Hans Rose (April 18, 1885 – December 6, 1969) was one of the most successful and highly decorated German U-boat commanders in the Kaiserliche Marine during World War 1.

[3] On 1 April 1903 the 18 year old Rose joined the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy) as a Seekadett (junior sea cadet).

In 1916 he left the school to take command of on 22 April 1916 and commission the newly-built SM U-53| U-53, which had been newly built by Krupp Germania shipyard.

[citation needed] On 8 July 1918 while off the Norwegian coast and two days out from its base at Helgoland U-53 answered a distress call from U-86 which had hit a mine and as a result had lost all of its diesel fuel.

[8] Rose then went on a month long leave with his wife in Berchtesgaden, returning to duty on 10 August at Wilhelmshaven to find that he had been replaced as commander of U-53 by Otto von Schrader.

[9] Rose was informed that he was being assigned to a position as a staff officer to Hermann Bauer, with the intention that he would later take command in December 1918 of a new submarine currently being developed.

In 1924 he resigned as position as secretary and asset manager and took up the Goldschmidt family offer to run Kondor Works, a small woodworking company that they owned in Lemgo.

As such, Rose briefly worked at the Armaments Inspection VI in Münster and was transferred to Kraków in newly occupied Poland on 1 October 1939 in what is assumed to be a liaison role with the Wehrwirtschaftskommando (Defense Economic Command).

[11] On 30 April 1940 he left this role when he was posted to German occupied Norway where he spent May and June of 1940 as Chief of Staff to August Thiele, the Commanding Officer for coastal defence of Trondheim.

[12] Following August Thiel’s promotion to Rear Admiral in charge of the Northern Coast of Norway, Rose on 1 July 1940 took over his vacated position as sea commander at Trondheim.

During his time there 53 U-boats used its facilities, with Dora-1 Germany’s largest naval base in Northem Norway completed in 1943 two months prior to his departure.

Following the death of his wife earlier in the year Rose was allowed to give up his post in Trondheim and on 7 May 1943 he was placed at the disposal of the naval station in the Baltic Sea.

At the end of 1944 the local Nazi party made him commander of Essen-Heisingen’s Volksturm units, but later resigned and refused to participate after he came to the conclusion that its deployment was wrong and criminal, as it was neither organised or controlled by the German army.

Among those attending were Walther Forstmann, representing the knighthood of the order of Pour le Mérite and Rear Admiral Hermann Boehm.

[16] After serving with German Army in France, Norway, Yugoslavia and Italy Heinz Viktor Rose was killed on the Eastern Front in 1944.

He was also awarded the Ritterkreuz des Hohenzollerschen Hausordens mit Schwertern (Knights Cross of the Hohenzollern House Order with Swords).