Reinhard Scheer
Holtzendorff was promoted to the rank of Großadmiral on July 31, 1918; the sixth and final appointment to that rank in the Imperial Navy. He was retired again after quarrels about war aims with the "Oberste Heeresleitung" (Supreme Army Command) in August 1918 and replaced by Admiral Reinhard Scheer. He was the husband of Margarethe Zitelmann and adoptive father to her widowed sister-in-law's two daughters. Admiral Holtzendorff died in the Uckermark district on June 7, 1919.