Otto Ernst Lindemann was a German Kapitän zur See. He was the only commander of the battleship Bismarck during its eight months of service in World War II. He died in the Battle of the Denmark Strait on 27 May 1941, less than a week after he and most of his crew died in Operation Rheinübung. Posthumously awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, the highest award in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany.
About Ernst Lindemann in brief
Otto Ernst Lindemann was a German Kapitän zur See. He was the only commander of the battleship Bismarck during its eight months of service in World War II. Posthumously awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, at the time the highest award in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany. He died in the Battle of the Denmark Strait on 27 May 1941, less than a week after he and most of his crew died in Operation Rheinübung. His wife, Hildegard Burchard, was 14 years younger than him and had a daughter, Heidi Maria, born on 6 July 1939. His father, Georg, was a probationary judge and later president of the Prussian Central Land Credit Company, a Prussian credit bank. His uncle, Friedrich Tiesmeyer, was in command of the light cruiser SMS Mainz when he died in May 1942. He had a younger brother, Kurt, and a second brother, Hans-Wolfgang, born in 1900. His parents moved to the Charlottenburg quarter of Berlin, where they lived at 6 Carmer Street, in 1895. In 1913, he traveled to Flensburg for his medical examination at the Naval Academy at Mürwikburg. The strong financial background of his parents made him a suitable applicant for the Imperial Navy, as the costs associated with a naval education in 1909 were 800–1,000 Marks per year for eight years for a doctor, teacher and metal worker.
He joined the German Imperial Navy in 1913, and after his basic military training, served on a number of warships during World War I as a wireless telegraphy officer. He met Charlotte Weil, a Berlin singer, in the spring of 1920. The couple married on 1 February 1921, and they had a daughters, Helga Maria and Heidi Maria. They were divorced in 1932, and he married his youngest brother’s sister-in-law in 1934. He later became the founder of the Confession of Ann Ann Ann, an anti-Nazi. organization. He also served in various staff and naval gunnery training positions. One year after the outbreak of World War Two, he was appointed commander of Bismrck, at thetime the largest warship in commission anywhere in the world and the pride of the Kriegsmarine. In May 1941 he and his crew were involved in the sinking of the British ship HMS Hood, which resulted in the death of most of the crew on board the ship. He and the rest of the ship’s crew died a week later in the battle of Denmark Strait. His widow was presented with the medal on 6 January 1942, and the medal was presented to her by her husband’s brother, Friedrich, the day after he was killed in action in May 1941. His daughter Heidi Maria was born in July 1939, and she was later imprisoned as an adult in the Berlin–Dahlem section of Berlin.
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