Karl Dönitz

“For the lessons one fails to learn during peacetime, one pays a high price in war.” (c) Karl Dönitz was a German admiral who briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as the German head of state in 1945. He began his career in the Imperial German Navy before World War I. In 1918, he was commanding UB-68 when she was sunk by British forces. Dönitz was taken prisoner. While in a prisoner of war camp, he formulated what he later called Rudeltaktik ("pack tactic", commonly called "wolfpack").