Paul Werner Wenneker (27 February 1890 – 17 October 1979) was a German admiral and diplomat who was most notable for serving as the German naval attaché in Japan from 1940 until the end of World War II in 1945. He served as the commanding admiral of German naval forces in Asia, and oversaw the activities of German U-boats and commerce raiders in the waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans during the war. Wenneker also attempted to share German submarine technology and tactics with the Japanese to assist them in the Pacific War, though his efforts in that regard were mostly treated with indifference by the Japanese. Wenneker also became associated with Richard Sorge and his Soviet spy ring at the German embassy in Tokyo. He was detained by American occupation authorities after the war and then returned to Germany.
Career
Born in Kiel to a naval family in 1890, Paul Wenneker joined the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in 1909 as a Seekadett and completed his training aboard the . During World War I he was serving on , which sank during the Battle of Helgoland Bight, and he was one of the survivors taken prisoner. Wenneker returned to Germany at the end of the war and continued serving in the Reichsmarine.
He was promoted to Oberleutnant zur See (lieutenant junior grade) in 1919 while serving in the Baltic Sea aboard a minesweeper, and was promoted to Kapitänleutnant (lieutenant) in 1920. Wenneker served on and commanded several minesweepers and torpedo boats, before serving on cruisers in the second half of the 1920s. He became a Korvettenkapitän (lieutenant commander) in 1928 and a Fregattenkapitän (commander) in 1933.
From 1933 to 1937 he served as the German naval attaché in Japan, and was promoted to Kapitän zur See (captain) in early January 1935. During his first term as attaché, in January 1935 Wenneker was invited to tour the .
In-between these terms, from 1937 to 1940, he was commanding officer of the . He was promoted to Konteradmiral (rear admiral) in 1939.
Germany complied with the Japanese naval delegation's requests for access to technology and information, with Hitler ordering all branches of the Wehrmacht to assist the Japanese, but this was not reciprocated on the Japanese side, which tried to keep information from Wenneker. It was only after considerable German pressure that in 1943, Wenneker was allowed to tour the Japanese "super battleship" Yamato, the largest battleship ever built, interested in temporarily trading the ship with the German battleship Tirpitz. Wenneker boarded the ship for an hour long tour, exploring parts of the main deck and traversing through the Pagoda mast, which he very much enjoyed as he was amazed by the floating goliath. He was told that Yamato was a 45,000 ton battleship armed with nine 40 cm (15.7 inch) naval guns. However, what was not told was that Yamato actually displaced 72,808 tons, and was armed with nine 46 cm (18.11 inch) naval guns, the largest naval guns ever made, making Yamato the most powerful battleship ever made, far outclassing the Tirpitz in surface action capabilities, who herself was only armed with eight 38 cm (14.96 inch) naval guns.
After the war ended, Wenneker was detained by the American occupation authorities, and was interrogated by Rear Admiral Ralph A. Ofstie of the U.S. Navy, in which he spoke about Japanese-German naval relations and his opinion on the shortcomings of the Japanese submarine warfare campaign. The Americans noted the Wenneker had been an associate of the former German ambassador to Japan, Eugen Ott, who had been in contact with the Soviet spy Richard Sorge and had a falling out with the German government.