northern Atlantic and harass civilian ships, after Jutland
the German navy was rendered almost impotent. Mu-
tinies broke out among sailors who refused to serve on
any further missions, and the navy reached its nadir. The
British Navy, also criticized for not following up on their
“victory” at Jutland, went on to blockade Germany, de-
nying it necessary food and supplies. For the remainder
of the war, Scheer’s strategies could not be implemented.
Instead, he was given the unenviable task of punishing
mutineering sailors, sentencing many to serve lengthy
prison sentences.
On 8 August 1918, Scheer succeeded Admiral
Henning von Holtzendorff as chief of the German Ad-
miralty Staff, but he only served in this position for five
months until he retired in January 1919. He never held
a military post again. All too overlooked, however, is his
successful submarine strategy, which caused the Allies
many problems until the end of the war.
In his final years, Scheer penned his master work,
Deutschlands Hochseeflotte im Weltkrieg (Germany’s High
Sea Fleet in the World War, published in Germany in
1919 and in England and the United States in 1920), a
critical examination of the German side of the Battle of
the Jutland. He died in Marktredwitz, Germany, on 26
November 1928 and was buried in Weimar.
References: Scheer, Reinhard, Germany’s High Sea Fleet
in the World War (London: Cassell & Company, Ltd.,
1920); Rasor, Eugene L., The Battle of Jutland: A Bibliog-
raphy (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992); Tarrant, V. E.,
Jutland: The German Perspective: A New View of the Great
Battle, 31 May 1916 (London: Arms and Armour, 1995);
Bruce, Anthony, and William Cogar, “Jutland, Battle of,”
in An Encyclopedia of Naval History (New York: Check-
mark Books, 1999), 204–205; Bruce, George, “Jutland,”
in Collins Dictionary of Wars (Glasgow, Scotland: Harper-
Collins Publishers, 1995), 120–121.
Schwarzkopf, H. Norman (Herbert Norman
Schwarzkopf, Jr.) (1934– ) American general
Norman Schwarzkopf was born in Trenton, New Jersey,
on 22 August 1934, the son and namesake of Herbert
Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr. His father was a career mili-
tary officer who served as the head of the New Jersey
State Police (when he was in charge of the criminal in-
vestigation into the kidnapping of the child of famed
aviator Charles A. Lindbergh), in the Office of Strate-
gic Services (OSS) during World War II, and in Iran in
the 1950s. The younger Schwarzkopf, whose mother
was a nurse, did not wish to use his father’s name and
was known simply as H. Norman. He attended local
schools, but from the age of 12 he traveled with his fa-
ther overseas, not returning to the United States until- The following year, he gained an appointment to
the United States Military Academy at West Point, New
York, graduating in 1956, 43rd out of a class of 480.
Commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army
that same year, Schwarzkopf was stationed initially at
Fort Benning, Georgia, and thereafter at Fort Camp-
bell, Kentucky. In 1963, he enrolled in the University of
Southern California at Los Angeles, where he earned a
Master’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering
in 1964. He was then assigned to West Point to serve for
three years as a professor in the academy’s Department
of Engineering Mechanics.
In 1965, after only two years, Schwarzkopf asked
to be sent to Vietnam, where a communist insurrection
had led to a destabilization of the pro-Western govern-
ment in the southern section of that Asian country.
Schwarzkopf was promoted to major during his tour
of duty there (1965–66) and later wrote, “We fought
almost every day of every month for thirteen months.”
When he returned to the United States in 1966, he was
sent back to West Point to finish his tour there. In 1968,
he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and
posted to the Command and General Staff College. In
December 1969, he was sent back to Vietnam for a sec-
ond tour, this time in command of the 1st Battalion,
198th Infantry Brigade. During his two tours in Viet-
nam, Schwarzkopf won three Silver Stars for bravery, the
final one for crossing a minefield to rescue a wounded
American soldier. He later wrote in his memoirs of his
pride in having served on the front lines rather than in
the rear with other officers: “I hated it in the rear. It was
a cesspool. I went out to my battalion and I never went
back to the rear except when ordered, maybe one time,
to division headquarters. There you saw the worst: the
commander was living in luxury, his focus was on things
like the reenlistment rate. When I took over my battal-
ion, it was totally unprepared for battle, yet it had been
in battle. All they were doing was taking casualties, [not]
inflicting them. It was a nightmare.”
In addition to his Silver Stars, Schwarzkopf was
decorated with three Bronze Stars, two Purple Hearts,
and the Legion of Merit, among other medals. But he
SchwARzkopF, h. noRmAn