Theodor Krancke

Infobox Military Person
name=Theodor Krancke
born=birth date|1893|3|30|df=y
died=dda|1973|6|18|1893|3|30|df=y
placeofbirth=Magdeburg
placeofdeath=Wentorf bei Hamburg


caption=
nickname=
allegiance=flagicon|German Empire German Empire (to 1919)
flagicon|Germany Weimar Republic (to 1933)
flagicon|Nazi Germany Nazi Germany
branch=navy|German Empire
navy|Weimar Republic
navy|Nazi Germany
serviceyears=1912-1945
rank=Admiral
commands=German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer
unit=
battles=World War I
World War II
awards=Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves
laterwork=

Theodor Krancke (30 March 1893 – 18 June 1973) was an admiral with the Kriegsmarine during World War II and a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves.

Under the command of Krancke, during the five-month-long raiding cruise, the pocket battleship "Admiral Scheer" sank 13 merchant ships, one armed merchant cruiser "Jervis Bay", and captured three merchant ships representing 115,195 tons of Allied and neutral shipping.

During the Allied Invasion of Normandy Admiral Krancke, as Commander-in-Chief of Navy Group Command West headquartered in Paris, controlled all German naval vessels in France, as well as the various land-based naval units and the naval coastal artillery and antiaircraft batteries along the French Atlantic coast.

Awards

* Iron Cross (1914)
** 2nd Class (May 1915)
** 1st Class (27 September 1919)
* High Seas Fleet Badge 1941
* Clasp to the Iron Cross (1939)
** 2nd Class (19 October 1939)
** 1st Class (20 April 1940)
* Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves
** Knight's Cross (21 February 1941)
** 614. Oak Leaves (18 October 1944)

References

* Fellgiebel, Walther-Peer. "Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939-1945". Friedburg, Germany: Podzun-Pallas, 2000. ISBN 3-7909-0284-5.