Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière

Vice Admiral Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière (March 18, 1886 – February 24, 1941), born in Posen (now Poznań, Poland) and of French descent, was a German U-boat commander during World War I. With 194 ships and sunk, he is the most successful submarine ace ever. Нis victories came in the Mediterranean, almost always using his 8.8-cm deck gun. During his career he fired 74 torpedoes, hitting 39 times.

Arnauld de la Perière remained in the German Navy (Reichsmarine) after the war ended. During World War II, he was recalled to active duty as a rear admiral (Vizeadmiral was a two-star rank), and was killed in a plane crash near Paris in 1941 while taking part in secret negotiations with the Vichy French government.

Family background
In 1757 France, after a duel with a Prince de Bourbon, Jean-Gabriel Arnauld, Seigneur de la Perière, a young artillery officer aged 26 in Saint Plantaire (Indre), had to leave the country not to be imprisoned. He went to Prussia and joined the army of Frederick II, the Great, King of Prussia. Because of his noble descent he was entered into the Prussian nobility, and because of his service he attained the rank of three star General. Married 3 times, he had 14 children. His 12th, Eugen Ahasverus Albertus, born in 1800, was the grandfather of Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière.

Eugen von Arnauld de la Perière was married twice and had in total 10 children. His second wife, Olga Spalding, on April 28, 1856 gave birth to Eugen Emil Alexander Valentin von Arnauld de la Perière, father of Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière.

E. E. A. V. von Arnauld de la Perière was married to Bertha Müller. Lothar was their second child. His father being in the state service, Lothar was entitled to be educated at the cadet school of Wahlstatt and later at Gross‑Lichterfelde.

First World War
Arnauld de la Perière entered the Kaiserliche Marine in 1903. After serving on the battleships SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm, SMS Schlesien and SMS Schleswig-Holstein, he served as torpedo officer on the light cruiser SMS Emden (1906) from 1911 to 1913.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Arnauld de la Perière served as an adjutant to admiral Hugo von Pohl in Berlin. Upon the mobilization, he was transferred to an active post where he served in the Marine-Luftschiff-Abteilung. In 1915, Arnauld de la Perière transferred to the U-boats. After a course in Pola, he was given command of the SMU U-35 (Germany) in November 1915. He made 14 voyages with the U-35 during which he sank 189 merchant vessels and two gunboats for a total of. Transferred to the SMU U-139 in May 1918, he sank a further five ships with a combined tonnage of. His record number of tonnage is unsurpassed since then. For his service, he was awarded the Iron Cross, second and first class, and the Pour le Mérite in 1916.

Interbellum
After the end of the war, Arnauld de la Perière stayed in a vastly-reduced German navy. During the 1920s, he served as navigation officer on the old pre-dreadnoughts SMS Hannover and SMS Elsass. From 1928 to 1930, he commanded the light cruiser GERMAN CRUISER Emden. Promoted to captain in 1931, he was put on the retired list. He then taught at the Turkish naval academy from 1932 to 1938.

Second World War
At the start of World War II, Arnauld de la Perière was again called up for active duty. Until March 1940, he served as naval commandant in Danzig until he was sent to the Low Countries as naval commandant for Belgium and the Netherlands. Promoted to rear admiral (lower half), Arnauld de la Perière was made naval commandant in Brittany and later for the entire western French seacoast. He was promoted to rear admiral (upper half) on February 1, 1941. Transferred to take up command as Admiral South, he was killed when his plane crashed on takeoff near Le Bourget Airport. He is buried in Berlin at the Invalidenfriedhof.

Awards

 * Pour le mérite (11 October 1916)
 * Iron Cross (1914), 1st and 2nd classes
 * Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with swords
 * Order of the Crown, 4th class
 * U-boat War Badge (1918)
 * Service Award Cross
 * Hanseatic Cross Hamburg
 * Knight's Cross of the Imperial Austrian Order of Leopold with war decoration
 * Order of the Iron Crown, 3rd class with War Decoration (Austria-Hungary)
 * Military Merit Cross, 3rd class with War Decoration (Austria-Hungary)
 * Silver Liakat Medal with swords
 * Gallipoli Star (Ottoman Empire)