat War Badge with Diamonds ( ) . Topps sinking of the has cast a shadow on his conduct in action . When he spotted the coastal steamer off Chincoteague , Virginia on 3 April 1942 , he surfaced U-552 , overtook it from astern , and , without offering the Captain the chance to surrender , attacked it with his deck gun from 600 yards , firing a total of 93 rounds . Captain Bill Webster was killed in the shelling . Atwaters civilian Merchant Marine crew of 27 suffered 24 lost lives during the attack . According to one account , when United States Coast Guard Cutter number 218 Legare appeared , it found the ship sunk with only several feet of its mast still visible . Bodies were seen , including one in a lifeboat riddle with machine gun holes . There is no direct evidence he machine-gunned defenseless crewmen , and nothing in Topps otherwise stellar career or postwar actions suggest he was capable of such an act . Topps ninth war patrol on U-552 went to the North Atlantic , west of Spain . Leaving Saint-Nazaire on 9 June , Topp sank five ships totalling before returning to port ten days later . Topp formed part of a strong wolf pack against Convoy HG 84 . Topp engaged the convoy west-northwest of A Coruña . Topp achieved all his successes on this patrol against HG 84 . On his tenth and last war patrol on U-552 , Topp sank two ships of and damaged two further of . Topp had left Saint-Nazaire on 4 July and returned from the North Atlantic on 13 August . Upon his return , he was awarded the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords ( ) on 17 August . He was the 17th member of the Wehrmacht to be so honored . That day , he also received a preferential promotion to Korvettenkapitän ( Corvette Captain ) and Dönitz presented him an honorary dagger of the Kriegsmarine with Diamonds . Ashore . Command of U-552 was passed on to Kapitänleutnant Klaus Popp . Topp officially remained with the 7th U-boat Flotilla until 4 November when he was appointed chief of the 27th U-boat Flotilla , a training flotilla based in Gotenhafen ( now Gdynia , Poland ) . In August 1944 , Topp was appointed head of the department charged with introducing the Type XXI submarines into service , the first submarines designed to operate primarily submerged . In this position , he was promoted to Fregattenkapitän ( Frigate Captain ) on 1 December 1944 . On 23 March 1945 , he was appointed commander of in the 4th U-boat Flotilla , and commander of in the 11th U-boat Flotilla on 26 April . On 20 May 1945 , Topp was taken prisoner of war in Kragerø , Norway . He was released on 17 August 1945 . Topps boat , U-2513 , was tested by the United States Navy . American reports concluded at twelve knots submerged speed she is quieter than our best fleet submarines at six...up to ten knots she is extremely quiet . The same report concluded at least seven ships were required to carry out a search for the XXI submarine . Later life and Bundesmarine . On 4 June 1946 , he started at the Technical University of Hannover , studying architecture , and graduated in 1950 with a degree in engineering . He also served as technical advisor for the 1957 film Sharks and Little Fish . On 3 March 1958 , Topp joined West Germanys navy , at the time named the Bundesmarine ( Federal Navy ) , holding the rank of Fregattenkapitän . His first assignment was with the Führungsstab der Marine ( Navy Staff ) . On 16 August 1958 , he served with the NATO Military Committee in Washington , D.C. , initially as a naval speaker , later as the chief-of-staff of the German delegation in Washington . During this assignment , he was promoted to Kapitän zur See ( captain at sea/captain ) on 1 November 1959 . On 1 January 1962 , Topp was transferred to the position of commander of the Bundesmarines ( amphibious forces ) , a position he held until 30 September 1963 . In parallel , on 1 November 1962 , he was made acting commander of , serving in this capacity until 1 December 1962 . Topp was then appointed chief-of-staff of the ( Fleet Command ) on 1 October 1963 . On 1 July 1965 , he headed the sub command department with Führungsstab der Marine in the Federal Ministry of Defence . There , Topp was promoted to Flottillenadmiral ( flotilla admiral ) on 15 November 1965 . On 1 October 1966 , Topp was named deputy Inspector of the Navy and at the same time became the chief of the Führungsstab der Marine in the Federal Ministry of Defence . In this role , Topp was promoted to Konteradmiral ( Counter Admiral ) on 21 December 1966 . Topp held this position until 30 September 1969 . He then continued to serve with Inspector of the Navy until his retirement on 31 December 1969 . For his service with the Bundesmarine , Topp was awarded the Commanders Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany ( ) on 19 September 1969 . In 1968 , Topp had been considered as head of the Plans & Policy department with the Allied Forces Northern Europe ( AFNORTH ) in Kolsås , Norway which at the time was headed by the German Konteradmiral Heinrich Erdmann . The Supreme Allied Commander Europe ( SACEUR ) , US General Lyman Lemnitzer , had originally approved this nomination . In order to not unnecessarily stress the German-Norwegian relationship , Topp had sunk four Norwegian vessels in World War II , Lemnitzer later decided against Topp and appointed Konteradmiral Friedrich Guggenberger instead . After retiring from the Bundesmarine , for a few years Topp was a technical advisor to the German shipyard HDW AG . His service as a NATO advisor was loosely portrayed ( as Commodore Wolfgang Schrepke ) in the 1965 movie The Bedford Incident . His memoirs The Odyssey of a U-Boat Commander : The Recollections of Erich Topp was published in 1992 . When Topp was asked in 1996 by publisher/historian Theodore P . Savas to contribute a Foreword for a collection of essays on German U-boat commanders , he instead submitted a contribution about his close friend Engelbert Endrass , who was lost with his crew and boat off Gibraltar in late December 1941 . Topp had privately penned the piece about their friendship on his next patrol to the east coast of America , but had never submitted it for publication . The essay was translated from German and footnoted by Dr . Eric Rust , and appeared as the opening chapter in Silent Hunters : German U-boat Commanders of World War II ( 1997 , 2003 , 2005 ) . Savas also recruited Topp to serve as the technical adviser for the 2001 submarine simulation computer game Silent Hunter II , and a series of interviews with him appears in the game . He was interviewed on World War II submarine operations for the Nova ( TV series ) special Hitlers Lost Sub , which detailed the efforts of a team of divers , led by John Chatterton and Richie Kohler to identify an unknown German U-boat wreck 65 miles off the coast of New Jersey ; the wreck was identified as . A large oil painting of his close deceased comrade Endrass hung in his home after the war up until the time of his death . In his front room overlooking the Rhine River was the top of the periscope from U-552 , which immediately after the war some of his crewman had managed to remove from the captured boat and pass to him as a keepsake . Topp died on 26 December 2005 , in Süßen at the age of 91 ; he was survived by two sons , Peter Kay ( 1945-2015 ) and Michael ( b . 1950 ) , and five grandchildren . Summary of career . Ships attacked . As commander of and , Topp is credited with the sinking of 35 ships for a total of , further damaging four ships of and sinking one warship , , of , killing a total of approximately 822 crew , troops and passengers . Awards . - U-boat War Badge ( 7 November 1939 ) - with Diamonds ( 11 April 1942 ) - Honorary dagger of the Kriegsmarine with Diamonds ( 17 August 1942 ) - War Merit Cross - 2nd Class with Swords ( 30 January 1944 ) - 1st Class with Swords ( 1944 ) - Iron Cross ( 1939 ) - 2nd Class ( 1 January 1940 ) - 1st Class ( 1 September 1940 ) - Knights Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords - Knights Cross on 20 June 1941 as Oberleutnant zur See and commander of U-552 - 87th Oak Leaves on 11 April 1942 as Kapitänleutnant and commander of U-552 - 17th Swords on 17 August 1942 as Kapitänleutnant and commander of U-552 - Commanders Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany ( 19 September 1969 )