Adalbert Schneider

Adalbert Schneider (10 March 1904 – 27 May 1941) was the First Gunnery Officer on board the battleship Bismarck, and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for the sinking of HMS Hood (51) on 24 May 1941 in the Battle of the Denmark Strait.

Adalbert Schneider was born on 10 March 1904 in Halle (Saale) in the Province of Saxony, at the time a province of the Kingdom of Prussia.

He joined the German navy on 30 March 1922.

He received his first infantry training in the 3rd Company of Coastal Defence Department 3 (3. Kompanie Küstenwehr-Abteilung (K.W.A) III).

On 4 October 1922 Schneider went on board SMS Hannover, the first of his ship based trainings.

Following Hannover, he went on board SKS Niobe on 4 April 1923 and SMS Berlin on 2 July 1923.

He was promoted to Leading Seaman (Matrosengefreiter) on 1 April 1923.

Schneider then attended an officer candidate (Fähnrich) course at the Naval Academy Mürwik in Flensburg-Mürwik on 30 March 1924, and was shortly after promoted to midshipman (Fähnrich zur See) on 1 April 1924.

After the officers candidate training, Schneider attended a torpedo course for midshipmen at the Torpedo and Communication School (Torpedo- und Nachrichtenschule) at Flensburg-Mürwik on 1 April 1925, followed by a pathfinder course for midshipmen (Fähnrichs-Sperr-Lehrgang) at the experimental pathfinder and demonstration command (Sperrversuchs- und Lehrkommando) at Kiel-Wik on 3 June 1925.

The goal of the Operation Rheinübung (Rhine Exercise) was for Bismarck, under the command of Kapitän zur See Ernst Lindemann, and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, under the command of Kapitän zur See Helmuth Brinkmann, to break into the Atlantic and attack Allied shipping.

Großadmiral Erich Raeder's orders to the Chief-of-Fleet Admiral Günther Lütjens were that "the objective of the Bismarck is not to defeat enemies of equal strength, but to tie them down in a delaying action, while preserving the combat capacity as much as possible, so as to allow Prinz Eugen to get at the merchant ships in the convoy" and "The primary target in this operation is the enemy's merchant shipping; enemy warships will be engaged only when that objective makes it necessary and it can be done without excessive risk."

Less than a week later, on 27 May 1941, Schneider and the majority of Bismarcks crew were killed in action during Bismarcks last battle.

At 02:00 on 19 May 1941, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen left Gotenhafen (now Gdynia) and proceeded through the Baltic Sea and out towards the Atlantic.

Unbeknownst to Lütjens, the British had intercepted enough communications to infer that a German naval operation might be about to occur in the area.

Bismarck and Prinz Eugen passed the Great Belt on 20 May, and around noon the next day the task force dropped anchor in the Grimstad fjord (60.32483°N, 5.24133°W) at Bergen, Norway.

There Prinz Eugen took on fuel from the tanker Wollin.

Schneider's brother, Oberfeldarzt (Field Doctor) Dr. Otto Schneider, who was stationed in Norway, briefly visited his brother on board Bismarck.

Dr. Schneider was one of the last men to leave Bismarck on the evening of 21 May at around 22:00.

Dr. Schneider later claimed that his brother was convinced that Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were being sent on a suicide mission.

On the evening of 23 May at 19:22, the German force was detected by the heavy cruisers HMS Suffolk (55) and Norfolk that had been patrolling the Denmark Strait in the expectation of a German breakout.

The alarm was sounded and Bismarck fired five salvos without scoring a direct hit.

The heavily outgunned British cruisers withdrew to a safe distance and shadowed the enemy until their own heavy units could draw closer.

However, Bismarck's forward radar had malfunctioned as a result of the vibration from the heavy guns firing during this skirmish, and Lütjens was obliged to order Prinz Eugen to move ahead of Bismarck in order to provide the squadron with forward radar coverage.

At the Battle of the Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941, HMS Hood (51) was sunk, probably by Bismarck.

The hydrophones on Prinz Eugen detected The Sounds of an unknown ship to port at 05:00.

The Germans sighted the smoke stacks of two ships at 05:45, which triggered the alarm on Bismarck.

Schneider initially reported them as two heavy cruisers.

The first British salvo revealed them as battleships, but not until the British task force turned to port were their precise identities revealed.

The British ships started firing at the German force at 05:53.

Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland planned on targeting Bismarck first, but due to the reversed battle order, Prince of Wales and Hood opened fire on the Prinz Eugen instead.

The commander of the Prince of Wales, Captain John Leach, detected this error and directed his guns to fire on Bismarck.

The German task force was still waiting for the order to commence firing.

The commander of the German task force, Admiral Lütjens, did not give this order immediately.

Two minutes into the battle and after multiple inquiries by Schneider, "Frage Feuererlaubnis"?

(Requesting permission to open fire?) an impatient Lindemann responded: "Ich lasse mir doch nicht mein Schiff unter dem Arsch wegschießen. Feuererlaubnis"!.

(I'm not letting my ship get shot out from under my arse. Open fire!).

This Lindemann quotation is cited by Burkard Freiherr von Müllenheim-Rechberg who at the time was in the after gun director keeping a watch out for Suffolk and Norfolk and listening to Schneider's commands over the gunnery intercom.

This conversation most likely was passed down by a surviving crew member who overheard the conversation between Schneider and Lindemann.

Von Müllenheim-Rechberg, Lindemann's personnel adjutant, would become the highest-ranking officer to survive the Bismarck's last battle on 27 May 1941.

A lot of what we know today about the final days of Bismarck is attributed to his account as a witness.