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AMS in German, signed twice, "Erich Raeder" and "E. Raeder," two pages both sides, 8 x 13, no date but circa 1945. An autobiographical account in which Raeder writes that he was born April 24, 1876 in Wandsbek, near Hamburg, the oldest son of secondary school teacher Dr. Hans Raeder and his wife Gertraudt (née Hartmann), and notes that two brothers, Hans and Albert, were killed in action in 1915. He describes a modest, strictly religious Lutheran upbringing, his schooling in Wandsbek and later Grünberg in Silesia, childhood illnesses, and his decision, made only shortly before leaving high school, to become a naval officer rather than pursue the academic and medical path his father had wished for him.
He details his naval cadet enrollment in April 1894, training, and his subsequent career command by command: signal officer aboard HMS Deutschland in East Asia (1897-99), Admiral Staff study (1903-05), adviser in the Intelligence Department of the Imperial Naval Office (1906-08), navigational officer, navigator on the yacht Hohenzollern (1910-12), First Admiral Staff Officer under Admiral Hipper through the battles of Dogger Bank and Skagerrak, command of the cruiser Köln, postwar naval archive work, Inspector of Naval Education, Head of the Baltic Naval District, and finally Supreme Commander of the Navy from October 1, 1928 until January 30, 1943. He closes with a detailed account of his health: arthritis, kidney gravel, jaundice, a 1945 collapse with dysentery while a prisoner in Lichtenberg/Berlin, recovery in Moscow under good care, and longstanding circulatory issues dating to 1932.
At the head of the second page, partially struck through, Raeder records a few notes from the Nuremberg trial proceedings of November 23, 1945, referring to his indictment on "wars of aggression." In very good to fine condition, with uniform toning and a few small edge chips and tears.
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