Anecdotes

Sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946. Released in 1955 due to ill health.

Commander in chief of the German Navy (1928-1943).

Publicly stated that Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare in both world wars was in direct response to the UK's naval blockade, which was illegal under international law.

Repeatedly urged Hitler to declare war on the United States in 1941, especially after the Americans sent forces to relieve the British occupation of Iceland.

Like his successor Karl Dönitz, Raeder's conviction for war crimes was highly controversial as the Allies had waged unrestricted warfare in the battles of the Atlantic and the Pacific from the very beginning.

May have cost Germany its best chance of getting Spain to join the war in the summer of 1940. The Spanish dictator General Franco offered to join the war on 19 July 1940, but requested the former German colony of Cameroon which Raeder wanted for Plan Z, his expansion of the Kriegsmarine.

In July 1941, after U.S Marines took over the occupation of Iceland, Raeder advised Hitler that Germany should declare war on the United States as a reply. Raeder spent the entire second half of 1941 persistently pressing for Germany to go to war with the United States. In September 1941, Raeder and the U-boat commander Karl Dönitz presented Hitler with plans for an all-out U-boat offensive intended to destroy both the United States Navy and Merchant Marine. Raeder took the view that because of the increasing number of naval "incidents" in the second half of 1941 between U-boats and US ships guarding convoys to Britain, the best thing to do was to declare war on the U.S. in order to end all of the restrictions on fighting the U.S. Navy. On 17 September 1941, Raeder told Hitler that he believed that it was only American support that allowed Britain to continue the war and that the ''Kriegsmarine'' could defeat the United States Navy if only Hitler would just give the necessary shoot-on-sight orders.