Hellmuth von Ruckteschell (22 March 1890 − 24 September 1948) was a German naval officer during World War II. He was a prominent and highly successful merchant raider commander for Nazi Germany, serving as the captain of the commerce raiders Widder and Michel. After the war Ruckteschell was convicted of war crimes and died in prison.

Naval career

Born in 1890 in Hamburg, Ruckteschell joined the German navy in 1908. In 1916, with the rank of Oberleutnant zur See, he transferred to the U-boat arm. He served as Watch Officer on SMU U-3 (Germany) and SMU U-57, before being given his own command in July 1917, first of SMU UB-34, then in March 1918, of SMU U-54. He earned a reputation as an overly aggressive commander, which caused him to be placed on a black-list of officers the Allied powers considered to have breached the laws of war. After the end of World War I, he left Germany returning in the early 1930s. Ruckteschell was recalled to duty in the Kriegsmarine in 1939 and given command of an auxiliary minelayer. He next took command of the GERMAN AUXILIARY CRUISER Widder and sailed her into the Atlantic Ocean on 6 May 1940, commencing a five-month cruise that would sink or capture ten enemy merchant ships. When he brought Widder into port at Brest, he refused the Naval Command's order to take the ship to Hamburg, because the passage through British controlled territory was too risky. Instead, he assumed command of the commerce raider GERMAN AUXILIARY CRUISER Michel for her first cruise (9 March 1942 to 1 March 1943), during which he captured or sank fifteen ships. Von Ruckteschell was relieved when he arrived in Japan at his own request for health reasons. Ruckteschell was one of the more successful raider captains. The success of a commerce raider is measure by both the tonnage destroyed and the time spent at large. Ruckteschell accounted for (second only to Ernst-Felix Krüder of Pinguin) and stayed at large for 538 days, (second only to Bernhard Rogge of Atlantis); however, Ruckteschell accomplished this over two voyages. Of the 13 voyages by 10 raiders, Michel and Widder claimed 15 ships of, and 10 ships of (4th and 6th highest), and stayed at large for 358, and 180 days ( 4th and 9th longest).

War crimes trial

Ruckteschell was the subject of one of the first war crimes investigations undertaken by the British Admiralty. It was alleged that on several occasions Ruckteschell had continued firing on merchant vessels after they had surrendered. This contravened the laws of naval warfare, the Admiralty requested that Ruckteschell and his crew members be detained for interrogation. Ruckteschell spent the last years of the war on the staff of the German naval attaché in Japan. He was eventually located in an internment camp near Kobe and was sent back to Germany for trial. The British charges submitted to the United Nations War Crimes Commission claimed "at least one clear case of mass murder and several equally clear cases of the sinking of vessels whose crew were on the vessels when they were fired on, and were not picked up subsequently when on boats, rafts and in the water."

Charges

Trial

The trial was held in Hamburg between 5 and 21 May 1946. Ruckteschell chose as his defence counsel Dr. Otto Zippel, who had earlier represented Karl-Heinz Moehle. Zippel tried to define the limitations of international law, called Vizeadmiral Bernhard Rogge as an expert witness, and questioned the testimony of the British sailors. In closing, he asserted that "the law has recognized that in matters of sea even clever people are more liable to commit an error than in other walks of life". The British military court convicted Ruckteschell on three of the four charges - Charges 1, 2, and 3 were upheld, while Charge 4 was rejected - and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment. Three years were later remitted from his sentence on 30 August 1947, when he was acquitted of one more of the charges. The trial raised serious concerns about further war crimes trials involving naval affairs, since only one junior naval officer had sat as a judge during the trial, and army officers could not be expected to have a good knowledge of naval warfare. Zippel stated during the appeal that "a court composed of experienced sea officers would have arrived at a different judgment in the case". Royal Navy officers acknowledged that there was a real chance of a miscarriage of justice and the naval authorities actually discouraged further naval-related war crimes trials because of the difficulty of finding suitable naval officers to take part in them. Ruckteschell's trial was the last held under the Royal Warrant on behalf of the Royal Navy. Ruckteschell died in the Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel prison on 24 June 1948, shortly after he had been informed that he was going to be released due to his deteriorating heart condition.

Awards