Donitz: Author and TV star
On October 1, 1956, Donitz was released. He retired to the small village of Aumuhle in Schleswig-Holstein in North West Germany. There, he began to write. His first memoir “Zehn Jahre, Zwanzig Tage” ((Ten Years, Twenty Days) were first published in Germany in 1958 and translated into English in 1959. The books cover Donitz’s ten years as a U-boat commander as well as his mere 20 days as leader of the German state.
“Zehn Jahre, Zwanzig Tage” acts as an apologetic defense of Donitz’s involvement in the Third Reich. He claims he was never a politician, merely a soldier and so not responsible for the regime’s crimes. But he also states Nazism was a product of its time- and blames dictatorship as a flawed form of government as the main reason’s for the regime’s failings. Donitz’s second memoir ” Mein Wechselvolles Leben” (My Ever Changing Life), deals with his life before the rise of the Nazis in 1934.
Donitz also made a few television appearances. His first- after the Nuremberg Trials- was in the 1950’s documentary series “Victory at Sea” which dealt with naval conflict during the Second World War. Then in the 1970’s, he began to appear on a number of other documentaries. His first in 1970 was “At vinde krigen”, a Danish series looking at Germany’s fall. He then appeared in the Thames Televisions “The World at War” in 1973 and finally in 1976 in “The memory of Justice”. His voice was used posthumously in 2012 in “Menschen” a short, fictional account of the withdraw of Germany’s forces.
Otherwise, Donitz lived quietly. He received a great deal of correspondence -and even requests for his autograph! He apparently attempted to answer every letter sent and posted out autographed postcards to those who requested them. He remained unrepentant about his role in the war, sticking to the line that he had done nothing more than his duty to his nation.